Broadway unions are used to playing hardball with producers. But this week they showed they really know how to play softball as well.

The annual Broadway Show League softball championship will be a showdown between the teams from two theatre unions: reigning champions Local One I.A.T.S.E. and the team from Actors' Equity Association.

The championship game of the 1997 season is scheduled for 1:30 PM Sept. 4 on Diamond #2.

I.A.T.S.E, the stagehands union, won the championship in 1995 and 1996. Equity last won in 1990. The competitions go back to 1955 when the team from the musical Silk Stockings won the pennant.

The Broadway Show League, which pits the actors and staff of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and theatre organizations against one another each Thursday in a summer-long softball championship on Central Park ballfields in New York. Games are played at Heckscher Fields, near West 63rd St. and Central Park West. Playbill On-Line has been posting the results weekly. Scores courtesy of Don Koehler/Broadway Show League.

Results of games on August 28, 1997:

Noon
Diamond #2: Local #1 (14) vs. The Shubert Organization (9)
MVP:Dave DeSavino & The Girls

Diamond #5: The Nederlander Organization (1) vs. Actors' Equity Association (8)
MVP: Joe Ricci & B.J. Johnson

2 PM
Diamond #2: *Playwrights Horizons (3) vs. The Phantom of the Opera (6)
MVP: Kristina Miller

Diamond #5: Actors' Equity (17) vs. The Shubert Organization (8)
MVP: Greg Salata & Todd Reichert

-- Compiled Robert Viagas