Update : 17 July, 2021
And while we're at it, let's include an update of the 1926 Saskatoon Exhibition Tournament, both the game reports and the rosters.
1939 Newark Eagles - An enquiry about the photo led me to a search for names which proved successful. And, at the same time, re-did the photo for a tad better presentation. The names are confirmed via Seamheads.
Ron Perranoski, the lefty ace reliever of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins, among others, passed away last October at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 84. His sister said he died as a result of complications from a long illness.
I was batboy for the Lloydminster Meridians in 1956 when Perranoski, then just 20, joined the club late in the season from the Basin League to help the team in it's playoff run.
He went on to a 13-year playing career in the major leagues before lengthy stints as pitching coach for the Dodgers and the Giants and a front office role in San Francisco.
In 1963 in the Dodgers bullpen, Perranoski went 16-3, 1.67. Later with the Twins he set save records in 1969 and 1970 with back to back seasons of 31 and 34 saves.
17 July, 2021
1922 was the initial year of the famous Saskatoon Exhibition Tournament and fans had an exciting game to determine the first champion.
It was 14-13 for Conquest against a Rosetown team bolster by, among others, Frank and Dodger Lewis (left). Rich Necker has chased down some additional game reports for our Tournament page.
Thank goodness for the local orentation of the papers of the day ! The Saskatoon paper included box scores of the games from which we could extract the rosters.
10 July, 2021
Rich Necker has scoured the papers for a ton of material on Saskatchewan baseball in 1920, including game reports for both the Saskatoon City League and Regina Northside League along with notes on a dozen other circuits in the province. The 1920 roster page has been updated to reflect the additions. Pitcher Lawson Atchison (right) among the stars of that summer.
Back to 1923 we added in rosters for the Saskatoon Exhibition Tournament.
Also from 1923, lots of additions to East Kootenay ball featuring Dodger Lewis and Lefty Pennington.
08 July, 2021
Anna Shalashina from Russia is seeking our Redeye Ropertz for information on the famous Russian-Japanese pitcher Victor Starffin.
Redeye did some superlative work for us on the 1935 North American tour of the Dai Nippon Baseball Club, the forerunners of pro baseball in Japan.
We have background, scores, game reports, photos (including a superb team team - The colourized photo courtesy of Mark Truelove of Canadian Colour. The original photo by Stuart Thomson and provided by City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 99-4753.
The team, known as the Tokyo Giants, had among others, a pair of legenday players, Starffin and Eiji Sawamura.
Starffin was particularly imposing at a little over six feet tall, quite a difference from the average Japanese at the time. Anna's team is working on a documentary film about Starffin.
Photo adapted from the cover of Baseball Age magazine, Tokyo, Japan, November 1, 1949
05 July, 2021
Oh my. Thank you Joe Cardle !
It seems it's been forever we've been on the trail of material from Barrhead, Alberta in the 1970s as the community hosted a team in the Alberta Major Baseball League.
The Cardinals joined teams from Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Lac La Biche and Stony Plain in a spirited Alberta circuit. Canadian kid Joe Cardle (left) was among those in the Barrhead lineup.
Joe has been digging through some old clippings and sends along a team photo of the 1975 Barrhead Cardinals along with one for the 1975 Alberta Snapshots of Joe, Lou Rondeau and Mike Mukanik (with the Alberta Photo Gallery updated with photos of Joe and Lou Rondeau.
Joe went on to play for the Lethbridge Juniors and in senior ball in Victoria.
28 June, 2021
Sad to hear of the passing of the little left-hander Joe Weremy.
He died June, 2020 at the age of 86 at Quesnel, BC. Joe was still playing slow pitch well into his seventies. He was a force on the mound and at the hockey rink in stops in Edmonton, Granum, Peace River and Quesnel.
Joe was a good friend of our site, providing information in particular on his stint with Granum in Southern Alberta.
Haven't heard yet, but put in a nomination to the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame for Ralph Mabee the one-time face of baseball in Saskatoon as the manager of the Gems and Canada's team at the Global World Series.
Good to hear from old friend Connie Munatones from Los Angeles. Hampered by the pandemic, but still in good spirits and buoyed by special coverage in the Los Angeles Times this pre-season.
07 May, 2021
She didn't write a single line or dig out a photo or spend any time browsing through newspaper or library archives.
However, in so many ways the success of this little enterprise revolved about Monika Elizabeth Mah, my dear wife and partner of some 60 years.
She died March 28th of a stroke, after weeks of searing pain ostensibly from drugs to deal with the after-effects of cancer treatments.
Her selflessness and support all these years allowed me to spend so much time on this baseball passion.
She was a gem (with an often sharp tongue but tender heart), the core of my existence since we met in Peace River, Alberta in the 60's and happily chugged along as we hit Fort St. John, BC, Red Deer, Alberta, Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, and finally Toronto (for 30+ years).
The void is an abyss. But, with a little more time, it is hoped, we are able to resume.
03 March, 2021
Now a little treat for ball fans in BC's East Kootenays.
Thanks to Rich Necker's contacts with Colleen Dixon (right), whose late husband Derrel Dixon was both a junior and senior stalwart in Kimberley ball, and former player Mel Johnson we have a treasure trove of material coming from baseball in the East Kootenays of British Columbia.
