Jane Tartarro The First Interview for the Podcast

Jane Forman, now Jane Tartaro, recalls how she got involved in the women's softball league. The owner of Mariners Inn, Jack Tobin Sr., started the league to encourage more business. Jane was a big part of the community and got involved through the bar. The league was successful in attracting women to play and bringing people to the local pubs. Jane played with various teammates, including Susan Snyder, Donna Orr, and Ellie O'Brien. The league was more about friendly play and getting together rather than being competitive. Jane played for about five to eight years before she stopped because the league became too serious for her liking. She wanted to have fun and hang out with friends rather than focus on winning. All right, it is Sunday, February 18th, 2024. We are doing our second interview ever for the podcast, and this one will be with Miss Jane Forman, Jane Tartaro now, and we will interview her, and we're going to ask her a couple of different questions on how she started, where she played, and all that fun stuff. Jane, take it away. I was trying to recall how I got into the girls' softball league. I think, if I remember it correctly, that I got involved because the owner of the Mariners Inn, I think his name was John, it might have been Jack Tobin Sr., already had a men's softball league, and I think in order to encourage more business, they decided to create or become part of the neighborhood women's softball league. And since I was a big part of the community at the Mariners Inn, I think that's how I got involved with the softball. I do remember Jack Tobin. Yeah, I think he started it in the Mariners. He saw the opportunity for women to play, first of all, and to get some ladies in the bar. Oh, absolutely. You know, they were thriving with the men's. They were doing very well with the men's, and I think that they were hoping, you know, to do as well with the women's softball, you know, the women's softball league, and it was all the neighborhood pubs. And so I think in the early days, he was very successful with that. Oh, I know. I remember Mariners being something, we used to go to watch the guys play games also. That was a big deal with the schedule. The schedule was up in the bar, and we used to, you know, go to various games, watch different bars. They played different bars, and they were excellent players, too. Yes, yes. You know, I mean, it was all about the softball, but it was all about getting people into the local pubs. Right. Because I recall that I didn't seek out membership in the women's softball league. I think it kind of, you know, fell into my lap. They decided to start the league with the women who were already, you know, at the bar, people who hung out there, and, you know, so-called friends, and, you know, getting involved that way. Right, right. Now, who did you play with back in the day? What are some of the names of the people you played with? Let's see. We had Susan Snyder, although she might have been at Ackerman already at that point. I'm not sure. Donna Orr, Sue Goldstein-Brown, Ellie O'Brien, now Capparelli. I believe Katie was, Katie Weller was part of the original team. I wish I had thought to break out my pictures, because I do have pictures from that time period. Jamie O'Brien played. It was all, you know, the whole, I don't think Judy was involved, but, you know, the usual suspects at the time. Right, right. And it was far from women who were driven to softball, such as people that I know like Lisa Crystal. It was more friendly, you know, let's get together, let's, you know, play ball. And they did find someone to manage it. Jerry Triglia, I believe, was our first coach of the women's softball. I forget, oh, I think Billy Ackerman was like a secondary coach, or, you know, an assistant to the coach at the time. So, you know, I mean, there were more, but they're just not coming to mind right now. I didn't know Billy coached also. Yes, if you look at the older picture, I wish I would have brought it up, Terry, oh, Terry Simione . So there's a picture of all of us, and Billy's there in his, he might have been wearing a bowler shirt, because that was the name of their team, but he was definitely involved. He might have been like a base coach. Either that or he was just, you know, sniffing around because Susan was on the team. Right, right, right. I thought that might be the real reason, too, myself. Well, I can't speak for anybody. It's a real modus operandi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, now, how did you manage to play and work also at the same time? What kind of job did you hold where you could get out and play at 6.30 at night? Gosh, I was probably about 17, and I was working in retail at the time. Boy, you're dredging my memories. As far as school goes, if I was, and I think I was already out of high school, but if I were in high school, I still would have been able to do it. I lived right down the block from Marine Park, and so all I needed to do was walk up the block. It was no great effort for me to get to practice and or the games. Well, the games really, for the women, were not in Marine Park, but practice was, more importantly, so that's where we were practicing. I don't know how I found the time. Magic? I seemed to fit it in somehow. Right, right, but then the bar was pretty much the center of all social activity. