Do You Remember the ‘Happy Days’ Cast Softball Team?

UNITED STATES - AUGUST 21: HAPPY DAYS - 8/21/79, Henry Winkler, Donny Most, Marion Ross and Anson Williams and the — ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

Many companies host team-building activities for their employees, and classic sitcoms are no exception: in the late ’70s, Garry Marshall had the idea to create a softball team for the cast of Happy Days as a way to unite the show’s stars. “I believe a family that plays together stays together,” Marshall said, according to Woman’s World. “So I made us a team. We traveled, we laughed, we competed and it made the show better because we understood each other.”

Though the group first came together to casually play on weekends, they soon transformed into a traveling team who played games across the world for charity; they played an estimated 100 games and raised millions of dollars for a variety of charities along the way.“We started the team as a gag, playing weekends, but we found it drew crowds,” Tom Bosley, who played Howard Cunningham, said in 1979, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Henry Winkler, who played Fonzie on the popular series, remembered the team as a learning experience. He said, according to Woman’s World, that “Garry always wanted to own a sports team, so he created the Happy Days softball team. I have never been good at a sport because I don’t have good eye-hand coordination because I’m so dyslexic. And in between scenes, literally they taught me how to play and pitch, because they were all athletes. … Now here’s the thing. All I could do was pitch. I couldn’t catch. So, when the ball was hit to me, I turned my body and stopped the ball. I was black and blue on my left side for seven years.”

HAPPY DAYS, Donny Most, Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Anson Williams, 1974-84

Everett Collection

Anson Williams, who plays Potsie Webber, added that he truly believed that the team helped the cast to become so close and had a “huge effect on our friendship.”

Although it was just for fun and team building, Marshall reportedly took the games very seriously and acted as a manager and player. He would keep detailed stats and schedule games when the show was on hiatus, aiming to keep the cast together even on breaks from filming.

Ron Howard added, “One time we were playing in Philadelphia before a Phillies game and it was packed. Usually we would play against radio disc jockeys and other game show celebrities, but this time they had athletes mixed in and Hal Greer, for example, the great basketball guard; other football players and things like that. I looked at this lineup and I thought, ‘We usually win these games, but I don’t know.’ I mentioned it to Clint and Clint just said, ‘Henry can get him out.’ Henry did and we won that game two-to-one.”

In 2008, the cast reunited to see the unveiling of “The Bronze Fonz” on the Milwaukee River Walk and reminisced about their ball playing days. Winkler threw the first pitch before a game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros at Miller Park on Aug. 19, 2008 with some of the cast watching on the sidelines.