In 1998 in Morgantown, West Virginia, a bar owner took over the sponsorship of a local adult softball team. Named Chico’s Bail Bonds after the sponsor of the hapless Bad News Bears little leaguers in the 1976 film of the same name, Chico’s Bondsmen are now immortalized in a new book.

"Sometimes Orange Is Almost Gold: Morgantown’s Misfits of the Diamond" by Jim Antonion and Susan Reynolds is an amplified score card: 200 pages of the highs and lows of each season’s memorable games with photos and lots of “county orange” (the color a prisoner might wear to court) in the players’ uniforms and the book’s graphics.

The Chico’s team is a local legend famous for spirited games and friendly post-game beer-fueled celebrations at the sponsoring bar, 123 Pleasant Street, named for its address. Both team and bar are fixtures in Morgantown, a small city about 75 miles south of Pittsburgh and home to West Virginia University.

Notorious for their spectacular losses and physical injuries, Chico’s players over the years have included local bartenders, regular patrons, area musicians and, significantly, several writers. It was these writers who started posting accounts of the team’s wins and losses on social media.

“Dave Foreman, the original captain of the team, had the keen foresight to document the results of the games with postgame recaps mostly based on truth,” says author Jim Antonini. The tradition became a creative outlet for other writers, including Greg Leatherman, who has written one novel and is working on an epic biography of a West Virginia legend, and Dave Mistich, a reporter for West Virginia Public Broadcasting and now a producer at NPR in Washington D.C.

Antonini, a full-time writer and a part-time pharmacist filled in for a couple games for Chico’s in 1999. “I was friends with some of the guys on the Chico team. They needed a shortstop, so I was able to help them out. I became a full-time Chico team member in 2006 and continue to play with them today.”

Antonini says Chico’s is different from other softball teams in that it was a team for those who wouldn’t ordinarily have a team to play for — the misfits, bartenders and musicians — and winning isn’t always the most important outcome. “Chico’s is mainly getting together with friends in the community and having some fun on a summer night.”

Key to the Chico’s ethos is the spirit of inclusivity of the sponsoring bar itself. “It doesn’t matter if you’re white or black, straight or gay, or whatever,” bar owner LJ Giuliani told Dave Mistich for a story featured on WVPB’s Inside Appalachia series focusing on the impact of baseball in the region.

Lately, Chico’s Bail Bonds Softball Fan Club Facebook page has posted about Antonini’s book and the book release party at 123 Pleasant Street. Judging by the photos, it looks like a place where everybody knows your name.

Dip into the book and you’ll soon recognize the players. Sadly, a team favorite known as Meatball recently passed away.

“I think anyone can relate to this book, says Antonini. “It is more than just a baseball/softball/archive story.” “We hope to generate attention beyond Morgantown,” he adds. “We are planning a website and Substack account for the Chico book.”

“I’ve never read a book quite like this one,” wrote Warren Maxwell in a piece for the Independent Book Review. “It has charm, wit, adventure, and a strange anthropologic intrigue. It is a record of a unique kind of community, one that centers around sports yet values friendship and joy above anything as commonplace and shallow as winning.” It’s the formula that makes baseball America’s favorite pastime.