Mel tracked down Ike Bodin, the former ace hurler of Kimberley clubs, and with the help of Chris Heinemann we are pulling material from Bodin's scrapbooks dating back to the early 1950s (at the 2018 reunion, that's Ike at the left below and Chris, right).
Thank goodness for the local paper, the Kimberley Bulletin, for some outstanding coverage of the ball teams back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Below, note the half page or so the paper printed with photos and brief bios of the Kimberley Dynamos..
The individual photos and those bios are posted on the BC Snapshot page for 1954 and the smaller photos appear in the BC Gallery.
But, first up are game reports from the 1950 season in which the 16-year-old Eric "Ike" Bodin made his debut in senior baseball as the Kimberley Elks were part of an eight-team circuit, the Idaho-Montana-British Columbia League, sanctioned by the National Baseball Congress.
The teenager had quite the career kickoff leading the league with a 6-0 won-lost record. Rosters, the Creston Valley Tournament, and a few stats are among the posts.
Photos too !
Including brothers Milton "Red" Mellor (left) and Percy "Buzz" Mellor (right) key members of Kimberley teams in the 1940s and 1950s, even into the 1960s for Buzz. We also happy to have located an individual photo of Claude Bell for the 1950 BC Gallery.
On photos, a quick look at those we'll display, sometimes more than once - the above, plus Curt Bloomquist, Jack Spring, Walt Gelling, Elmer Garinger, Les Lilley, Chuck McCarthy, Pete Boisvert, Tony Brummet, Ed Crowder, Red Matthews, Jim McDonald, Teddy Robb, Elgin Smith, Howard Thomas, Miles Descharnais, Ron Seredick, Dave McLary, Alan Fabro.
The East Kootenays were prominent again for 1951 thanks to Chris Heinemann's work with the Eric Bodin scrapbooks.
Again, Kimberley had a slot in the Idaho-Montana-British Columbia League and had a successful season making it to the league final (we're yet unable to track down all the playoff results). But, we have game reports and details on a couple of tournaments, including a big 12-team event in Kimberley and the season kick-off event, the Creston Apple Blossom Tournament As usual, the roster page includes the East Kootenay additions. In the lineup for Troy, MT, against Kimberley was future major leaguer Ed Bouchee (right).
Among the Spokane stars to be lured to BC to suit up here was ace pitcher Curt Bloomquist (left) who pitched some tournament ball for the Kimberley Elks. He's one of the additions to the 1951 BC Photo Gallery.
Jack Spring (right) of Spokane (who pitched both for and against Trail in 1951) went on to a 17 year career in the pros including parts of eight seasons in the major leagues with Cleveland, Washington, Philadelphia, the Angels, the Cubs, St. Louis and Boston.
Among the entries for 1952 are, of course, the game reports (note the no-hitter by Ike Bodin), including some games at Libby, Montana and tournaments at Windermere and Nelson. The rosters are updated throughout the years presented.
The pattern continues for 1953, with game reports, (note Elgin Smith's no-hitter), photos, rosters, and tournament additions (Trail, Kimberley, Nelson, Golden).
Among the stars for Kimberley, now the Kimberley Hotel, was still young right-hander Eric "Ike" Bodin who had linked up with Kimberley in 1950 and would go on to be ace of the Kimberley mound corps.
This is part of the coverage of the Kimberley Bulletin in 1954.
The 1954 team, now called the Dynamos, was part of the Northwest International League with five Spokane entries. The season is well covered with game reports, photos, and tournaments (including the big Kimberley event and a Junior tournament at Golden) and there's even a pretty good list for the rosters.
The page above is re-done and presented on the BC Snapshot page (Les Lilley, left, is among the photos).
in 1955, the Dynamos hook up with Creston and three American teams, Bonner's Ferry ID, Libby and Troy, Montana in the Western International League. Lots of game reports, photos, rosters and tournaments (Windermere and the Junior event at Edgewater).
We're still searching for more information on 1956 East Kootenay baseball, but still we have some game reports and rosters.
1957 saw six BC terms form the East Kootenay Senior League (Cranbrook Lumbermen, Creston Cruisers, Fernie Falcons, Kimberley Dynamos, Kimberley Sorensen’s Hobos, and Michel-Natal Red Sox) You'll find the usual game reports, rosters, and tournaments (including the key Kimberley and Windermere events).
The East Kootenay circuit increased to seven teams for the 1958 season with the addition of Eureka, Montana and Windermere (with Michel-Natal dropping out.) - game reports, rosters, tournaments (Kimberley, Windermere & Fernie). Also happy to discover some statistics for 1958, albeit only the pitching stats.
It was back down to six teams, just the BC squads for the 1959 season of the East Kootenay League. Lots of game reports, rosters, the Kimberley Tournament and both batting and pitching stats, but only for the Dynamos.
And on to the 1960s, with the East Kootenay League down to four teams, Cranbrook Cubs, Creston Cruisers,
Kimberley Dynamos, and Kimberley Hobos. Along with the game reports this year, we have a list of those selected to the All-Star team, plus the usual rosters
What a treat to discover a team photo, in colour no less, of the 1960 Kimberley Dynamos.
