The first annual Battle of Union softball game on Monday pitting Cooper High School vs. Ryle rose out of an intense neighborhood rivalry. It’s also the product of some very creative coaching and enough trash talk to make a seasoned umpire blush.
But this is where the story throws a curveball early in the count. The taunting and the jeering in the Jaguars-Raiders rivalry isn’t coming from across the diamond. It’s coming across the dining room table at a Triple Crown home in Union. And some of the chatter is literally making a seasoned umpire blush.
“My wife and I have a bunch of daughters and no sons so I’m a girls dad,” said Cooper second-year coach Lee Patsel, a longtime travel-ball coach and umpire. “Two of my daughters played softball at different high schools. One played at Dixie Heights. My youngest daughter now plays at Ryle.”…