Submitted photo
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Sullivan Chiefs softball team winning the championship of the Amateur Softball Association’s men’s Class B State Tournament. Members of the 1970 team first row, Joe Phillips, Dean Mitchell, Danny Green, Richard Maxedon, Shorty Cordray, Jerry Lane. Second row, Rodger England, Bernie Reedy, Larry Morrison, Ron “Sox” Sutton. Virgil Hooe, Charlie Bland, Mike Orris.

•September 9, 2020•
By Crystal Reed
NP Writer

This month marks 50 years since the Sullivan Chiefs softball team defeated the Kankakee Cardinals with a score of 2-0 to win the Amateur Softball Association’s men’s Class B State Tournament in Casey. In April 2015 the team was one of five inducted into the Amateur Softball Association 11th Annual Hall of Fame at the Decatur Convention Center and Hotel.
Before winning the state tournament in 1970 the Chiefs began as a 4H club that slowly evolved over the next few years. According to Moultrie County News archives, a Sullivan Merchants softball team that played throughout the 30s but disbanded in 1964.
Larry Morrison stated in the April 15, 2015 article about the Hall of Fame induction that they started out as the Sunnyside Flea Flickers 4-H Club. Morrison said his father got sick after his freshman year of college so he came home and still wanted to play ball so they talked to Ed Dunphy and he sponsored the team when they started.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.