Back row (L to R) Chuck McCarthy, Miles Descharnais (on loan from Cranbrook Cubs), Dan Calles, Elmer Garinger, Les Lilley, Buzz Mellor, Eric Bodin, Carlo Johanson, Joe Connors, Al Roemer, Ken McTeer (out of action with injury)
Front row (L to R) Garnet Bannatyne (team statistician), Dougie MacDonald, Alan Fabro, Del Renso, Jim Crewe, Sam Calles, Andy Drobot (another pickup from Cranbrook Cubs), Jody Chesham, Ray McNiven (manager), Ken Smith (trainer)
Extreme front – Joel Smith (batboy)
Another change in the makeup of the East Kootenay circuit occurred for 1961 as Creston dropped out and the Nelson Outlaws came aboard.
This one took us awhile in checking out a few names - Tymchyna, Steadman, Garinger, Descharnais, Morasco. Game reports, rosters, tournaments (Kimberley, Fernie). You'll also note a couple of photos of junior stars (Miles Descharnais (left) and Ron Seredick) in the BC Gallery.
That's Ike Bodin (right), a photo duplicated in the 1961 BC Snapshots.
The 1962 season (with Coleman Cubs replacing Nelson) in the East Kootenay League) is well covered with game reports (including the All-Stars), rosters, and the big tournaments at Kimberley, Fernie and the Apple Blossom event at Creston.
In the 1962 Snapshots we have a couple of East Kootenay photos, one of Ike Bodin and rival manager Dave McLary and another of Bodin himself.
And, we're up to 1963 when a combined Kimberley team, the Combines, showed up in the Spokane International Twilight League with another Canadian entry, the Trail Smoke Eaters. Game reports, rosters and the Invermere Tournament.
One of the big stories in Kimberley baseball was catcher Alan Fabro (left) signing a pro contract to play in the Pittsburgh system. The 1963 BC Snapshots page has a larger photo of Fabro.
25 February, 2021
This has taken a few months to update and complete, but the Player Lists (1900 to 1979) are now posted. Whew.
With the latest additions, we're up to more than 72,000 names in all and we just can't seem to stop adding in new ones !
The last batch of updates involved many thousands of changes, adds, consolidations, deletions and spelling corrections.
Thanks to former player and now very helpful researcher and Trail, BC correspondent Lou DeRosa for some updates on names & spellings. And, of course, our Rich Necker has been doing amazing work for years to help keep these lists in order.
And kudos to Paul Allen, an Intercounty stalwart of the era, for an addition to the Ontario Snapshots, one for 1961 which includes Hamilton star Larry Cunningham.
All the way back to 1918, we've uncovered a photo of Bill Marshall of the Calgary Cubs.
We've likely griped a few times about the lack of photos of Vancouver and Victoria players, so really pleased to hear from the daughter of former Victoria star Terry Karpiuk. Natalie is going to dig around through the photo albums to see what she can find. I mentioned to her the difficulty we had in finding this single photo of her dad in the Victoria papers.
And, on this one, we're trying to ID not just the players, but the team and maybe the sport ! This is from Mike Bakaway's daughter Lisa who provided earlier photos of his dad with Kelowna and other BC teams in the late 1940s and into the 1950s.
What is the name of the team - El Donado or maybe El Dorado?
Don't these look like softball uniforms?
Is that ball a baseball or softball?
Year? League? We're lost on this one.
21 February, 2021
With thanks to Cathie Pavlik, the granddaughter of a former Kelowna player, Tom Treadgold, we have some photos from 1922.
From the team photo of the Kelowna Elks we've extracted an individual snapshot of Treadgold another with one for the 1922 BC Gallery.
And we have a little news on the Kelowna & District League of 1922 (including the teams in the circuit), including a report on the game for the championship.
Cathie has also sent along another team photo (see below), quite likely Kelowna, but unsure of the year. Ideas?
Great to hear from former Lower Mainland player Pete Thiessen who send along some clippings and prompted us to begin looking at the Pacific Coast Junior League of the 1970s.
We've started with the teams and some game reports for 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978. It appears the league did not operate in 1979. The 1971,1972 & 1973 seasons have the bulk of the game reports so far, including a full wrap on the Canadian Junior championship tournament for 1971 and 1972. In the process we added a couple of photos to the Saskatchewan Gallery of 1971 of junior players and photo of the 1972 junior champs, Windsor, arriving home.
Left - Roger Doe (left) and Phil Schmidt of the Windsor Mic Macs celebrate the winning of the Canadian Junior championship.
So far, we've built some rosters for 1971, 1972 and 1973 and there's even a junior league photo in the 1975 BC Snapshots. .
We also updated the main yearly pages with listings of additional leagues and teams, mainly from 1950 to 1979.
We were missing a game in the 1923 Saskatoon Exhibition Tournament, but no longer ! Rich has dug out some details on the missing contest, along with some roster additions.
Much thanks to our Lou DeRosa for helping to sort out the listings for the Mailey brothers of BC. We've managed to consolidate eight listings to just three - Jim, Leo and Owen - and arrange the years played. They'll show up when we soon post our updated Player Lists.
Stumbled onto another photo of Dirk Gibbons, (left), a star of the ManDak League of the 1950s, one of the many Black players from the States to make a mark on the prairies.
In the 1973 Alberta Snapshot, that's Red Deer's Roger Pozzo sliding into second, successfully, with a steal.
The BC Snapshots of 1976 adds a photo of Surrey manager Norm Caig in an argument with the umpire.
