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Double Plays and Tony Awards
By David R. Zukerman, NYC and Winsted
 | | League commissioner Dan Landon has been house manager for 17 years of the Barrymore Theatre, where Tale of the Allergist’s Wife is now playing. |
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Having acted on the stage and been an avid softball player at Camp Wabigoon in Winsted several decades ago, I was pleased to attend the official opening of the Broadway Show League’s 48th season. The opening was to take place in Central Park on May 2, but was delayed twice by rain until May 16.
Dan Landon, Commissioner of the league and house manager of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre for 17 years, presided at the opening ceremony, which included a tribute to those who lost their lives on September 11. Bill Pullman, starring in his first Broadway play, The Goat, was among the actors who threw out the ceremonial first softball. His team went on to defeat that day, when Blue Man Group scored 14 runs in the seventh inning to win 23-16.
The players in the league are filled with team spirit and, not infrequently, the ability to make outstanding plays. The women players in this co-ed league hit as solidly and play with as much espirit as their male teammates.
Yes, there are muffed plays, but also double plays, diving catches, line drives nabbed for outs. There are pitchers who get strikeouts, and batters who hit towering home runs from one end of the Hecksher softball complex, near 63rd Street and Central Park West, to the other. Spectators who visit this southwest corner of Central Park on Thursday afternoons might see a Broadway star like John Lithgow playing first base for his team, and taking the game very seriously but also in good fun. During these games, the Broadway community boosts the spirit of the audience—as it does nightly (and during Wednesday and Saturday matinees) in the theaters.
 | | Ken Barnes pitches for The Goat. |
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 | | First baseman John Lithgow has just won a Tony for best performance by a leading actor in a musical, Sweet Smell of Success. |
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|  | | Tina Maddigan and Joe Machota of Mama Mia! stand on either side of Bill Pullman, star of the Tony-winning play The Goat or Who Is Sylvia. |
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 | | Ian Pai, who composed the music for Blue Man Group, scores here against The Goat. |
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