In the early to mid 1990s, Joseph Antonio Cartagena, aka Fat Joe, was a rising Hip-Hop star.

He rolled with legendary, up-and-coming NYC rappers like Big Punisher and Cuban Link. He'd start up his production company, Terror Squad, a few years later in 1997. He had just released his first Billboard No. 1 hit single, "Flow Joe," in '93.

Mostly rapping about his ability to, well, rap.

"At the time, there was no Latino voice that was dominant in Hip-Hop," Joe, the son of Puerto Rican and Cuban parents, told Footwearnews earlier this summer. "So I knew young Latinos were going to be proud of somebody who looks like them, who comes from the streets and has an album like that.”

But even as he was rising to stardom -- as he was appearing on MTV or BET and rhyming on tracks with LL Cool J and Mobb Deep -- Joe kept doing one thing he loved doing in his South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania.

If you peered out on the concrete and grassy ballfields up around 180th street, you'd see his larger-than-life figure toeing a makeshift mound. His shadow relentlessly expanding toward home plate as the sun began to set -- firing pitches and floating insults amongst childhood friends.

"He didn't have to be there," Joe Conzo, well-known documentarian photographer, told me in a call. "He could've come out with his entourage and Mercedes Benzes and this, that and the other. But he was just Joey Crack that day. Playing softball."

Yes, it's hard to fathom, but back in the mid-to-late 1990s, while experiencing commercial success in the music business -- Fat Joe was part of a championship-winning rec softball team.

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"Yeah, I faced him," Conzo, a friend of Joe's and opponent during those days, said. "Joe had a big demeanor at that time. As much as you tried to put aside his stature as a musician, as a rapper, you know, he was a big guy. You're looking for that ball to come, and you had to pay attention."

The league was a modified league, which meant pitchers couldn't wind up, but they could still whip the ball in quickly.

"He used to throw pretty fast," Anthony "Beond 69" Cabezas, a graffiti artist and opposing player, said in a phone interview. (Beond says his team destroyed Joe's team one year in the finals). "[His hand] used to come out from behind. I don't remember any real tricks or anything like that. He just used to come in hard."

And if you made contact, you didn't want to hit it back up the middle. Joe was a daunting human. You couldn't get much by him.

"Joe was a big guy," Conzo recalled. "If you hit anything towards him or near him, he was gonna get it."

Even former Cy Young Award winners rave of Fat Joe's softball pitching abilities.

"Fat Joe's a great softball pitcher," CC Sabathia said. "Legendary in the Bronx."

Joe, himself, has some stories from those days.

A few years ago, on actor Domenick Lombardozzi's podcast, he told the tale of facing off against a legendary softball slugger at Mapes Park on 180th St.

"He's the legend of this whole area, his name is Boomer," Joe said. "Long story short, the most embarrassing thing for Boomer, or to ever happen in softball ... you shouldn't strike out. I struck Boomer out. Every area got a guy who's a home run king, who, every time he touches the ball it's a home run. But I struck him out and the whole park was like 'Ohh s***!'"

Granted, the next time up, Boomer hit one that apparently got stuck in a building in center field (and, as Joe tells it, might still be stuck there today).

Joe at the plate? Something to be reckoned with. Especially if he really got ahold of one.

"When Joe connected, he connected," Conzo said. "He could hit, he could hit."

"Yeah, Joe had power," Cabezas told me. "He's a big guy. Might've been a little slow, but he could hit. He got on base."

But perhaps Joe's greatest strength was something that anybody who plays a rec sport, or really, almost any sport, knows can come in handy: trash talk. A skill that comes pretty naturally for a rapper.

"We all talked smack, but especially Joe," Conzo said. "Was he good at? Oh yeah. C'mon. C'mon."

Cabezas even remembered Fat Joe bringing a guy to the field to strictly hurl insults at the opposing team. A sort of professional trash-talker.

"He had this one guy in particular, his name was Muggsy," Cabezas told me. "Muggsy was probably four feet tall and his boombox radio was probably four-by-six. He walked everywhere with his boombox. He was one of the biggest trash-talkers out there. He was in Joe's camp."

Talking to both guys, you get the feeling those late afternoons that turned into very late nights were some of the best of times for everyone there. There would be barbecues behind the outfield fences, music, DJs and a party atmosphere every weekend. An entire community hanging out at the local ballfield, with some serious softball mixed in between.

It was an outlet for players from their everyday jobs and an escape from the pressure and lights and cameras for Fat Joe. A place, a fleeting moment when the Billboard-charting rapper could feel normal again. A familiar oasis away from his sudden newfound fame.

He was grateful for it, and so were all his friends who played alongside or against him.

"Boy from the Bronx makes it big in Hip-Hop, but still kept his roots there," Conzo said. "And that's so important and it's still true to this day."