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we went back to the bar after every game. I mean, of course, we went to the visiting, you know, the winning. Whether we won or we lost, we would always go to the opposing team's pub. We always wound up back at Mariner's. Oh, Fran, going back, Franny Rayola. Oh, right. Yeah, I mean, I wish I had the picture in front of me, but the names will come up as we proceed. What kind of pictures do you have, Jane? I have pictures of us, like team pictures. Okay, okay. Like of all of us in various locations with the whole team. And then there are, of course, the party pictures, the ones outside of Mariner's, you know, hanging out on the corner. I don't recall too many inside the bar, because, you know, the pictures, as I'm recalling them, were outside of the bar, like sitting outside on the sidewalk and on the cars that were on the corner at 35th and S. You know. Yeah, because a couple of times, I do remember the men's team played. That was rare when we had both games on the same day. But also the football, the Mariner's football team used to come in. That's why we were outside a lot, because the ball was packed, too. Well, there was that, too, but mostly the football was played on the weekends that I recall. Right, right, right. That I recall, and we played during the week. Right, right, right. Yeah, there were only a couple of times. I remember seeing Pudgy Walsh and the guys in there after, like, a practice or something, or a meeting they had, you know? Yeah, well, the thing, you know, they had a storefront on Avenue S, which is where, I don't think it was the Hurricanes, because the Brooklyn Mariners was a semi-pro team. Yeah, oh, that's right. They were semi-pro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they used to play all over Brooklyn. I mean, my father, having grown up in Park Slope and having his business in Park Slope, knew about the Brooklyn Mariners just from them being semi-pro and them playing, like, in all the bars around Brooklyn. Well, not in the bars, but they were well-known throughout Brooklyn. Right, right, they were. Yeah, and they got some recognition in the Daily News, also. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right, now, okay, so how many years did you actually play? You know, again, you're picking a brain that's kind of shocked, but I want to say five, six, seven, maybe even eight. I don't know. I'm trying to think now. I was maybe 17 or 18 when I started. We went through a myriad of coaches. We went through a myriad of girls, or women, I mean, let me politically correct, say women, young women. Yeah, because you had to be, first you had to be 18, and then you had to be 21. That's probably true, so I was probably 18 when I started to play because drinking age was 18, and then it went on from there. I was grandfathered in with the age 18 drinking. Right. When they changed the drinking age from 18, it went to then to 19, and then it went to 21, but anybody who had already reached the 18 and was legally allowed to drink at that time was grandfathered in, so I wasn't born from the bar because drinking age was 21 because I had already surpassed the level of 18 at my time. Right, right, right, right. I remember that. I remember thinking, oh, who cares? Big deal. I'm 21 already. I don't care, you know. That was it, that was it, yeah, yeah. So, you don't really remember when you stopped playing. Well, I remember some of the reasons why I stopped playing, but I don't remember the exact time frame of when I stopped playing. Okay, okay, all right. Well, why did you stop? Well, so nature of the women who were playing on the team was much more serious about the games than I had ever signed up to be. Right. I tried to be more serious, but I was poor and mediocre at best, in my opinion, about playing ball, and the women that were coming in were better. Some of them played in high school or in more professional settings, and it became much more serious. Like, I was in it because I wanted to have a good time, hang out with my friends, be at the bar. It was fun to play, but once it became much more serious with some of the women coming in, I, you know, that wasn't what I was about. Right, right, right. Yeah, and I just interviewed Annie here, who was one of the women who was like, you know, good on playing, went to, you know, went to a basketball game, went to Iowa on a basketball scholarship, I should say. So when she came back, she was, you know, really into just playing ball. You know what I mean? Rather than the fun part of it, you know, let's go. She was more eager to be serious and