2017 Male Player: Matt Myers

Matt Myers

Matt Myers was raised on a farm in Southern Illinois. He says, as a boy, he didn’t have anybody to play ball with so he spent hours throwing the ball in the air and catching it. “I also improvised using a chicken house roof for a pitching machine. As the ball rolled off of the roof, I hit it against the wall destroying many balls,” he said.

Matt played slow pitch for over 20 years, 12 of those years with the Hecker Loggers, a Southern Illinois powerhouse team during the 70s and early 80s. Matt was an integral part of the success of the Loggers team. The Loggers played in USSSA Divisional and World Tournaments every year from 1975 to 1982, finishing in the top five several times. In the Cincinnati, Ohio Central Divisional Tournament in 1979, Matt hit .700 while his team battled back to a fourth place finish after losing their first game. Also, in Milwaukee in 1980, Matt hit .690 to help his team finish fifth in the Divisional Tournament. In 1978 at a very competitive Worth Invitational Tournament in Tullahoma, Tennessee, the Loggers finished in the top ten where Matt hit .650. In 1980, Matt was picked for the All-Tournament Team after hitting .650 with seven home runs in the Taylorsville, Illinois USSSA World Tournament Qualifier.

Matt was an outstanding right center fielder making very few errors in his USSSA career. He batted .590 over his career and pounded out over 600 home runs. He was an All Star in several leagues, receiving awards for batting average and home runs.

This new Hall of Famer contests that playing USSSA softball with the Loggers was the best experience of his softball career. “I loved the competitiveness of the teams, leagues and tournaments and how the whole USSSA organization was run,” Matt stated. “I ow my softball success to the Loggers’s Manager Rich Kaiser and my teammates.