For over thirty years, the Brookline Little League Association held three fundraisers: a raffle, collections from fans during games and a door-to-door collection throughout the neighborhood. Aside from a meager sign-up fee, team sponsorship fees ($100/team) and donations from the Brookline Chamber of Commerce, formerly the Brookline Business Men's Association, these were the only sources of funding for the youth baseball program.

The money collected was used to purchase uniforms and equipment for the growing number of children participating through the years in the ever-expanding organization. Field renovations were generally accomplished through donations of material from local merchants and volunteer labor from the Brookline citizenry.

The photo above shows two Little Leaguers back in 1956, the fifth season of door-to-door solicitation, with their collection box. This fund-raising tactic was necessary in order for the league to expand the program to meet the needs of a growing number of participants. The year 1956 saw the league enlarge to include an in-house Prep league and a Day League (or Minor League), which brought an additional 200 children into the organization. Today there are nearly 600 kids, aged 5-18, participating in the Brookline Little League Association baseball/softball program.

I remember quite well participating in the door-to-door campaigns. We players would dress up in our uniforms, grab our cardboard boxes and canvas the streets of Brookline, supervised by our managers and coaches. Since there were never enough collection boxes, many of us would use our caps or gloves.

We'd knock on doors and ask, "Would you like to make a donation to the Brookline Little League?" The answer was often yes, and soon our collection bins would be brimming with spare change from the neighborhood faithful.

The picture below shows Helen Linke, Christine Adelsberg and Angie Cerrelli from M. Cibrone & Sons girls softball team on Brookline Boulevard in 1982. Although taking to the streets was kind of fun, going up and down the steps to get to the houses was a little tiring. Like the girls in the picture, one year my team got the cushy job of collecting on the boulevard. With all the merchants and customers coming and going, we had quite a good day, and there were no steps!

The league no longer raises funds in this manner. The door-to-door activity ceased sometime in the late 1980s. There are still sponsorship fees (now $150/team) and the league has added a hoagie sale and a Monte Carlo Night. Although you can still spot kids canvassing the bleacher areas during games selling 50/50 tickets, gone are the days of seeing hundreds of uniformed Little Leaguers taking to the streets en masse.

In today's crazy world unleashing so many children on the neighborhood is not the most sensible idea. There's more vehicular traffic and you never know who's lurking behind the next closed door. However, I will always recall with fondness the afternoons spent parading about proudly in my new uniform collecting pocket change from the good citizens of Brookline.