Play Ball! Meet the 1960 PWD Softball Team
To celebrate the Phillies' home opener today, we're presenting a team from a different era and different league: the Philadelphia Water Department Softball Team from 1960.
The game in these photographs, found on the PhillyHistory site of the City Archives of Philadelphia, was played on the field at 16th Street and Wyoming Avenue in Stenton Park. The PWD team was likely sponsored by the Water Department Employees' Recreation Association, which was part of the Municipal Employees' Recreation Association. The identities of the men on the team, according to a caption found in the June 1960 issue of the "Water Department News," are as follows: THE LUCKY 13: Leading the Eastern Division of the Industrial League, the Water Department's Soft-ball Team, is well on its way to another championship. It has been winning more than 80 per cent of all its games. Front row, l. to r., Mike Matteo, William Ehmann, John Pagano, Buck Davis, and Jim Smith. Rear, l. to r., Lesser Lindenbaum (manager), Jim Malone, Joe McLaughlin, Bob Lewis, Floyd Jones, Earl Weber, Ed Milburn (business manager), and John Watson. Other teams in the league included O.P. Schuman (a machine shop), Quaker City MTR (probably Motor Parts Co.), Masland Duran (which manufactured Duran, an all-plastic upholstery material), Supplee-Biddle (a dairy), Schmidt's Brewery, and the Reading Company.