More tournament updates, including a 1961 Junior Tournament at Calgary and the 1955 Camrose Tournament.
We lucked into a much better copy of a 1931 photo of the Trail Baseball Club, the Canadian-Washington International League champions. Names too !
Also noted is a photo of the 1953 Lethbridge Niseis of the Big Six League in Southern Alberta. Unfortunately no names to go with faces in this one, but we do have a list of most of the players. The photo is from the Nobby Hayashi collection at the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre. Nobby was a long time fixture in New Denver.
Carrot River, is a little town about a 3 1/2 hour drive northeast of Saskatoon.
in 1950 it had a population of 800, well a few more for the summer as six players on its 1950 team had come up from Winona State Teachers College in Minnesota.
Thanks to Daphne Powell for sending along a newspaper column which she discovered in the Winona, Minnesota, Daily News of 1950.
"The Carrot River Loggers of Canada, sporting six baseball players from Winona State Teachers college have posted a 15-5 record and won four tournaments in the last month.
That's the latest report coming from Felix Percuoco, catcher who joined the club just recently. The Loggers have Percuoco, Lou Bailey, Andy Swota, Pete Polus, Barney Fox and Alex Rentz.
In tournament play, the Loggers have won $4,800 in prize money and have led their backers to think again that they won't go $6,000 in the hole as expected.
Swota has been named director of the club and when not pitching plays first base. Polus who had a bad time this spring has improved 100 percent and is developing good control as well as a sinker. Before coming up with a sore wing, Bailey pitched against and beat the best team in the province July 5.
Fox who starred at first for the Warriors has been gaining fame all over the Canadian area. Canadian scribes rank him as the outstanding shortstop in the province. He has hit consecutively in all 20 games.
Percuoco, in a letter to L.A. McCown, Athletic Director of W.S.T.C., adds that the calibre of ball is much better than expected with an influx of college players and good Negro teams."
Here's the other Kelowna team photo. 1920s ?
And a couple of on-line surprises. Left, thanks to Bradley Foote, the crest from a jack of the 1953 team from Stavely, Alberta. Right - from Max Weder, crest from the 1951 North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Beavers.
12 February, 2021
This stream of consciousness should help to clear a little backlog of material.
Murray Ross (left) joins the "batboy" contributors club here with team photos and rosters of Vauxhall, Alberta, senior teams from the 1950s, the Verdants of 1954 and the Jets of 1955, the Alberta champions.
Earlier, we had posted a team photo of the 1956 edition. Among other things, Murray also helped sort out which of the Blaney's - Harvey or Ken - suited up in certain seasons for the team.
Vauxhall has remained a baseball town over the years, especially with the establishment of the Vauxhall Baseball Academy.
You know, of course, of the former batboy of the Florida Cubans of prairie ball, our Rich Necker (right) who continues his stellar sleuthing to pump out stories and photos for our little operation.
And, Henry "Red Eye" Ropertz, the batboy for a time with the legendary Delisle Gems. He's made a splendid contribution, in particular, with the stories of the 1934 Western tour by major leaguers and the 1935 tour of the Dai Nippon Japanese team.
Finally. We know it's Mike Bakaway. We are so pleased daughter Lisa has been in touch to send along a few photos and confirmation of the spelling and some information on the former prairie pitcher and West Coast player of the 1940s and 1950s, mainly in British Columbia.
An individual photo has been added to the 1949 and 1950 BC Photo Galleries and the larger photo, from which it was extracted, is in the 1950 BC Snapshots. There's also a picture in the 1957 BC Snapshots of Bakaway and fellow moundsman Bill Gillespie, a potent lefty-right combo for Maillardville.
Bakaway, a left-hander, appears to have begun his career in Saskatchewan, then in southern BC with Trail before joining up with the famous Bentley family and their Delisle team in Saskatchewan. He played for the Kelowna Red Sox for two seasons before moving to Mission, BC, for a couple of seasons before a five year stint with Maillardville.
Chasing information on Bakaway, we managed to add games and details to the Vancouver game reports for the Dewdney League in the 1950s, including a report of Bakaway 10-0 at one point in the 1952 season. The other Dewdney reports are for 1951 and 1954.
Oh, also for 1952 we've added in the Haney, BC, Tournament on the Tournament page.
Among the other spelling changes, Curtis Burkhead (not Burkehead) of the 1978 Barrhead Blue Jays. Burkhead, had come to the Jays from San Diego State University where he had fashioned a 10-0 record with a 2.10 ERA in college ball.
And, Derrel Dixon of Kimberley !
We had the surname right, but a variety of spellings for the first name.
Thank you baseball moms ! For the scrapbooks. From Derrel's mom we now have some photos and game reports from Kimberley junior and senior ball of the 1950s and 1960s.
This photo from when Derrel played junior ball in 1954 with the Kimberley Hobos.
We caught (with the help of eagle eye of Lou DeRosa) a few other misspellings - Dale Tilleman, Mike Teahen, Larry Kissock, John D’Arcangelo, Norm Caig, Lloyd McLellan, Albert Merlo and the Garingers of Kimberley, Beebe of Creston, Caravetta of Fernie and Art Vandel, Carman and many more.
