To many in the elite echelons of 16-inch softball, Mark Frighetto was one of the best defensive short centers who ever played the game.
“If the ball was hit to him, he always turned it into an out, and he used to do this thing when he would make a difficult play, he’d pretend like he had two guns, like a western gunslinger, and blow on his finger,” said friend and fellow softball die-hard Bob Rascia.
It was part of the mental gamesmanship Mr. Frighetto deployed to get under the skin of opponents.
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“If he was on your team you loved him, and if you played against him you hated him,” said pal and former teammate Hugh Carmichael.
“When he was on the field there was nothing else, no waving at your girlfriend,” recalled his wife, Nancie Frighetto.
“Our relationship was clear from the beginning, that softball was his lifestyle, a passion and perhaps sometimes a religion,” she said.
“His trunk was infested with softballs, dust everywhere, it was a condition of marriage to expect softball dust in the washing machine,” Nancie Frighetto said.
Mr. Frighetto died May 21. He was 69.
As short center, an extra infielder position unique to softball, Mr. Frighetto hovered around second base, directing his teammates on where to position themselves depending on who was at bat.
“On the field Mark was nothing but 110% and a fiery character. He played hard. And if you went in with spikes high you’d get a little back at you later in the game somehow,” said Paul Rowan, president of the 16 Inch Softball Hall of Fame.
Many of his teammates knew him as a “Ghetto” — though the Illinois secretary of state’s office wouldn’t allow him to use his nickname for a personalized license plate.
Mr. Frighetto, a 16-inch Softball Hall of Fame inductee who also served on the organization’s board, played for many teams over his nearly 50-year career.
Three of the main diamonds he played on over the years were at Clarendon Park on the North Side, Kelly Park on the South Side and fields in suburban Mount Prospect.
In the early 2000s, he won multiple national championships with the Miller 45’s, a team that Rascia managed.
Rowan said he would lean on Mr. Frighetto to help smooth territorial tensions that occasionally arose at the Hall of Fame.
“Well, you see, you’ve got your North Side and your South Side and they do battle, and it’s even worse on the softball field, and Mark, he was a North Side guy, and I was a South Side guy, and he would help me navigate those issues and make the Hall of Fame look good, because each side felt like they were not getting enough inductees, and Mark would say, ‘You know, Paul, we’ve got to give this guy a look, or that guy, he’s a good candidate,’” Rowan said.
“Before the Hall of Fame, we played against each other for years, but he became truly a mentor and the voice of reason when my Irish temper would get up a little bit,” Rowan said.
At the time of his death, Mr. Frighetto, who worked for a bank as a commercial lender and lived in Arlington Heights, played on a 50-and-older team in Glenview called Still Cruisin’.
His teammates hung one of Mr. Frighetto’s old softball jackets in the dugout during a game last week in his honor.
Mr. Frighetto played baseball at Lane Tech High School and later played at the University of Illinois.
His entrance into softball was a bit of a surprise. On a train trip home from college, his childhood friend Danny Cocco picked him up at Union Station, handed him a uniform and said, “You’re playing today” as the two drove to a diamond in Portage Park, Cocco recalled.
“I had to surprise him, otherwise it wouldn’t have worked, he had too much on his plate at the time,” Cocco said.
“Mark would always tell that story and end it with: “From 1976 on, there I went, all my nights and my weekends were scheduled,” Rowan recalled.
“We played softball almost every day, even though we were professional people. It’s a bygone era,” Rascia said.
“People have the idea that it was something you do at a picnic, but that’s not the case, it’s competition at the highest level, real athletes, and Mark was probably a six-day-a-week-guy in his heyday,” he said.
Mr. Frighetto was very well respected on and off the field and mentored a lot of younger players until he stepped back from the top level of competition a few years ago, friends said.
Mr. Frighetto was born Sept. 8, 1954, to Patricia Frueh, a crossing guard, and Gary Frighetto, a heating and cooling tradesman.
His parents were high school sweethearts who divorced shortly after marrying. They went on to marry others and Mr. Frighetto became part of a growing blended family. As a kid, he spent a lot of time playing pickup baseball at public parks on the Northwest Side.
When he had kids of his own, they became his top priority, and Mr. Frighetto scaled back his softball commitments.
The game of 16-inch softball is unique to Chicago.
According to the Hall of Fame, which is located in Forest Park, its origins trace back to 1887, when, during a rain delay at a rowing competition at the Farragut Boat Club on the South Side, several Yale and Harvard alums wrapped up a boxing glove and started to hit it with a broomstick.
The 16-inch circumference became the size of choice and game of choice during the Depression because only a bat and a ball were needed.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Frighetto is survived by his son, Reid, and his daughter, Reese.
A wake will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Glueckert Funeral Home in Arlington Heights. A visitation will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday at St. James Catholic Church in Arlington Heights followed by Mass at 10 a.m. and interment at All Saints Catholic Cemetery in Des Plaines.
