Flints first family of softball has another member headed to the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame. Wayne VanSlyke, who pitched eight no-hitters and one perfect game, joins wife Angie and brother Melvin in the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame. Angie and Melvin were both members of teams that were honored. “It means a great deal to me,” said Angie who was inducted in 1996 as part of the 1946 IMA girls’ softball team. “We’re thrilled about it. A lot of people who know about him are no longer here. But I wanted to see him get credit for the clever little pitcher he was.
“He pitched when softball was really big in Flint. He was the premier pitcher in that league. He was a great fielder in his own right. He fielded his position like Greg Maddux fields his.” VanSlyke was a star on area diamonds in the 1930s and ’40s. It was at the old IMA Park near what is now UM-Flint where he met Angie, who was a standout softball player and bowler.
“We used to play doubleheaders,” said Angie, who also pitched when she wasn’t playing centerfield or first base. “We would play the preliminary game and they played the last game. He could throw a pitch where the seams don’t revolve and he taught me to throw that. It was very effective. We played golf together, bowled together, went to ballgames together.
When his fast pitch career ended, VanSlyke took up blooper ball and played well into his ’60s on a 30 and-over team where most of the players were young enough to be his sons. One of his sons, Mike, remembers watching his dad baffle batters as a blooper ball pitcher. “Remember, you had to pitch it higher than the batter’s head and it had to hit the plate to be considered a strike.”
Mike VanSlyke said, “It was not unusual for a score in blooper ball to be 20-18. It was a hitter’s game. He was a very effective blooper ball pitcher because he pitched it 12-14-feet high. He pitched a knuckle ball and it came almost straight down. It was extremely tough to hit. The higher the guy could pitch the better.” At one point, VanSlyke’s fast pitch teams rode his arm into the state tournament nine times in 10 years. But he didn’t take credit for the team’s success. “I don’t strike out many batters,” VanSlyke said in a 1944 Flint Journal story.
“But I always have had a good fielding team behind me. That’s the main reason the teams I’ve played on have been so popular. I think fans would rather see a flashy fielding team than a pitcher fanning all the hitters.” Mike VanSlyke said his dad frequently deflected praise from himself to his infielders. “One of the reasons he gave that much credit is because nobody ever hit the ball out of the infield when my dad pitched,” Mike VanSlyke said.
“Athletics in Flint in the ’50s and ’60s were a pretty big deal. To be recognized by the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame and to be put in the same category as some of our outstanding athletes who have had professional careers is a pretty big deal.” Softball wasn’t the only sport at which VanSlyke excelled. He was also an avid bowler, loved to fish and took up golf in 1974 at age 60, when he retired from Buick after 34 years. “He was a good bowler,” said Angie VanSlyke, who was married to Wayne for 51 years. “He never bought a new ball. He bought one once at Goodwill and bowled a 697 series with it.”
VanSlyke was also a talented singer who declined an invitation to audition for a popular group during the big-band era, Angie said. His family has deep ties to the Flint area dating to the 1800s.
VanSlyke Road is named after his father’s family and Torrey Road was named after his mother’s family, according to Angie VanSlyke. VanSlyke, a 1933 high school graduate who never played varsity sports at Flint Central, died in 1998 at age 84 after a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. “The last few years were not so good,” Mike VanSlyke said. “But he enjoyed 20 years of a great retirement.”
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