And, I think we've sorted out the various Bernie Neis entries. The former major league outfielder who honed his skills in the old Western Canada League with the Saskatoon Quakers in 1919 was not the Bernie Neis of the late 1920s and 1930s of Alberta baseball. That was Virgil "Bernie" Neis, a pitcher who plied his trade with such teams as Nacmine, Calgary, Ponoka and Stavely (even Estevan in Saskatchewan one season). Thus, the four or five separate entries are now down to two !
Thanks to Herb Morrel, the Ontario Intercounty League statistician, we have some game reports for 1967. Future Canadian Hall of Famer Ron Stead and Bob McKillop were two of the stars. 
Collector Max Weder, a good friend of our little site, keeps coming up with interesting acquisitions from the prairies. This one a crest from a team from Plumas, Manitoba.
No idea yet of the year, or the competition. But, if you can help out with information on Plumas baseball, we'd love to hear from you.
Happened upon another team photo of the legendary Delisle Gems, the team of the famous Bentleys, including hockey stars Max and Doug Bentley. This one (the bottom photo) is from their win in the inaugural Lloydminster Tournament.
There's a few other team photos too - the 1954 Penhold, Alberta, RCAF, the 1966 Guelph, Ontario, C-JOYS, the Ontario champions, and the 1959 Brantford Red Sox champions of the Intercounty League of Ontario. The first of five straight titles.
More bits and pieces, the 1966 Ontario Gallery has shortstop Dick Bondy and Paul Giroux of Guelph, the 1955 Alberta Gallery now includes Cy Ing of Red Deer (left), 1961 BC Snapshots has a pic of Ike Bodin, a long time star in the East Kootenays, 1968 BC Gallery - Bob Schwab of Vancouver, 1958 Alberta Snapshots has John Makos of Red Deer, and 1954 Alberta has a revised photo of Dave Martin. And, one we missed last time, a second 1978 Snapshot photo of Nanaimo's Paul LeBlanc.
All the way back to 1912, we have one further ID in the team photo of the Red Deer Eskimos, it's the mascot - Bill Hurley Jr.
From the 1953 Saskatchewan League, the team jacket and cap of the Saskatoon Gems, photo courtesy of Ralph Mabee's daughter Kim.
We lucked out in chasing some Alberta names from the mid 1950s running into the complete statistics for the 1955 Central Alberta League.
This was way beyond dominant. The Barrhead Blue Jays captured the famous Lacombe Tournament in 1979 crushing Red Deer 21-1 in the final after posting 5-inning, stopped by the "mercy rule" 13-2 and 14-0 victories in earlier matches. Jays outscored their opponents 48-3. They slammed nine home runs in the 19 innings of play. Randy Rasmussen, selected as the MVP, rapped a three-run homer in the first inning of the final and added another three-run shot in the second. Lots of details added to the tourney report.
Barrhead, without league play in 1979, had quite the summer on the tournament trail, winning their own event, sharing top money at Kindersley when rain prevented the final, finalist at Edmonton and Kamloops, winning Lacombe, finishing second at the Canadian Senior Championship and losing only at Eston.
08 February, 2021
You know when we started our little enterprise the 1980s had "just happened" so we didn't think much of including the 1980s and 1990s and beyond. Now, of course, that looks short-sighted, but we've had so much to cover in the 1900 to 1979 period that the more recent material may just have to wait !
Our Rich Necker has dug around for updates to our 1979 material, including game reports from Manitoba and the Red-Boine League, along with several lesser circuits.
In British Columbia, there are reports on the Pacific Metro League, and in Island ball the Victoria Senior Amateur League and Mid-Island Senior League.
The Tournament page has additions of lots of detail on the Kamloops Invitational Tournament, the Canadian Junior "A" Tournament, BC Senior "B" Championship and Western Canada Senior "B" Championship.
We've added a couple of new snapshots on the Saskatchewan page along with revised photos featuring Ken Wiebe, Cal Thompson, Pete Maus and Dwayne Scott.
The Manitoba snapshots feature Mark Fisher and Dennis Anderson. On the Alberta page its Tom Bast of Red Deer.
There are updates as well in the Photo Galleries, in Alberta there's Pete Duncan (left), Ken Nelson Jr. (right) and Tom Bast of the Red Deer Border Players, Randy Gregg of the Edmonton Tigers and Wayne Babych of the Edmonton Cardinals.
Three players from Nanaimo have been added to the 1979 BC Gallery - Terry Kleisinger, Al Hill and Tom Boe.
Roy Kemp is the add to the Saskatchewan gallery.
As always the roster page reflects all the additions from the game reports and photos.
26 January, 2021
What did you have to do to get your picture in the paper in 1978?
July 4, 1978. Mike Teahen cracked five homers in a double-header ... no individual photo (also had a 28 game hitting streak) ... still unable to find a photo in the regional papers (an appeal out to the local Barrhead paper).
July 23, Ken Wiebe, Canadian kid from Saskatchewan who played at Fresno State, slugged FIVE home runs as his Stony Plain Dusters hit a total of TEN in a 14-12 win over Red Deer. The losers hit five homers. No photo. (Winning run scored on a single in the eighth inning !).
There's a little of everything in the 1978 update.
