The elder statesman can’t run but walks superbly

By Bill Tarrant

Reports that Cyril Barnert was among the group of young men who invented the game of softball in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day 1887 using a boxing glove and stick are simply not true, he said.

But Cyril at 83 may well be the oldest player in the Culver City senior softball league and the longest-tenured, at 28 years.

“I joined in the middle of the 1998 season at 56. I was only an average player as kid. But I was rated 9, and played shortstop. For the first 6 or 7 years, I was among the best players. It was wonderful.”

Then Father Time showed up.

His first setback came in 2003 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer – and it unexpectedly led to a most incandescent baseball experience.

“I had an unintentional experience with PED," he said.

"It was August 2003, and we were doing batting practice on the small field, and that month I hit six balls over the fence. I didn't know why it was happening, but years later, helping my daughter on a med school test, I figured out why. I had my first injection of a drug that suppressed testosterone in treatment for prostate cancer. Intuitively, that should lower power. But what I found out was that it empties out the testosterone in storage and releases it into the body before it stops synthesizing. That was the explanation for the sudden burst of power that month.”

In 2018, he fell on a sidewalk while jogging, injuring a shoulder.

“Any muscle memory from hitting and throwing disappeared, and I had to relearn it.”

Cyril’s knowledge of medicine is professional. He’s a practicing psychiatrist with a degree in medicine from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. After serving two years at an air force base in Arizona during the Vietnam War buildup, he went on to spend most of his career at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.

Now bent over with age, Cyril no longer runs for himself. But he led the Gold team with 20 walks and finished the season with a .421 on-base percentage. He said he had no particular strategy for working a walk.

"I won’t swing at a bad pitch, but I'll swing at a good pitch. I‘ll try to hit it to third if there’s a third baseman who’s having trouble making the throw to first.”

The father of five with eight grandchildren from two marriages said the league has changed a lot since he joined in 1998.

“It’s reaching out to more parts of the area. In 1998, we had one black man, one Latino, one Asian, one woman. And the league was certainly of lower quality. We didn’t have all these 10s.”

Or 4-rated players who get on base like a 5 or 6.