Sharon Men's Softball returns to the field

The Sharon Men's Softball League returned to play this week after an annus horribilis where they lost their home field, two franchises, struggled through a COVID shortened season with no night games and lost a critical town meeting vote that would have installed lights at Ames Field.

Instead of folding the 50-year-old 28-and-up group, merged with the South Shore Jewish Softball League of Stoughton, garnered permits to play in Stoughton and Mansfield under the lights and eliminated local residency requirements. Two games per week will continue to be played at Ames Field in Sharon at twilight.

The now 10-team league also gained a few new sponsors in the bargain. The old SSJSL Sharon team will now be known as The Needle Group, Boston Sports & Shoulder Center sponsored a second of the SSJL franchises. The other two new teams will be known for now as the Royals and Chico's Bail Bonds until they find sponsors.

The old Living the Dream/Tri-Town franchise folded, but their players have joined other squads. The DirtDawg Sports Purple People eaters also threw in the towel. Of remaining six, the new owners of Sharon Market have returned with several new stars after the team disbanded during the COVID restricted twilight play of 2020.

The new owners of Sharon Market agreed to sign back on as sponsors of the team that won six championships in a row between 2014-2019 under the previous owners. Most of the players are back and they have added two studly-looking outfielders Eddie Murphy and Will Lugo from the Boston modified softball league; McLaughlin Painting of Mansfield returns after playing for a year without 75% of their regular players; last year's champions The EMT/Rutley Law Hawks have returned younger, faster and eager to defend their title; the Tapped Beer Brewskis, one of two franchises sponsored by sometime player Avi Shemtov also have retained several of the stars that took them to a second place finish in 2020; the other Shemtov team the Simcha Chickpeas are also back strong, though missing home run machine Steve Fellows who is still caring for his mother in Florida; SLN Law is also back with new blood including Alex Guzman of LTD and new budding stars Brian DeMello and Ryan Conway.

The season opened May 2 under a new format. For the first six weeks each team will play each other once. Then the schedule will split with the top six teams playing each other twice in the A division and the bottom four playing each other three times in the Bs followed by playoffs that will take the season into September.

Games will continue to be live-streamed occasionally on the league's Facebook page. The standings, schedule and league updates will also be posted there and on the league website.