There are new and revised game reports mainly for Manitoba, Alberta and the three regions of British Columbia - Lower Mainland, the Island and the Interior
Lots of new photos primarily in the Manitoba Gallery (Gerald Barr, Florent Robidoux, Brian Domes, Dale Harvey, Bill Derlago, Boris "Yogi" 
Happychuk (left), John Hindle, Don Maskiw, Brock McConachy, Carl Watson ) , BC (Ted Boe, Steve Dalman, Jim Davidge, Al Hill, Gary Yakelashek) and Alberta (Rod Booker (right), Gord Graves) and the BC snapshots (including photos with Al Hill, Paul LeBlanc and Gerry and Eric Lister) and one showing Mike Teahen in the Alberta snaps.
There's a hint of the stats for the Mid-Island League of BC, just one team so far, but a start.
Of course, there are greatly expanded rosters showing for almost all teams on the roster page.
Lots of new entries on the tournament page, including the Birtle, Belmont tourneys and Intermediate playoffs in Manitoba, Lake Cowichan in BC, the BC Senior "B" Championships and Western Canada Championships.
And, happy to include a couple of new team pictures as well, the East Manitoba All-Stars, Western Canada Senior "B" Champions and the Mid-Island All-Stars of Vancouver Island.
We discovered another two Western Canada players who advanced to the majors and have just begun their entries in the major league section, Mark Lee (Red Deer 1975), and Rod Booker (Stony Plain 1978).
Pleased to hear from writer Evan Katz who was a tad confused by our major league section (he was tracking a player from the Basin League who showed up on our Player List as having advanced to the majors, but then wasn't noted in the major leaguers section. Yes, we ought to have noted that our major leaguers section is for those who actually played in Western Canada and we just haven't gotten around to the rest of Canada let alone the Basin League or the Minny Leagues. And, if seems the player wasn't noted in the story on the Basin League page. That story is one republished from the Rapid City Journal and it seems they simply missed noting some major leaguers in the story. .
18 January, 2021
Yikes. Bob Bridges, the ace lefty of the New Westminster Auroras in tournament play went 17 innings struck out 21 and ... lost 2-1 on an error. It's among the games covered in our 1977 games report.
We have coverage of the Pacific Metro League in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, the Victoria Senior Amateur League and the Mid-Island League, and the beginnings of coverage in the Interior.
There's full coverage (with pictures) of the Alberta Major League along with tidbits on the Wheat Belt League, Sunburst League and Southern Alberta Junior League.
Lots of games and leagues in Manitoba, with complete coverage of the Manitoba Senior League along with snippets on the East Manitoba League, the South-Central West, South-Central East, Yellowhead League, South West League and Interlake League, Manitoba Junior League and Intermediate ball in Manitoba.
The tournament page has been updated with events from the Birtle, Manitoba tournament, along with the BC Senior Amateur Championship, the Surrey Sports Tournament, Souris Civic Holiday Tournament, Belmont International Tournament, Alberta Senior B, BC Senior B and Western Canada Senior B tournaments.
This 1977 update features a few new photos including, in the Alberta Gallery, former major leaguer Alan Gallagher (left) who suited up with future major leaguer Gord Heimueller in Red Deer, Alberta, and Jim Peterson also of the Central Alberta city. Heimueller is featured on the Snapshot page as well as Red Deer Border shortstop Terry Hendley. .... Mike Garcia's dramatic homer run, a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth for a victory at the Lacombe Tournament.
In the Manitoba Gallery we've added in pitcher Mike Majcher (right) of the Brandon Cloverleafs who had parlayed his diamond talents to Junior College ball in Texas and then Indiana State University. The BC Gallery has Lon Miles of Port Alberni.
There are four additions to the BC Snapshots, including photos which include Jack MacDonald of Nanaimo and Rich Houghton of Surrey Sports in Pacific Metro baseball action in Vancouver.
And, of course, the roster page, features dozens of additional names.
14 January, 2021
Over his two summers in Manitoba, 24-year-old right-hander Dan Kaupla from Fullerton College in California and two years of pro ball in the Tigers' system, was nearly unbeatable, at least in the regular season.
He compiled a 21-1 mark, including 12-0 in 1976 pitching for the McAuley Blazers of the Manitoba Senior League. His story, and Bill Armstrong's 23 strikeout game & a four homer game by Rod Fallis, are among those dug up by our Rich Necker in the game reports of Manitoba ball for 1976.
The Manitoba report also includes coverage of the two South-Central Leagues, Border League, South-West League, Intermediate League, Interlake League, Yellowhead League, Manitoba Junior League.
Among the additions to the Manitoba Photo Gallery are pics of Chuck Lefley, Gerry Falk, Rick Bohonis and Jeff Sheardown. And there's an image of Riverside slugger Mark Fisher on the Snapshot page. On the stats page are the final results from the Manitoba Intermediate League.
Sexsmith, Alberta, with a population of all of 770 in 1976 was able to import a pair of players from California's San Mateo College for the summer, one of them a star hurler - Barry Silver, who tossed a no-hitter to give the Rainiers the Wheat Belt title. It's among the Alberta game reports which concentrate on the Alberta Major Baseball League (along with lots of photos right among the game stories).
The Alberta Photo Gallery adds in Terry Teale, Randy Gregg and Gary Randall of the Edmonton Tigers and Joe Cardle of Lethbridge.
On the Alberta snapshot page are photos celebrating the win by the tiny town of Czar in an inter-provincial playoff. It was a likely career moment for Daryl Charlton who belted a homer in the bottom of the ninth for the win. There are also images of Randy Gregg of Edmonton and an action shot from a Red Deer - Edmonton contest.
