Douglas Witmer
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
more personal baseball history
Over the holiday weekend I finally found these photos. Here are the 1983 Warwick Phillies from Lititz, Pennsylvania. As you can see we had extremely realistic Philadelphia Phillies powder blue road uniforms (save for a few details). I wish I had a photo of the back of these uniforms. The nameplates all said "Warwick."
The Warwick Phillies were the "travelling team" for the 11-12 year-old age level which was called Midget-Midget. The travelling team was chosen by try-outs, versus just signing up and being able to play on one of the in-town teams. We travelled all over Lancaster County to play other teams, and also competed in several tournaments each season, the main one being the New Era tournament, which was played in Mount Joy at Kunkle Field, a terrific little league ball field with sunken dugouts, lights, a warning track, advertisements on the outfield fence, you name it.
The team is pictured here, not on our home field behind the Wilbur chocolate factory, but on a non-descript field outside of town, where we often practiced, called the "Clair Brothers" field. You can see the Clair Brothers patches on our sleeves. Clair Brothers was an audio equipment firm that did big concert events and I think that's their building in the background of the team photo.
The day these uniforms were handed out was kind of a dream. It happened after practice at the Clair Brothers field. I can't remember if uniforms were handed out in turn by name or if we all kind of lunged for them. I remember it as a mix of both. There was tension in the air because of competition over who would wear certain numbers: 20 (Mike Schmidt), 14 (Pete Rose), 10 (Larry Bowa), 34 (Gary Matthews), and, of course, 32 (Steve Carlton, my hero). I watched anxiously as several boys tried on number 32. In the end, it only fit the smallest boy on the team.
That boy was me.
Labels: baseball, my favorite things, Phillies
27.11.07 
1 Comments:
I am more a hoops fan than a baseball fan however when I was a five year old kindergartner the phils won the world series. (the series actually started on my birthday oct 14th) The winning game happened the night before our class photo. I wanted to wear my Phillies cap to school. My mother wouldn't let me because she didn't think it would be appropriate for the class photo. Just before leaving for school I stuffed the cap down the back of my pants and covered it up with my jacket. When it came time for the picture I pulled it out and tugged it onto my head. I was the only one in the photo with a hat on, but I loved the Phillies. I was also the only one in my class to be expelled a few years later but that is a different tale of rebellion.
Saw your Phillies photo on artblog then saw this. I like Steve Carlton too, but for the record my favorite player was Pete Rose. Every summer we would play wiffle ball on the beach and I loved to imitate Charlie Hustle slides at every plate. That uniform you had was killer.
By 
anthony campuzano, at
1/24/2008