Craig Stein began his tenure as president of the Reading Phillies, a 20 game ticket plan cost $75 per seat, and the Reading Phillies were joined in the Eastern League by teams such as the Albany Yankees, the Vermont Mariners, the Glen Falls Tigers, the Pittsfield Cubs, the Williamsport “Bills,” the New Britain Red Sox, and – more familiar to today’s fans – the Harrisburg Senators.

This is just a bit of the interesting information I found in a program from the 1988 Reading Phillies season.

Players on the team that year included Todd Crosby, Jeff Kaye, Rick Parker, Julio Machado, Chuck McElroy, and Brad Moore.

The team’s manager? Bill Dancy. Longtime Phillies fans should recognize that name. He was the third base coach for the Philadelphia Phillies during the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Looking through this old game program has been both entertaining and also educational. Having worked for the club for the past 15 summers and seeing plenty of changes firsthand, it is interesting to see how things changed from what they were 32 years ago. There are still teams in New Britain and Harrisburg who visit FirstEnergy Stadium each summer, but the similarities end there. While Harrisburg remains the Senators, New Britain has gone from being the Rock Cats to the Rumble Ponies and that is just in the time I have spent at the stadium.

And we can’t forget, the Reading Phillies became the Reading Fightin Phils.

One of the most interesting changes I noticed almost immediately was the fact that the program has a price on the front. Now granted, it only cost $1 to purchase a program in 1988, but now during Reading Fightin Phils games you can pick up a program for free right as you walk in the front gate.  The free programs handed out at games have many of the same details inside them, but are much smaller and in full color. The front cover of the programs available at games today feature a photo of a different member of the team during each home stand. The 1988 program also features a picture of a player, but it is a drawing of a unidentified baseball player in a Phillies pinstripe uniform. I do find it interesting that something went from being a purchased item to being a free item while other priced items simply went up in price. I would imagine it costs more to print the programs today than it did back in 1988.

Something else that caught my eye? The variety of advertisements throughout the program. In flipping through the pages, I found that I recognized a majority of the businesses that have advertisements in the program. It was also interesting to look at all the ads and to take note of which businesses are still around in the area to this day. Local favorites such as Willow Hollow Golf Course, Maier’s Bakery, Heck Bros. Florists, Schell’s Miniatur Golf, and HersheyPark all paid for advertising space in the 1988 Reading Phillies program.

These are just a few of the interesting things I have noticed after flipping through the program quickly, but I am sure there are more fun facts to be learned about the early team in Baseballtown. As the Reading Phillies gear up to celebrate their 70th season at America’s Classic Ballpark this summer, I look forward to sharing more fun history with you!

Confessional: Have you ever received a piece of history from a program or group that you were interested in? What was it and what interested you the most?