South Philly Review

Fifteen boys from various sections of the city are sitting on an authentic 1947 Clipper Bus. Like typical 13-year-olds, they are joking with one another and laughing.

The young athletes are getting their first look at the restored vehicle that will take them across the country this summer on a trip that is nothing short of a baseball lover's fantasy.

The Philadelphia Stars Throw Back Tour '04 will be a 15-city, 3,700-mile barnstorming jaunt through the pages of baseball lore. The athletes hope to leave their own mark on the national pastime along the way.

Coach and program director Steve Bandura believes the trip will be a profound experience for his multicultural group of players.

The coach is coordinating the travel plans with the help of Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co. and the Department of Recreation. The team -- a mix of black, white and Latino players -- will visit plenty of big baseball towns, including Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago and New York.

The trip is a testament to the legacies of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, said Bandura, a Marian Anderson Recreation Center leader.

"It's because of those guys that these kids are traveling together," he said.

On June 12, the team will depart from Anderson Rec Center, 17th and Fitzwater streets, on the bus paid for by Mitchell and Ness.

The team will make its first stop in Baltimore, where the players will visit the Babe Ruth Museum and attend the Orioles game against the San Francisco Giants. The Stars also will play their own game against the Baltimore RBI team before heading to Richmond, Va.

The trip includes 15 exhibition games in all, including one on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.

"I am looking forward to visiting Iowa because we are playing on the Field of Dreams," said Northeast Philadelphia's Shawn O'Neill, a pitcher-first baseman. "I always looked forward to playing there."

In 1997, Bandura took the Anderson Monarchs, a squad of mostly 10- and 11-year-old players, on a 13-day, 10-city barnstorming tour that marked the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier. The coach wanted his athletes to relive the days when Robinson and other Negro League baseball players barnstormed across the country on hot, cramped buses just to play the game.

Today, the Stars -- who take their name from the Philadelphia Negro League team of the 1930s and '40s -- will join the five surviving players from the original Stars as part of Jackie Robinson Day at Citizens Bank Park. Robinson's number 42 is retired by the Monarchs, but Germantown player Jonathan Etheridge wears the number with great pride for the Stars.

"I always admired Jackie Robinson for the stuff he had to go through for us to play baseball," he said. "I want to be like Jackie Robinson someday."

The athletes say they have picked up a lot more than hitting and fielding tips from playing with the Stars. Many have been with the squad for five years.

"The best part about this team is we are not all white kids and we are not all Puerto Rican kids," said Northeast Philly's Kyle Levocz. "We are all mixed together."

That's exactly the diversity Bandura was going for when he called coaches and other contacts around the city in a search for players.

"In Major League Baseball, you see what is possible when guys from different backgrounds work for the same cause," he said. "Unfortunately in Little League, that doesn't happen too often. A little exposure goes a long way."