Over on Vancouver Island, Roy Moretti had quite the season compiling a 10-3 record in the Victoria Senior League. A few game reports are also included for the Mid-Island League. Final stats from the Victoria loop are post on the stats page. The game reports cover the season as they do for Vancouver's Pacific Metro League. So far, the Interior has a brief wrap up on the Quesnel Senior League and Bulkley Valley circuit.
Our new 1976 BC Photo Gallery begins with images of Ted Springenatic, Gerry Lister, Bill Bestwick and Greg Kendrick. The latest additions to the Snapshots include photos of Don Gurniak, Bruce Willgress and Stu Wintrob.
Among the new tournament reports are the Birtle Canada Day event, Quesnel's Billy Barker Tournament, the BC Senior Amateur Tournament, the Western Canada Intermediate Tournament and the Canadian Senior Amateur Playdowns. Of course, the roster page reflects all the new additions.
The 1976 home page has the addition of a photo of the program of London of the Ontario Intercounty League.
13 January, 2021
Thank you Herb !
Herb Morell so helpful in updating our roster lists of players from the Intercounty League of Southern Ontario, has assisted in filling in some dates and names on the 1966 game reports for the circuit. For us, it's been one of the most difficult to track down as key newspapers are not online.
And with thanks to Max Weder's amazing collection we have a few more photos from the Intercounty loop. The 1954 Ontario Photo 
Gallery now includes Ed Steele (left), Art O'Connor and Wray Upper. The Snapshot Page of the same year has photos of Negro League veterans Mel Duncan and Gentry "Jeep" Jessup who (along with Steele) made the trek to Canada as the Negro Leaguers began to decline after Jackie Robinson led the way for Black players in regular, organized baseball.
The 1970 Ontario Gallery has a number of photos of London Avcos of the Intercounty loop - Norm Aldridge, Barry Boughner, Neil Bradbury, Ty Crawford, Bob Deakin, Dave Hall, Joe Hough, Mike Lerner, Roy McKay, Brian Murphy .
Of course, Rich Necker had more to offer, a team photo of the 1961 Kimberley Angels Junior team courtesy of former player Jody Chesham.
11 January, 2021
Well, we do get excited over these little forward steps, but it's just so neat to make this progress. Thank you Rich & Lou !
Am thinking specifically about Lou DeRosa's contact with Ray Crosato (left) & Rich Necker's continuing digging to unearth some individual photos of the 1975 Vancouver Budgets of the Vancouver Metro League.
I
n the bunch are a couple we've long chased - Crosato and Larry Webster (right) ! Along with that duo in the BC Photo Gallery are Pete Blanchard, Russ Lombardo, Brian Hall, Dennis Zinio, Tom Bird and Gord Lowery along with BC Interior players Wayne Inglis and Jim Watson.
Action photos from the Canadian Senior Baseball Tournament are posted in the BC Snapshots as the tourney was played in Vancouver. The page also includes photos of Blair Kubicek, Russ Lombardo, Brad McArthur and Al Watson from other competitions.
Tucked away on the Alberta Snapshot page is an item on Tom Biko, a Medicine Hat teenager, who went on to pro ball success. A pair of right-handers of the Edmonton Tigers of the Alberta Major Baseball League, Ray Brown and Wayne Kirby are also featured on the page.
The Manitoba Snapshots include pictures of Terry Lynd, Dale Lowes, Jon Langston and Jerry Coppicus while the Manitoba Photo Gallery now has individual pictures of Gerry Falk, Doug McPhail, Ken Buchy and Bill Derlago.
Manitoba remained a hotbed of baseball activity. The Manitoba game reports (California import pitcher Dan Kaupla was a major force with a 9-1 record) are extensive covering the Manitoba Senior League in the main but with coverage of the Interlake League, the South-Central loop, Manitoba Intermediate League and the Manitoba Junior League.
The BC game reports include both the Metro League of Vancouver and the Western International League in which a team from Burnaby competed with teams from Washington. In the BC Interior there is coverage of the Quesnel League and for Vancouver Island, the Mid-Island reports add to the Victoria Senior League game studies.
While the Alberta game reports concentrate on the Alberta Major League, there is coverage of the Wheat Belt League, the Sunburst circuit and the SaskAlta loop. It's the summer former major leaguer (and author) Jim Bouton suited up for the Calgary Jimmies. The Alberta Major League statistics have been updated to reflect the item found on a dispute over who should have been the batting champion.
In the Intermediate circuit, we've tracked down some statistics as well (Boris Happychuk hit .500 to claim the batting title !). There's also stats of BC's Quesnel League.
Among the entries on the Tournament page is the report on the BC Senior Championship played at Quesnel, the Western Canada Intermediate Championship Tournament, the Manitoba Intermediate playoffs,
Of course, with all the entries, the roster page has a substantial number of additions.
07 January, 2021
A follow-up to the post on 1974 of Tuesday to note the addition of statistics for the Victoria Senior Amateur League.
When about to upload the stats, I noted the spelling of the leading pitcher of the league that year, Tom Sallaway of Victoria Farmers. I was reminded of a conversation with Tom of years past on the spelling of his name. The papers of the day, both in Victoria and the prairies (he pitched in North Battleford, Saskatchewan for five years in the late 1960s and early 1970s) were pretty well split whether it was "Sallaway" or "Salloway".