winning. Right, right, right, right, right, that's all. And that was fine. That was one of the reasons that, you know, I became not interested. You know, I always had fun playing softball, and again, I was not like what I would consider a good player. You know, I was out there, I was having fun. If I did well, I was happy, but I wasn't really, really seriously into it. You know, in terms of gotta win, and, you know, it got a little too competitive and aggressive. I was in it for the fun. Right, right, right, right. That was, I've heard that in a couple of different leagues I played in also, is that once it starts to get serious, you know, people drop out. They don't like it anymore. Well, I think that's the nature of, or at the time, it was the nature of the bar leagues. Yeah, because, you know, it wasn't professional in a way. You know, it was organized. Let's put it that way. It was organized ball, but it wasn't professional ball. And when women came in who were more serious, and, you know, either, again, had played through high school or whatever there was, they wanted a more serious game than I was willing to commit to. Right, right, right, right, right. And that's sort of when you got out of it. I do remember you leaving, like, the mid-80s or late-80s, something like that. It would have been, because figure 77, 78. I was, you know, 18, 19. I was 59, 69, 79. I was 20, so 78, 77. You know, I was 18, 19, 20. I was definitely playing then. So, go a few more years forward. And what year did you join? 1980, I was 20. Okay, so you, that's how I met you. Right. And you were one of the more serious players, and you scared me. You scared me. When I first met you, you know, you had that face, that Lisa face, and it was kind of scary, you know. And you were into it and very serious about it. But you were one of the first to come on. But then people came after that, like Patty, little Patty the Pitcher. Yeah, Patty the Pitcher, Terry Mick. I mean, Terry, Donna Waga. Yeah. You know, like, all these people that came that were much more serious about it than I was. Right, right. You know. So, you know, I played until I was like, nah, you know. Yeah, yeah. Then I switched to George. You still needed some competition in there, did you? Yeah, and it was fun. Yeah, Darts is good. Yeah. You know, and then I had to stop playing Darts because I was not getting to work in the morning. Right, right, well. On Dark Night. Yeah, Dark Night. Dark Night was tough on some people. Yes, it was. Yes. Very good. All right, now, what kind of pictures? See, this is what we don't have. That's another thing I want for the podcast, is pictures that I don't have. I hardly have any. I mean, maybe Bruce has a bunch, but I didn't know you had some from the early. Yeah, Bruce definitely has. If you look on his Facebook page, there are pictures there of us. Right. And I have pictures, there's a couple of team pictures with different people through the years. In fact, Terry Simeon posts one pretty regularly. Okay. And then, you know, I have some, you know, I'll have to go through my pictures, like, you know, periodically I go through. There's some of us sitting outside, you know, back in those days, marijuana was illegal and we were sitting outside, bore on the ground with our beer and our drinks and, you know, everybody was, you know, smoking cigarettes, etc. Outside, you know, the party part of the league. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We did have a nice party there. Yes, yes, but I can look for pictures. Yeah, look through pictures for me, yeah. Bruce definitely, I think he has one photo album on Facebook that is solely about softball. Oh, really? I got to look at that. And a lot of it with the bowlers and then there were some with us because he used to come and take pictures at the games, if I remember correctly, he, you know, he would come and always have his camera and take pictures. Right, right. Oh, what was her name? Allison. She was... Allison Kovat, yeah, yeah. She was my friend from Brooklyn College. She played, her and I played on Brooklyn College together, too. Right, right, right. Allison, yeah, as we're talking, you know, the names are coming to me. Right. Again, I should have thought to take out the pictures, but I didn't. Oh, Madeline Lampkin. Oh, Madeline, that's right. We got to get to Madeline, too, yeah. Madeline played one or two years. Yeah, it was an interesting eclectic mix of women, you know, and again, I think it was more about hanging out, being with the girls and having fun, and I was never opposed to being outside and being somewhat athletic. I played golf, handball, you know, I liked to be outside. I liked to be in the park. The park was my home away from home. Yeah, yeah, the park was, Marine Park was great for meeting people, too. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, all right, very good. All right. This is a good preliminary. So I'm going to shut off my computer now, but I'm still going to talk to you. All right, hold on, let me stop this. Stop.