Lake Tahoe’s fast-pitch history revisited
Perata Excavation team sponsor Pete Perata stands with a first-place trophy. Photo/Provided
By Moonshine Ink
They came from the San Fernando Valley, the Bay Area, the beaches of Santa Barbara and the Sacramento Valley.
Many were ex-collegiate level athletes that mostly came to Lake Tahoe to swing hammers in the summer months to help with the area’s building boom of the 1970s. Some came to work and play in the snow.
But most of all, they were Tahoe’s “Boys of Summer,” a once-in-a-lifetime grouping of fastpitch softball champions, who kicked off a community sports renaissance in the basin.
“A lot of us came up here to work, but for me, I just enjoyed the laid-back lifestyle,” said Chendo Hernandez, who owns Mountain Lake Painting in Truckee. “We got up here, loved it, and never left.”