Better Late Than Never teams

Fire (Dee Landry's team)

Storm (Bev Kennedy's team)

Dragons (Frankie Meservey's team)

Dreamers (Maura Watts' team)

Ice (these injury-prone players added "PAX" to their jerseys because they're constantly looking for ice packs)

Panthers

Rubies

Hurricanes

METHUEN — Local women have inspiring words for their peers who don't find time for fun between work and home life.

"Laundry can wait," said city resident Bev Kennedy, 42, a player in the Better Late Than Never softball league.

The league for women over 30 wrapped up its second season in November; it doubled in size from its first year. Many of the 104 players are mothers, some of whom had never held a bat before joining. Others have been playing for decades and jumped at the chance to get on the field.

"It's my two hours of sanity," said Frankie Meservey, 44-year-old mother of three.

"For me, it was a way of meeting people," said Dee Landry, a 52-year-old systems analyst at Partners HealthCare in Boston.

The league consists of eight teams of 13 players each. They practiced one night a week and played two games on the weekend throughout the late summer and fall at the YMCA field on Haverhill Street. Once it started getting dark early, they crammed their practices in on the weekends.

"Life revolves around softball when it needs to," said Kennedy, a mother of two. "When I've got a game, they (her family) fend for themselves."

The season ended with a team called the Dreamers winning the championship. The victors received trophies and some bragging rights. But the rivalries are not intense; opposing players chat in the parking lot and coaches order food by yelling to the hot dog vendor from the field.

"It was more clowning around than anything," Maura Watts, 47, who founded the league with help from Stephanie Petrow, said of the first season. "This year was more competitive."

The players' children found the roles reversed when they went to games and cheered for their mothers. Usually, it's the other way around.

Watts came up with the idea for the league at her daughter's softball game in June 2007.

"I'm tired of just carting these kids around and watching them play. What if we played?" she recalled saying.

She made an announcement to parents at the game and walked around asking women if they would be interested. She distributed fliers and had information listed in the newspaper.

Better Late Than Never started its first season in September 2007 with four teams. They played until November of that year, then played their second season this year with eight teams of 13 players each, starting in August and playing into November.

The women pay $50 to play a season. The coaches are men, which helps because the thought of being instructed by another woman may intimidate some players, Watts said.