MANCHESTER, N.H. – Starting this week, visitors to Manchester City Hall are getting a glance at a time when the national spotlight shined on a group of young Queen City athletes.
The Manchester Historical Association, in coordination with Manchester Central Little League, has brought an exhibit to the hallways of Manchester City Hall showing highlights from a 1954 Life Magazine article focused on Little League Baseball in Manchester.
In the article, photographers followed local Little League players for three weeks, creating a tableau on the sport and its participants here in Manchester.
For Manchester Historical Association executive director John Clayton, the pictures helped rekindle a time when he played Little League baseball on Manchester’s West Side. He also hopes that helping people revisit this moment in Manchester sports history will help increase interest for Little League Baseball in Manchester today.
“We don’t do a lot of sports exhibits, so that’s why this one is so special to me,” said Clayton. “(Little League Baseball) meant a great deal to me growing up and I think every kid should get a chance to do it. So, when we can delve into our historical archives to demonstrate the interest there once was in the game, we hope that this will foster interest in taking the game to another level moving forward.”
Manchester mayor Joyce Craig praised the efforts of Clayton as well as Central Little League officials Ara Tamzarian and Fred Harwood for their work in putting together the exhibit, also adding praise for all the work that has been done to continue Little League Baseball since its establishment in the city in 1950.
“Looking at these pictures, it’s really amazing to see the faces and expressions of these players and then to see that the faces and expressions of players today are exactly the same,” she said.
No schedule has been set for the exhibit’s appearance in city hall.
More information on the Life Magazine article and other Central Little League topics can be found at the Central Little League website.
