PHOENIX — Don Welsh treats every day like a gift. He learned he was HIV-positive roughly 30 years ago. At the time, the news from doctors wasn’t good.
"I had been told I had a maximum of three years to live," he remembered.
So, he set out to spend his time doing what he loved — softball. Only, he didn’t have a team to play with.
"I put up a dinky little sign saying 'Do you play softball? Do you want to play softball? And I got 112 names," Welsh recalled. The response was huge.
That's how the Cactus Cities Softball League was born. 12News caught up with him and other league members at Cesar Chavez Park in Laveen.
Kathy Huskey is now an umpire with CCSL. She was looking for a place to play where she'd feel comfortable and safe when she joined in the early 2000s.
"When I was in college, they would talk to us as if we're not even there, calling us really horrible names and so it's just so comfortable and it was like I found a new family," she remembered.
But every family has its struggles. Welsh remembers how the AIDS epidemic affected so many of his friends in the 1990s.
"That's what happened, we were losing somebody at least every month from one of the teams,” he said it was a sad time for the community. "It was a very very ominous thing that hung over us. And our women too.”
It made the Cactus City Softball League a tight-knit group. Thirty years on and the league is celebrating this milestone birthday and honoring Welsh, as the founder.
Commissioner Ernie Jaramillo has been with the league 11 years and counting. He said, "It's amazing to see how it's grown and how much camaraderie we've had."
There are more than 20 teams now and there's a long history with Laveen. Some of the teams with the league have been playing here at Cesar Chavez Park for more than twenty years.
That relationship continues there and across the Valley with the new players. Huskey said, "The younger kids are coming out and realizing that oh these ole timers did a great job giving us a foundation."
They're inviting everyone to celebrate with them on Sunday at Cesar Chavez Park. Organizers say it will be fun for people of all ages and a chance to honor Welsh in founding the Cactus Cities Softball League.
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