HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Teammates call Bergen County Undersheriff Harry Shortway Jr. a 73-year-old great-grandfather with a lethal weapon -- his curveball.
Shortway, a pitcher with the Hawthorne Fire Department Softball Team, achieved his 800th career mound victory this month, a goal that the former Marine was determined to accomplish pitching modified ball.
Shortway passed his 700th career win 11 years ago but stepped up to the plate to take a swing at 800 games, hoping that age and time would not take away his pitching arm.
"I like competition," said the father of eight, grandfather of 13, and great-grandfather of a 7-month-old. "I thought I would reach 100 more games faster than 11 years, and it took me about another 180 games until I reached 800, but these younger kids are coming up and pushing the old guy out. That's what happens. I still can hit, I can still bunt. ... I can still run. ... I can run like a deer."
Shortway throws a 40- to 50-mile-per-hour curve, slower than his younger colleagues, but he has adjusted his pitching since that 700th victory.
"I work the corners, 'cause with these young whippersnappers if you throw it down the middle, the ball is over the fence ... gone," he said. "They're starting to throw 70 miles an hour, and I'm still back in that 50-mile-per-hour range."
Hawthorne Fire Chief Joe Speranza, 52, calls Shortway a disciplined and driven team mentor.
"He's such an inspiration and a pleasure for us to have as a teammate," Speranza said. "I feed off his attitude. He tells us to do our best until the game is over and not to play with malice or intimidate. Just work hard."
Shortway, whose family owns Shortway's Barn, a roadhouse on Goffle Road, is the second of 11 children and grew up in Hawthorne, where he has been a firefighter for more than 50 years.
The veteran Ridgewood police detective retired in 2002 and was appointed undersheriff under Joel Trella from 2002 to 2005. Shortway ran unsuccessfully for Bergen County sheriff as a Republican in 2007 and as an independent candidate in 1998.
Shortway was a teenage fan of Yankee players Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer and Charlie Keller, who died at age 73.
"I'm still going," Shortway said.
One of Shortway's greatest opportunities came in 1958, when he tried out for the St. Louis Cardinals' minor league system.
The offer was $250 a month with no bonus.
It was an offer Shortway could and did refuse. Instead he joined the Ridgewood Police Department in 1960.
The discipline of the Marines, law enforcement and firefighting are still carried to the mound, Shortway said.
"It's just so important to be alert when that ball comes at you," he said. "For years I was a third baseman, and when I hit 42 years old, I went to pitching, because that ball was coming at me at third base -- 60 feet away -- and they were bullet line drives. With pitching I'm 46 1/2 feet away from the batter, and the ball still comes at me in 0.3 seconds -- at probably 100 miles per hour."
The Hawthorne Fire Department Softball Team -- with a 4-1 record and part of the Bergen County Firefighters' Softball League -- will play with Shortway on the mound through July.
"His spirit is everything," Speranza said. "He wants to play the game to win and says play hard, give nothing away."
As for 50 more wins to top off the career?
"I don't want the pressure anymore," Shortway said. "I'll still play, but I'm not pushing myself."
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