Dick Mahoney: Philly Slow-PItch Legend

Photo: Philly Voice

June 16, 2016
Peter Solari Follow @4PeteSakeNY
  

Meet Dick Mahoney, member of the Bishop's Collar Softball in Philadelphia, and maybe one of the greatest slow-pitch players to ever grace the diamond. But Mahoney is a bit of a mystery. Not even his teammates know much about him. Thankfully, a Philly sports blog did some digging.

Citing an email from one of Mahoney's Bishop's Collar teammate, Crossing Broad reports that Mahoney was introduced by another teammate as a "friend of a friend" with amazing softball ability, through a series of emails passed amongst the team, but what they got was completely unexpected. 

Upon meeting him for the first time, the author of the email described Mahoney as someone who, “looked like Eazy-E circa 1988: black dude with a Jheri curl hairstyle, LA Dodgers shirt and hat.”

Regardless of his appearance, Bishop's Collar was excited to have Mahoney. He hit eight home runs in his first two games, though one was discounted when he passed a runner on the base-path.Yet still, other than his propensity for big hits, his teammates knew very little about him.

Dick Mahoney, of Bishop's Collar, gets a hold of a pitch, and scares the bejesus out of his teammate on third base. Photo: Crossing Broad

Mahoney showed up to games in his Porsche, so his teammates knew he was fairly well off, but when they pressed him on his livelihood, Mahoney kept it vague, saying he did, “a little bit of this, a little bit of that.” That's when the rumors started swirling. 

Mahoney's nice car and secretive lifestyle led some members of Bishop's Collar to wonder if he was a drug dealer. After Mahoney missed some games to fly back to Los Angeles, some began to speculate that he was a porn star. Then the strangest thing of all happened. Mahoney was gone, as much, if not more of, a mystery, than when he first arrived. 

Members of Bishop's Collar were told that Mahoney was leaving the team, and packing his bags for LA to start a filmmaking career. Mystery solved! He's in porn, right? Wrong.

It has since been revealed that Dick Mahoney was merely an alias, the Babe Ruth of Philadelphia slow-pitch softball was really Walter Thurmond III, a former defensive back in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks, New York Giants, and most recently, Philadelphia Eagles. Thurmond retired from football after the 2015 season, but at age 28, he apparently still had a competitive urge. 

Walter Thurmond III with the New York Giants during the 2014 season.  Photo: New York Daily News

News of Mahoney/Thurmond's double life was all but confirmed when a picture of "Mahoney" on Thurmond's girlfriend's Instagram page, with the caption, “Dick Mahoney: Pro slo-pitch softball player, circa 1987 #jerrycurl #moderndaythrowback #warmup,” was discovered. Thurmond was born in 1987.

Les Bowen, a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News has since contacted Thurmond via text message, and later reached out to Crossing Broad on Twitter with the message, "Txted w/Dick Mahoney’s agent, Walter Thurmond. He says, unlike Walter, Dick has not retired, but he has 'changed locations.'"

And so the mystery of Dick Mahoney was finally solved, except for just one more thing: Remember those filmmaking asparations that forced "Mahoney" to leave Bishop's Collar? Well, that actually turned out to be true. According to TMZ, Thurmond is already involved in three feature films, including a horror project, and a documentary about O'Jays lead vocalist Eddie Levert.  

While we wish Thurmond nothing but the best in his movie career, here's to hoping his statement to Bowen rings true. Hopefully Thurmond's softball days, unlike his football career, aren't over, and that Dick Mahoney (or some other alter-ego) can resurrect his softball legend on the west coast.