It was 1959 and the Hadleys were playing the American Legion Post 122 in the Methuen Softball League Playoffs.
Playing for the Hadleys were the following: Joe Wilkie who was working for his family’s moving company and later worked for and retired from the Lawrence Housing Authority. Joe and wife Maureen live in Dracut these days.
Dennis McCarthy a great 3rd baseman who died at a much too young age in 1959, lived in Lawrence on Eutaw St. He was the first of 3 brothers who would later play in the Lawrence fast pitch league. They would be teammates on the Turn Hall team. Brian played the outfield and Sean was the catcher while Dennis played the infield. Sean and Brian played football at LHS. Sean became the baseball coach at Tewksbury HS and later at Lawrence HS. He retired from the City of Lawrence and now lives in Salisbury.
Billy Jackson now retired from Mass electric and still lives locally. Billy Ruffen came from the Water St. area and lived in Lawrence until his passing. He was a promoter and brought the famous Eddie Fiegner and his team to Lawrence a few times to the delight of thousands of sports fans.
Dick Reming came from the Oxford St. area and follow a whole family of baseball and softball players who played at LHS, his dad Ed, uncle Leo who played as an All Star baseball player in a game at the Polo Grounds in NY, brothers Pete and Aimie who both became tremendous pitchers at LHS. I believe both pitchers captained their school teams. Dick and wife Dianne are both retired now and live in No Andover. Dick served as an Alderman for the City for a few terms.
Gil Olivera and Johnny Hale later a teacher in the city as a football player he was recruited by the immortal Bear Bryant to play football in Alabama.
John Kelleher would later become an all time great in the sports arena. He became a coach of boys and girls hoop and also the head football coach.
Bob Dziadosz later became a hoop star at CCHS and now lives in Tewksbury. He can be seen at most of his schools hoop games. Busty Campo was on the LHS State Champions under the famous coach Ed Buckley, he now tends bar at the Dewey Club and lives in Haverhill. He was a catcher for some of my championship fast pitch teams.
Bob Whiteman and Johnny Reusch, John was another State titlist under Buckley. His brothers Andy and Larry also proudly wore the LHS colors.
Freddie Moriarty would later become the hoop coach at LHS. Jack Hynes, John Bernard and Jack Conway filled out the roster. Conway would later gives many hours coaching and running the Central Little League.
The Hadley’s won three games by these scores, 11/5, 8/5 and 9/2. The Legion won the third game 10/9.
The winners later joined the Lawrence fast pitch league and became known as the Hadley Whiz Kids, I don’t know the origin of the name but I remember they more than held their own against the more seasoned players and teams in a superior league.
A big thanks to Bob Dziadosz for his input to this story. It’s amazing as you read this article how many of these athletes have passed on at an early age.
I purposely omitted some of these passings because I didn’t want it to resemble an obituary column.
