Monte Moore

<p>Monte Moore understood the physics behind getting a slow-moving softball to soar a distance of 350 feet or more.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>“Bat speed is essential,” he told a newspaper reporter in 1984. “Because, unlike fastpitch, it’s bat speed versus the ball. In fast-pitch, it’s ball speed versus the bat.”</p><p>Moore, once considered the greatest all-around slow-pitch talent in Sonoma County, died of unknown causes at his home in Windsor on May 24. He was 57.</p><p>Moore played with several traveling softball teams, including Benjelmo’s of Santa Rosa, a team sponsored by a well-known Italian delicatessen in Montgomery Village back in the 1970s. He played later with Music Box-Benjelmo’s team, a merger between Benjelmo’s and a team sponsored by the Music Box, a popular cocktail lounge at Montgomery Drive and Brookwood Avenue.</p><p>“Monte was left-handed. He could do it all. He could play third base, shortstop, any position on the field,” said George Fiori, the owner of Big Boys Buns & Burgers at the Larkfield Shopping Center.</p><p>Fiori, who owned the Music Box, was a close friend of Moore’s and played many years alongside him.</p><p>“He played hard and he partied hard, like a lot of us did in those days,” Fiori said. “Monte was a great guy. He was a fun-loving guy who played with reckless abandon.”</p><p>Fiori said Moore “tore up” his knee and “did so much damage they couldn’t replace it.”</p><p>He had a rod placed in his leg after repeated knee surgeries, said his daughter, Jenna Moore of Santa Rosa. She said he was on disability from his sports injuries before he died.</p><p>Moore was born in Stockton in 1952. Shortly after, his family moved to Sonoma County where his father worked as a PG&E lineman. His mother worked at Gaddis Nursery in Santa Rosa.</p><p>The family lived in Rincon Valley, where Moore spent hours playing catch with his father and kids in the neighborhood.</p><p>“He just took a liking to sports from the time he was a small, little boy. He kept playing and playing,” said Moore’s mother, Cora Lodrago of Santa Rosa. “I didn’t realize how good he was until everybody told me. He played ball all the time.”</p><p>Moore graduated from Montomery High School in 1971 and went to a small college in Utah for less than a year to play football. He then came back to Sonoma County and became a familiar name in the world of local slow-pitch softball, powering the ball over fences at fields like Santa Rosa’s Howarth Park.</p><p>“I remember always being at his softball games, ever since I was in diapers,” said Jenna Moore. “He knew everybody in town. No matter where we went, he always knew somebody.”</p><p>He worked for a time at Napa Auto Parts in Santa Rosa, but it was sports that was his life’s love.</p><p>His older brother, Jack “Bug” Moore, also died at the age of 57.</p><p>In addition to his mother and daughter, Moore is survived by his son, Michael Moore of Santa Rosa; his sister, Shelly Cicala of Lower Lake, a granddaughter and several nieces and nephews.</p><p>A celebration of his life will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 13, at Legends at the Bennett Valley Golf Course, 3328 Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa.</p><p>— Martin Espinoza</p>