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Congratulations to Walkerville teacher
Joey Stankowski!
He will be inducted into the Michigan Fast Pitch Hall of Fame on September 26.
It’s been 33 years since injuries forced Joey Stankowski to retire from the intensely competitive world of fastpitch softball, but his contributions to the sport are remembered.
Joey, 63, who’s in his sixth year of teaching social studies and science to Walkerville’s 3rd-5th graders, will be inducted Sept. 26 into the USA Softball Michigan Fastpitch Hall of Fame at a special ceremony held in Midland.
Making this recognition extra special, Joey said, is that he will also be joining his father and brother in the Hall.
All three were pitchers — the most crucial position on the field — but played other positions when not on the mound.
Joey’s father James Stankowski, 91, got his start pitching for the Army team at Fort Hood, Texas, and later managed the state-championship teams his sons and nephews played on was inducted into the HOF in 2005.
Brother Jimmy Stankowski, 62, was inducted in 2025.
“I was born into fastpitch,” Joey said. “Actually, it is my Mom (June) who takes credit for starting me out. She started pitching to me at age three. But it sounds like it took me a while before I could hit anything.”
From the 1960s to the early 2000s, Mason County was a hotbed for fastpitch softball.
According to the softball organization, the zenith was 1982 when there were six area fastpitch men’s leagues and one women’s league, with players as young as teens competing on teams with local sponsors.
Joey said he and Jimmy grew up watching their dad play fastpitch.
As soon as they were old enough to be reliable batboys, they were in the dugout.
Before they were old enough for a league, they played pickup games with their cousins, Ken, Rick and Greg Tyndall. The boys also competed on highly successful baseball teams at Mason County Central.
James “Potsie” Stankowski — who by this time was mostly managing his sons’ team – searched statewide for tougher competition, convinced that was the key to improving.
They journeyed across state to play in the highly competitive Midland leagues and entered tournaments every weekend of the season. They even scrimmaged against teams at correctional institutions.
The Stankowskis were integral to the area’s most celebrated fastpitch team, Schoenherr Investment, which was rebranded Flora-Craft at the sponsor’s request.
That team won state championships and competed in national tournaments in 1988, 1990, 1991 and 1992.
The 1990 team was also one of the 30 teams to advance to the world tournament, held that year on Victoria Island in British Columbia, Canada.
Schoenherr Investment/Flora-Craft gained a reputation for its “big, strapping farm boys” who could hit the cover off the ball.
They slammed the most home runs and posted the highest team batting average in finishing 10th of 48 teams in the 1988 nationals, held at Las Cruces, N.M.
The 1988 team was inducted on June 27 to the Mason County Sports Hall of Fame.“
It was great to see former teammates again because we went through a lot together,” Joey said. “When 12 of us flew to Las Cruces for nationals, I think it was the first time 10 of us had ever been on a jet plane. Softball was our ticket to seeing new parts of the world”
“The First Family of Fast Pitch Softball in Mason County” – The Stankowskis! “Potsie,” Jimmy, and Joey on Saturday, June 27, 2026.
Joey played shortstop when he wasn’t pitching. Three shoulder surgeries gradually prompted a move to third base, but by 30, additional surgeries forced him to hang up his cleats.
In addition to the three Stankowskis, the Schoenherr Investment/Flora-Craft team produced three others who have been inducted into the USA Softball Michigan Fastpitch Hall of Fame, Greg Melchert, Harvey Miller and Tom Paul.