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By Jen Brown and Sean Leahy
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THE ALARM GOES OFF at 3:30 a.m. at Kim Travis’ Austin, Texas home on Thursdays during the spring and summer. She jumps in the shower, throws on her clothes, slides behind the wheel of her car and arrives at the Austin-Berman International Airport to catch the 6 a.m. flight to La Guardia Airport. If the plane touches down on time at noon, it’s the M60 bus (if it’s late, she shells out about $30 for a cab) to midtown, where Travis drops her bag off at the hotel, changes into her uniform and heads toward Hecksher Fields in Central Park for her 3:30 p.m. softball game.

Softball game?

That’s right. For the past six years, Travis has been flying from Austin to New York for 24 hours every week in the spring and summer to manage the Actor’s Equity softball team of the Broadway Show League.

 
“ You’re playing ball with other people who are in the business and that’s what is so cool about it.  The producers are playing with the actors and the actors are playing with the stage hands.”
— Kim Travis
, team manager

“A lot of the guys on my team I’ve known and worked with for 25 years,” said Travis, who moved from New York to Texas six years ago to help take care of her mom.  “When you’re with people that long, it’s hard to walk away.”

Her devotion is typical of members of Central Park’s oldest softball league, in which the stars of Broadway join up with stage hands, directors and producers in friendly, but competitive, games each week in the summer.

 


“All the big shots on Broadway come down and we all play at the same level,” said Tim McDonough, 52, a stage hand at St. James Theater. “Its like a big family.” 

For McDonough, that’s literally true. On “The Producers” team, league champions in 2001, 2002 and 2004, McDonough plays left field. His sons, Tim Jr., 26, Ryan, 24, and Sean, 20, play shortstop, centerfield and second base. His brother, Tom, 55, plays third base and Tom’s son, Tom Jr., 21, plays first. 

Believe it or not, the McDonough family does not make up the entire “Producers” roster. When he’s not busy on a movie set, Matthew Broderick is usually in right field and Rocco Landesman, owner of the St. James Theater, is the regular pitcher.

“Rocco, who signs my check, he’s pitching on the team,” said McDonough … errrr, the left fielder, McDonough, that is. 

Tim Jr. was named MVP of the league in 2003, and father followed son by winning the award last year. It seemed appropriate for Timmy Sr. to win the MVP in the league’s 50th-anniversary year as his father, Tom, won the first MVP award in 1957.

The Broadway Show League was founded in 1953 by John Effrat, renowned on Broadway for organizing annual workshops for new talent. Today there are 30 teams and three divisions.

The 11:30 a.m. league is for new shows that have to rehearse in the afternoon, and is generally considered the least competitive division. At 1:30 p.m., more established shows like “The Lion King” and “Rent” play, and the 3:30 p.m. division, most acknowledge, is when the big-time athletes, the former minor league ball players and college athletes come out.

 
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MAP: Elva Ramirez
 
Related stories
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Quick facts
 

The Broadway Show League is Central Parks oldest softball league, dating back to 1955.

The league has 30 teams and three divisions.

 
 
Celebrity players
 

Matthew Broderick
Tony Danza
Rosie O’Donell
Al Pacino
Meatloaf
Lou Diamond Phillips
Alec Baldwin
Woody Allen
Merv Griffin
George C. Scott
Phillip Seymor Hoffman
Gina Gershon
Tim Robbins
Macaulay Culkin

   
   
 
PHOTO: Jen Brown
 
 
Carlos Martinez, the league’s commissioner, also serves as head electrician for All Shook Up. He says his goal is to make sure the league is fun.
 
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