U.S. President Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal.
The “Rumble in the Jungle”, a heavyweight boxing title match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, took place in Zaire.
Hank Aaron became the all-time MLB home run leader with his 715th career dinger, surpassing Babe Ruth.
The Philadelphia Flyers, a.k.a. the Broad St. Bullies, defeated the Boston Bruins to become the first team from the 1967 NHL expansion class to win the Stanley Cup.
The Oakland Athletics, known as the “Swingin’ A’s” and at the height of their dynasty, won their third consecutive World Series, taking down the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Championship tiaras for 1974 were earned by Greave’s Movers (Victoria Senior Amateur League) and Lake Cowichan (Mid-Island League) amongst British Columbia’s senior baseball teams on Vancouver Island.
Neither the West Kootenay Baseball League nor the Okanagan-Mainline Baseball League operated in 1974 leaving the Quesnel and Bulkley Valley circuits as the only functional senior loops in existence within the interior of B.C.
Senior baseball in the lower mainland of B.C. was defined by a brace of competitive circuits in 1974, the Vancouver Metro Baseball League and the Western International Baseball League, both loops featuring a bevy of talented players. Vancouver Old Stylers reined as champions of the Metro League while the Burnaby Auroras, the lone Canadian representative in the six-team Western International League, held their own against stiff opposition from Seattle and environs before setting their sights on bragging rights for British Columbia. In a six-team affair at Capilano Stadium for the 1974 B.C. senior baseball championship, it became crystal clear that both the Auroras and an all-star team from the Metro League were the class of the tournament. Tourney officials could essentially have scrapped the whole format, forgot about the other four teams and just made it a best-of-three affair. After three gruelling clashes, the first two of which were split, the Metro Baseball League All-Stars from Vancouver prevailed in the double-knockout event, nipping the Burnaby aggregation 3 to 2 in rubber match between the two foes.
And, the curtain fell.
1974 marked the final season for the Southern League and the Northern Saskatchewan League. The Basin League had ended play in 1973 and the Alberta Major Baseball League had just a couple more summers. The two Saskatchewan leagues merged into a six-team Saskatchewan Major Baseball League for the 1975 season.
The Moose Jaw Devons won both the pennant and the playoffs in the final season of the Southern League behind superb pitching as Warren Mertens (left) was named the loop's top hurler with a 6-2 record and 2.80 earned run average and Roy Rowley (right), who finished 4th in the batting race as the Devons' third baseman, went 5-0 during the regular season. Mertens added three wins in the playoffs and Rowley had a pair. Mertens had come to the Devons from Bemidji State University in Minnesota where he was a 1974 All-Star.
The Saskatoon Boston Royals also won both the pennant and the playoffs to highlight the 1974 season in the Northern Saskatchewan League. Royals also had two premier hurlers. Steve Kemp, 5-0, led the league with a spectacular 0.74 earned run average. Teammate Wayne Plummer had an even better won-lost record, 7-0, and was second in ERA, with a 1.47 mark.
Hal Harris of the Unity Cardinals edged out a future major league for the batting title. Harris compiled a .393 mark, Gorman Heimueller of the Eston Ramblers finished at .391.
In the Alberta Major Baseball League, the two second-place finishers, Edmonton Tigers from the North, and Calgary Jimmies, from the South, met in the final with the Jimmies taking the championship.
The Jimmies’ championship run occurred following the Canadian championships in which the Tigers, with a stacked team bolstered by other A.M.B.L. reinforcements, represented the Wildrose province and won the national title.
The Riverside Canucks captured the title in the Manitoba Senior League defeating Neepawa in the playoff final.
It was the second consecutive MSBL title for the Canucks while the Neepawa entry, the Cubs, were the surprise team in the ten-team circuit, reaching the league finals in their first year as a member of the loop.
Riverside’s Mark Fisher led the league in hitting with a .440 average, in hits with 44 and in home runs with seven.
Regina native Fred Cardwell, a pickup from the Red Deer Generals, pitched the Edmonton Tigers, representing Alberta, to the 1974 Canadian Senior Baseball championship with his second victory of the tournament, a 5-1 win over Nova Scotia. Cardwell gave up just six hits while racking up 16 strikeouts.