How many guys do you know who won Most Valuable Player honors while in their 80s?
How many guys do you know who play a rigorous sport at age 85, and excel?
How many guys do you know who drop depth charges on a previously sunken ship?
Meet Peter Karambelas, a tiny, short bundle of Sun City energy who is a mixture of sports junkie, athlete, fitness hound, and one of the friendliest, upbeat guys you’ll ever meet.
Read today’s ugly, gritty headlines, and then pay a visit to this spunky guy, and you’ll be rejuvenated. Get some bad news about your health, and then go see Pete. He’ll pick you up and make you smile like few doctors can. If you want to know the true secrets of health and happiness, he’ll be your teacher and mentor. He’s forgotten more about dieting, exercise, fitness, athletic competition, and cultivating a positive attitude than most people know.
He has been special in everything he has done. He was one of the pioneer residents of Del Webb’s first four-season property in Huntley, moving into a home on Horseshoe Trail in Neighborhood 3 in May, 1999. He now lives on Willow Creek Lane in Neighborhood 10 next to a body of water he calls Wildflower Pond.
He is about 5’3”, weighs south of 145 pounds, but he is truly 85 going on 40. He is a “try anything at least once” kind of guy whose philosophy of life is simply, “keep busy.”
The Sun City Softball League now is the focus of his life. He joined the league when it was formed shortly after Sun City started building homes. For the past several years, he has been a pitcher-second baseman for the Citizens Bank-sponsored team in the League’s top division. Twice has he has been named the team’s Most Valuable Player, in 2005 and 2007.
“That’s not for having the biggest batting average or a superstar, but for being the most popular with your teammates, having a good attitude, being a cheerleader, as well as an enthusiastic player, a lot of the intangibles,” he says. “I just have had so much fun every time I’ve stepped on a playing field.”
His fitness mania has helped him avoid major health or injury issues. He has dealt with an arthritic back (a chiropractor helped him get past that) and a small rotator cuff tear in his right arm, which forced him to switch from a shortstop to the pitching mound.
“I can’t be an overhand baseball pitcher now, but I can pitch in softball,” he says.
He has been a star high school and American Legion baseball player, a high school bowler, a radar operator, and quartermaster on a World War II navy ship in the Pacific, a science and math teacher, an underwriter and division manager for Allstate Insurance, and owner-operator of a motel-bar-restaurant in Hayward.
“That’s where the fish and fisherman were,” he says.
He may be one of the few high school baseball players to play in city- and Cook County-championship games on both the former Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field.
“In 1942, I think it was, I hit .375 for my Steinmetz team, and I got 3 hits in the championship game against a pitcher who went on to pitch in the majors later. I love that stat, even though we lost the final game. In the other game a year previously, I had an assist at second base for the final out of winning a title. I lettered in boys bowling in high school when we just rolled a few matches and a high average was about 180,” he recalls. “Now, I understand some high school bowlers average 220. Wow.”
One of his fondest memories is being invited to the recent 45-year reunion of the elementary school homeroom class he taught back in the 1950s.
“I was one of two teachers at the school who were invited, and it really made me feel good,” he said.
Dieting, exercise, staying active and busy, and cultivating a positive attitude and sharing camaraderie with teammates and friends motivate him constantly every day.
“I get so enthusiastic about softball from April to September that I get upset when I look at the schedule and find out we aren’t playing a game for 10 days sometimes,” he said. “It’s much better when we play several games in a week.
“Another thing I have done all my life is set goals and then work hard to achieve them. My latest goal is to live to be 95, like my dad did.”
Needless to say, he’ll be spending much of his time on a softball field then, too.
By the way, that sunken ship thing is a true story, Pete said.
“We were leading a convoy in the Philippines, and we were depth-charging up a storm in response to sonar signals,” he said. “A captain of a nearby destroyer radioed us that he liked our enthusiasm, but we were dropping charges on a previously sunken ship.”
That’s Pete Karambelas, always keeping busy doing something.
