SEATTLE -- Ask Bud Turner what he likes the most, and he might have a hard time deciding.

Is it teaching? Writing books?

Or playing softball?

For the Seattle Pacific physical education/exercise science instructor – who enthusiastically enjoys all of the above – it might be a classic case of “whatever's in season.”

Right now, slowpitch softball is in season. Matter of fact, it has been since February for Turner. And by the time it ends in October, he just might be part of a world championship team.

For the fifth time.

That sort of thing has become a happy habit for Yeager's, a traveling major-level team for players age 60 and older, which is sponsored by a Bellingham sporting goods store of the same name. Turner, 65, is the pitcher for that highly successful squad, and has been part of different Yeager's teams for the past 15 years.

“We have a chance this summer to do it again,” Turner said of Yeager's possibly claiming another world crown. “It's pretty much the same group of guys from year to year. We like playing with the people we play with. It's a good family team. The wives travel with us – it's really more just like a family. That's what I like about it.”

During the season, that extended family has plenty of together time. The team already has played a tournament in Spokane, and is off to Missoula, Mont., this weekend. Later this summer will be tournaments in Las Vegas, Phoenix, St. George (Utah), and Sacramento – among others.

Every stop is a serious challenge.

“It's real stiff competition,” Turner said. “And it (can be) kind of a dangerous game – I'm a pitcher, and the ball comes up the middle at 90 miles an hour sometimes. You have to be on your toes.”

From the time he was growing up in West Seattle and attending Chief Sealth High School, Turner has been an athlete – baseball, tennis and basketball. Tennis was Turner's game at Sealth, and he made the basketball team at Highline Community College before ultimately deciding not to play.

GETTING INTO THE GAME
It was some 40 years ago that he took up softball – fastpitch at first, including with the legendary Peterbilt Western team of Seattle.

“Basically, it was a pitcher's game,” Turner said. “One year, I hit about .300, and that was the highest I ever hit.”

But while fastpitch grew exponentially for girls and women, it gradually faded for men,

Now, slowpitch dominates the men's scene. And that's just fine with Turner, who played fastpitch for seven years.

“It was a big thing,” he said of fastpitch, where a typical score might be 1-0 or 2-1 as compared to a slowpitch score of, say, 21-9 or 18-13. “The Mariners weren't really here then, and people would go out and watch it, as boring as it was.”

After an abbreviated hiatus from softball, Turner came back to the game about 25 years ago, and has been playing slowpitch ever since.

And playing. And playing.

In addition to between 60 and 70 games with the traveling Yeager's team, he also is a member of three others: a midweek Yeager's team, a 65 Major Plus team sponsored by First American Title, and the coed Seattle Sting 50-and-older team, which also includes Sue Turner, his wife of 42 years. (In addition, Sue plays on a women's team – which Bud coaches.)

“I could play every weekend,” Turner said, then quickly added with a laugh, “well, not every weekend – or I wouldn't be married.”

Each of the four world championships that Turner has been a part of with Yeager's has come under a different organizational umbrella: United States Specialty Sports Association (commonly referred to as U-Triple S-A), Senior Softball USA, the Western Canadian Nationals, and the Huntsman World Senior Games.

The most recent of those was last year's Huntsman title in the 60-and-older Major Division in St. George, Utah.

SWINGING THE BAT, TOO
Turner, who was MVP of the 2006 Senior Softball USA Worlds in Salem, Ore., bats leadoff for Yeager's. He says he's not a power hitter, but, “I hit five home runs – all inside the park – two weeks ago.”

While many people are starting to slow down a bit at 65, Turner isn't thinking about that.

He has been at SPU since 2003 after a 34-year career in the Seattle School District, where he started as a teacher, then became the director for the district's health and P.E. programs. He and his wife have written and continue to write numerous physical education textbooks. They also have branched out into doing instructional videos.

And from February to October, there's softball. Ultimately, that just might Turner's favorite season of all.

“More than anything, it's the camaraderie,” he said.

“It kind of gets in your blood.”