After all the pickups were made Mr. Neale wanted to do one more thing. That was to add Randy Gorell to the outfit... Randy was very knowledgeable of the game. He only helped manage Campbell's Carpet to the triple crown of softball in 1980 and then the very next year lead Howard's team and win the Triple Crown Of Softball two years in a row. So here we go with a few new players to go along with the nucleus that we already had.. Craig Elliott, myself, Greg Furhman, Mike Bolen, Ken Loeri, Dan Griffen and Greg Whitlock. I know that we have some really good teams over the years but this team was something else.

We started out the season in Wilmington, North Carolina playing in the Azalea Festival. We finished first in the tourney with wins over Howard's and Blantons. The next tourney was played in Macon, Georgia at the Flag City Shootout. This tourney was held in the baseball stadium in Macon. The dimensions of the stadium made it tough to hit the home run becasue the wind was blowing straight in the whole weekend. Mighty Joe Young was tabbed for the MVP award. All he did was go 3 -3 on Sunday with a big homerun against Howard's into that stiff wind. During the course of the game Mr. Howard was allowed to bring his Caddilac into the stadium and park it down the left field line.

At one point in the game he would honk his horn if he wanted to make a pitching change. It was quite the championship game. Before the game started our coach Mr. Neale told us this game was going to be on the cable network throughout Georgia and we had better be on lour best behavior. So Howard's bats first and we are in the field. Everybody is in position when the first pitch is delivered. The leadoff batter for Howard's is none other than Rick "The Crusher" Scherr. As Craig Elliott throws him the pitch the umpire hollers strike one! Scherr backs out of the batters box and starts hollering at the ump. He says "are you nuts or what?" The very first pitch. I mean he comes unglued and starts kicking dirt on the ump and the whole nine yards. I walk over to Whitlock who is playing shortstop and start laughing behind my glove. I said hey Whit, and Dave wanted us to be on our best behavior. Needless to say they don't throw Crusher out of the game. Instead he hits a hard line drive to left field and is still hollering at the ump as he makes the turn at 1st base. The games were quite intense... .

As I stated before Mighty Joe hit a no doubt about it line drive over the 385 sign in leftcenter field to take the lead in the bottom of the sixth forcing Howard's to score in the 7th which they did not. Victory to Steele's....

The 1986 season was a great season and you could see what coach Neale was putting together. No matter what happened the last year he was always trying to improve. During the season of 1986 was when Sports Illustrated came with us on the road and did a nice story on the Men Of Steele. During the 1986 season we scored 91 runs in a ASA sanctioned tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada. We defeated Shubin's 91-15 in the semi's. In Louisiana at the Cajun Classic is when we lost to Smythe Sox in a rain shortened tournament. We played in 14 tournament's in 86 and finished second at the Cajun and Third at the USSSA World Series. 12 out of 14 tourneys we took home first place. That is quite an acomplishment when there were a number of solid teams in the top 10 back then.

I remember when we played in the Cocoa Cola in Atlanta at Al Bishop softball complex. This was after the Cajun so we were looking to get back on track. We did get back on track by defeating Howard's at the Classic. The tourney sticks out in my mind because we had a number of players that had hit over 750 and that is good enough for one of our players to take home the MVP award. The tournament director thought different and gave the MVP trophy to Rick Scherr from Howard's. To show how competitive coach Neale was, after they announced that Crusher got the award coach Neale instructed our team to throw our 1st place trophys back on the field. Some of us did and some didn't. I thought it was a good move. Mike Bolen should have been the MVP becasue he had hit something like .800 with a whole bunch of homeruns. As I said before the games were intense.

Mike Bolen continued his hot bat as we went to Petersburg, Virginia for the Dudley Classic and he was tabbed for the MVP award there. Charlie Wright was tabbed for the MVP award in Brook Park as we continued to play some pretty awesome softball. Elliott won the MVP award in Minnesota at the Dudley Classic which is held in Brooklyn Center. Next on the agenda was the Coors/Steele's Classic that was held in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Don Dedonatis was the tournament director at this time.

After Detroit we were off to Maryville , Tennessee to play in the prestigous Smoky Mountain Classic. I had never won the tournament before but I had a couple of players on my team that had. Elliott, Wright, Bolen, Furhman, Young, Graser, and Weiterman had all won before. For some reason back then and it is still to this day the Smoky was the most important tournament of the year. This was no exception. You want to win the Smoky. Well first off, for me it was a pleasure playing that tournament not only because we won it but I was picked for the MVP award. Doug Roberson was on fire this weekend and I thought that he could have gotten the MVP. I didn't care who was MVP, I just wanted to win the event.

We were sceduled to play Smythe Sox in the afternoon after we won the losers bracket. Smythe had put us into the losers bracket the day before. We got up early Sunday morning to play Howard's in the losers bracket. After that victory they realigned the field and then brought down the Tennessee Walking horse to do his Honky Tonk dance before the championship game. Once the dance was finished we started the championship game. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was in the 3rd inning when the sky blackened and you knew a storm was coming. I just happen to come to the plate and with 2 outs and 2 runners on I hit a ball to right field that I hit as good as any ball I had ever hit.. Just as I hit the ball a big gush of wind came in from right field and now my ball is 10 feet short.

As the right fielder catches the ball it starts to down pour. The game is halted right then. In a matter of minutes the park was cleared and everybody was trying to get out of the rain and back to the host motel "The Hilton". I myself thought for sure they would call the event and declare Smythe Sox the winners. Instead we waited an hour, the sun came back out and they said lets go. We are going to finish this tournament the right way. So we go back to the field and we end up double dipping Smythe for the championship. As I said before I wanted to win that tournament more than anything else in my life. The Smoky was considered the top dog when it came to softball tournaments. As I said I just wanted to win it once. I had some pretty good help all weekend long. Doug Roberson was killing it and hitting big home runs one after another. Outfielder Ken Loeri was on pace for an outstanding Smoky but in the last game on Saturday he pulled a back musle and was not able to play on Sunday.

Ken had produced numbers of .823 (19-23) for an .823 clip.......

Rick Wheeler (34 RBIs) & Bill Gatti, of Smythe  tied for Most Home Runs with 18......

Mike Macenko, Steele’s Sports (22-31, .710, 11 HRs, 20 RBIs, 10-10- in last two games.....