John Beale, Post-Gazette
	Michigan Mavericks softball team members, from left, Monica Doig, Eleanor Ackerson, Alverne Sidor and Connie Eckler cheer from the bench during a Senior Olympics softball game against the Golden Girls Golden Oldies of Virginia yesterday.

Octogenarian Jerry Gawura walked off the mound disgusted, not with the midday heat but with her wild pitching, having just walked in three runs as many of her softball arcs came up short of the plate.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she's 86 -- and the temperature was at least that -- but she'd make no excuses to her Michigan Mavericks teammates. She was relieved by 75-year-old Joan Fitzpatrick, dubbed "Fitz" to avoid confusion because there are too many Joans and Joannes on the defending champion team of Senior Olympics 70-and-over women's softball.

"Sorry ... Just can't do it today ... I walked so many," Gawura, the Mavericks' oldest player, muttered while taking a dugout seat and receiving an ice pack to the back of the neck.

No one from Michigan was down on her or themselves about falling behind, 4-3, to the Golden Girls Golden Oldies from northern Virginia in the second inning at Treesdale Commons Field yesterday. These players grew up during the Depression, after all.

They had babies a half-century ago and lived to watch their children's babies have babies. They've had their knee surgeries and hip replacements and cancer operations. They won their first two Senior Olympics games Monday.

So what's to worry about a small deficit against a team they defeated for the gold in Hampton Roads, Va., back when they were the only two 70-and-older women's teams, as opposed to five this year?

"C'mon, let's get 'em back," the Mavericks' short, limping Stengelish coach, Katherine Oswalt, shouted to her squad of 18.

John Beale, Post-Gazette
Michigan Mavericks softball pitcher Jerry Gawura, 86, gets iced down after giving up four runs to the Golden Girls Golden Oldies of Virginia.

She and three other team members have been playing together since the 1950s. Several of them played in the first Senior Olympics that had women's softball, in St. Louis in 1989, back when the teams were made up of players of any age over 50. Many participate in other Senior Olympics sports, but softball is their passion. And they care about winning.

"At this age, we don't have many more chances," so each victory is prized, explained No. 7, Evelyn Lungland, who was doing pinch-running among other duties yesterday.

The rules at their age allow a cleanup hitter like Doris Edwards, who never has quite recovered from knee surgeries, to have a teammate run for her once she is on base. There's an alternate run-scoring base to the right of the plate, so runners can avoid osteoporosis-rattling collisions. Eleven players take the field, and 13 can be in the batting order.

But make no mistake -- this looked like real softball. Shortstop Jane Blough, in a crib the day the stock market crashed in 1929, coolly threw out a succession of Golden Girls on ground balls hit to her. Second baseman Monica Doig, born the year before FDR's election, snared line drives and picked grounders to shovel underhand to Blough for outs at second.

The Mavericks noted with pride that they are the oldest team competing, with a majority of players capable of making up a 75-and-older team. That would be a true "league of their own" squad, since they'd have no one to play against.

The Mavericks bounced back to take a five-run lead into the bottom of the fifth, which would be the last inning because of a time limit on the games. But that's when "Fitz" got wild, just like Gawura had three innings earlier. A parade of Golden Girls walked in with the bases loaded, and then a well-struck double ended the game, 10-9.

The usually chatty team in blue turned quiet, got some water, changed T-shirts, and then did what any group of grandmothers and great-grandmothers should do -- got ready to play a second game within minutes. They'll play two more today, needing wins in both to claim another gold medal.

Before that, though, they went out to face the Peaches, and a familiar figure in her knee-high socks was on the mound: Jerry Gawura, named like the tomboy she says she is, still thirsting for another win at 86.

NOTES -- Charles Allie of Banksville teaches a technology shop course at Frick International Studies Academy, but the 57-year-old had to take a break during the last week of school. He was busy yesterday, winning the men's 100-meter gold medal in a time of 12.42 seconds at Carnegie Mellon University. The one-time City League sprint champion at Oliver High School has won world championships in master's track and field competition in the 200 and 400 meters.