By Anne Ostrowski, Item Correspondent

How do you showcase the accomplishments of an innovative printer and a world-renowned softball team from Berks County?

You create a museum to display their treasures to the public.

This coming weekend, the Leesport Area Historical Society will hold the grand opening of its long-awaited restored classroom and museum in the former West Leesport Normal School at 128 Main Street in Leesport.

On Saturday, June 26, the Milton Blatt old-time printing shop exhibit will be featured from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Blatt, who was a printer and noted historian of the Centre Township area, invented a printing platen press that will remain on permanent display in the museum. It is one of only two of its kind in the world, the other being displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Also available at the Leesport museum will be hundreds of genealogy research notebooks Blatt used in compiling his histories of Centre Township families.

On Sunday, June 27, the museum will open its Rising Sun Hotel Sunners softball team memorabilia display, along with a reunion of this recently-inducted Pennsylvania Hall of Fame team.

The Sunners, who built and played at the Leesport ball field, won the International Federation of Softball Men’s World Championship in 1976 in New Zealand. They also won three Amateur Softball Association Men’s National Championships in the 1970s.

The exhibit, open from noon to 5 p.m., will include the Sunners’ championship trophies, plaques, photos and newspaper clippings.

Rocky Santilli, Leesport, former manager and coach of the Sunners from 1959 through 1979 and the U.S. Men’s Softball team from 1979 to 1991, donated most of the memorabilia, which used to be on display in his home. He hopes the exhibit will renew interest in the team’s achievements.

“If you didn’t see the team play, you don’t know what you missed,” Santilli said. “We had a great record, probably 75 percent wins, and over one two-year period our record was 152-26. If you’re the best at what you do, somebody should know it.” Santilli, who at one time played catcher before taking over the management responsibilities of the team, fondly remembers traveling all over the world for games and tournaments.

“In 1971, we went to Springfield, Illinois and got 4th place in the Nationals,” Santilli recalled. “After that I got the idea that we were going to win the National championship. We worked harder and harder and it got to be fun.”

Finally, the team won Nationals in 1975 and traveled to New Zealand where they won the World Tournament in 1976. Other stops on the tour included Clearwater, Florida, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Indianapolis, Indiana, and one especially memorable trip to Minot, N. D.

“In 1977, we were invited to play in a charity tournament for a young woman with cancer,” Santilli said. “Thousands of people came to watch us play, and we raised $8,000 for that girl’s treatment.”

The Sunners were also invited to Bermuda to start a softball program there with Bermuda’s Youth Sports Federation, and later, the U.S. Men’s team went to Cuba, Venezuela, and British Columbia. Sadly, although the team drew large crowds on tour, they rarely topped 200 spectators at home in Leesport and Reading. Santilli hopes the museum display will provide nostalgia to those who saw the team play, or wished they had.

Ralph Kerschner, catcher for the team from 1960 to 1979, is happy the memorabilia has a permanent home for the public to enjoy.

“It’s the greatest thing that could happen to all of that stuff,” Kerschner said. “I miss playing ever since I’ve been retired, but it’s great to catch up with members of the team.”

The museum also features a classroom restored to include replicas of the exact furnishings that were there when the school closed in 1961. The school opened in 1858 as a one-story brick building and eventually grew to two stories with four classrooms. In 1980 it was donated to the Leesport Jaycees for storage and meeting space. After the Jaycees dissolved in 2002, the newly formed Leesport Area Historical Society began meeting there. The restoration project, started in 2004, has been completed by volunteers and the generosity of local businesses.

“Although we’ve restored the building to the way it looked, we have made some improvements,” said Dexter Mengel, Secretary of the Historical Society. “We added central air conditioning and heating. Santilli Oil was responsible for putting that in.”

Admission to the museum is free. For more information contact Dexter Mengel at dmengel@leesportareahistory.com.

URL: http://www.berksmontnews.com/articles/2010/06/23/hamburg_area_item/news/doc4c22169b3f9ee372096107.prt

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