Still a Champion

Retired Grievance Coordinator Larry Heise has 8 softball championship rings. So far.

Larry Heise’s goal is to have a championship ring for every finger and every toe. And he is already well on his way.

Heise, a retired Grievance Coordinator for UFCW 588, plays on a softball team in a 70-plus league.

“We’ve won nine championship tournaments,” Heise said in June, “and we expect to have our 10th soon.”

Heise, who will be 72 this fall, began playing soft ball on the Union team when he was in his early 50s.

“I was always athletic,” he said. “I found that I thoroughly enjoy softball.”

Heise played in the outfield until knee replacement surgery slowed him down and he had to move to catcher. In softball, a catcher doesn’t have to crouch.

“I love the competition,” he said. “Next to my five adult children and 10 grandchildren, the guys on the team are my closest family.

Larry Heise’s collection of championship rings.

Heise said playing in championship tournaments is “rigorous.”

“You play three games a week and you practice at least two days a week,” he said. “You definitely have to keep yourself in shape.”

His team is called the Norcal Renegades. “We play in at least two tournaments a month,” Heise said. “And we do pretty well.”

Heise is most proud of his team making the national championship tournament in each of the last two years.

“We finished third in 2009 and in second place this year,” he said. “Not too bad for a bunch of 70-plus guys.”

Heise said he is grateful he has the time, the health and the ability to participate in a sport he loves.

“I was fortunate to be able to retire with a good Union pension and health insurance,” Heise said.

“That allowed me to have a dignified retirement and lead the kind of life I always wanted to have.

“Nothing beats working Union.”

‘You definitely

in shape.’

Heise began his career in 1957 as a retail clerk at a Sears store in his native East Saint Louis, Ill.

“It was one of only three Sears stores in the country that was in the old Retail Clerks Union,” Heise said.

After three years, he took a job as an open-hearth operator in a steel mill, where he worked for eight years.

A friend, who was president of Retail Clerks Local 676 in East St. Louis, suggested he interview for a job with the Retail Clerks Union’s regional office in Chicago.

“I met with Tom Whaley, the International Vice President, and was hired as an Organizer. I later became a Field Assistant and worked in Chicago, Dallas and Sacramento.”

In 1977 he was hired as Organizing Director at UFCW 588 and subsequently became Grievance Coordinator.