Photo Coverage: The Broadway Softball League's 55th Season Opening Ceremony

In early 1955, John Effrat, an employee of the Actors Fund, established a more formal league with several associates that would play on Thursday afternoons and called it the Broadway Show League.

Since then the League has continued to play on Thursday afternoons on the Hecksher Fields in Central Park. which lie just inside the park at Central Park West and 63rd Street. Many of the best known stars from the stage, films and television have played in the league at one time, as well as thousands of folks from behind the stage and in the "back of the house."

The League is comprised of people who work on Broadway and Off-Broadway shows: celebrities currently "on the boards," and members of the casts, crews, and orchestras, as well as union teams and theatrical organizations. Having established itself as co-ed, the League requires two women to bat and play the field at all times for every team. The regular season schedule usually consists of nine or ten games, followed by playoffs to determine the champions in various categories, plus special games for charity, All Stars, and Old-Timers.