We've decided to make the change to Sallaway throughout the site (published reports seemed to alternate Sallaway and Salloway). .
The change reflects the entry for Pete Sallaway of the 1920s.
We also slip in some new pictures in the Ontario Photo Gallery in 1965 with images of three members of the London Pontiacs - Joe Nash, Brian Pearen, Rolf Scheel.
05 January, 2021
The 1974 season in Alberta featured one amazing offensive explosion from an unlikely source.
Wayne McKee (seen here in a late 70s, early 80s photo) was brought out of a short retirement by the Red Deer Generals as a relief pitcher and sometimes outfielder.
Well on the 13th of June, 1974 at Great Chief Park in Red Deer, Alberta, McKee had a game for the ages. He cracked out five hits, a grand slam homer and a three-run shot plus a double and two singles good for 13 runs batted in as the Generals shaded the Edmonton Blockers 26-9.
This is just one of the goodies uncovered by our Rich Necker in providing some notes on baseball in Western Canada in the summer of 1974.
The Alberta game reports concentrate on the Alberta Major Baseball League but provide a glimpse, and some rosters, for teams of the Wheat Belt League, Sunburst League and Southern Alberta loop.
We've added a couple of photos (including John "Boom Boom" Self) to the Alberta Snapshots and the Alberta Photo Gallery now includes Bruce Gullett, Chuck Arnason and Greg Polis.
The Manitoba game reports, especially the Manitoba Senior League, are detailed and comprehensive and we haven't forgotten photographs with the addition of a Dwayne Kirkup and Souris teammates pic to the Manitoba snapshots and Bill Derlago and Jeff Sheardown to the Manitoba Photo Gallery.
For the BC Lower Mainland, game reports cover the season of the Metro Vancouver League and a bit on the Western International League which had one Canadian club, Burnaby Auroras, along with teams from Washington State.
Game reports provide a full re-run of the 1974 season of the Victoria Senior Amateur League along with information on the Mid-Island League.
For the BC Interior, we have brief notes on baseball in Quesnel and the Bulkley Valley.
The BC Photo Gallery sports some new additions - Bob Burrows, Jim Watson, Joe Watson, Terry Karpiuk, Dan Rogelstad
The tournament page adds in the annual Dominion Day event at Birtle, Manitoba and the results of the BC Senior Championship and the Canadian Senior playoff (along with an action photo from the event).
Of course, the roster page has a lot of additional names.
We even have some additions for baseball in the East, with some photos of players of the Intercounty League of Southern Ontario.
Two prominent names from 1974 were former major leaguer, and 30 game winner, Denny McLain (left) and long-time league star and manager Roy McKay. There's another photo of McLain on the Snapshot Page. [The photos are from the London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.]
Not sure if I previously noted the Ontario photo gallery of 1971.
02 January, 2021
OK, let's pick up the additions with coverage of 1973.
What's new for 1973 includes lots of detail in the game reports of the Manitoba Senior (and other Manitoba circuits) Leagues, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland (including the Metro League & the Western International League), Victoria & the Island and the BC Interior (with Quesnel highlighted). We've added a few bits as well to the Alberta game reports, and even managed to dig out a few statistics from the Wheat Belt League in the province's north.
As expected, expanded rosters from the research is now shown on the roster page.
The BC Photo Gallery gains some additions, Lynn Bylund, Gord Pladson, Terry Karpiuk, Dan Gurniak, and Jim Renmeester. Pladson's Gallery photo was extracted from the one on the Snapshot Page. There's also an action shot of Victoria Senior League play.
The Manitoba Gallery shows additions of Dave Rottman, Grant Everard and Bob Fitchner while the Alberta Snapshot page has photos of Steve Purcell and Lorne Niven.
A revised photo of Bruce Bremer is now included in the Saskatchewan gallery.
And, we managed to find details on two tournaments, both in Manitoba, the 93rd Annual Birtle Sports Day and the Brandon Kinsmen Tournament.
And, the 1973 home page shows additional leagues that we've found operated that season.
Last spring college ball in the states lost another giant of the sport in Bob Bennett, the former Fresno State player and coach who died at the end of May at the age of 86.
A catcher, Bennett played in Canada with teams in Regina, Kamsack and Saskatoon in the 1950s. Later he'd send dozens and dozens of Fresno players to the prairies for a summer of baseball in Canada.
He spend thirty-four years as the head coach of the Fresno State Bulldogs and posted 26 consecutive winning seasons. He ranked seventh in NCAA Division 1 history in career victories with more than 1,300.
He was named a Conference Coach of the Year 14 times and the NCAA Coach of the Year in 1988 by The Sporting News.
His uniform number 26 was the first to be retired by Fresno State.
17 December, 2020
Thank you Herb !
Herb Morell, the long-time statistician of Ontario's Intercounty League has been of incredible assistance in a major upgrade to the Ontario roster lists, especially the team rosters from 1958 to 1972.
Both the Player Lists and each of the roster pages (1958-1972) reflect the updates.
The product the Kitchener-Waterloo area, has been a fan of the Intercounty circuit since the 1960s and along with his post as IBL Statistician Herb is also the editor of the league's Guide/Record book.
His thorough and well-presented reports are a treat. Keeping track is in his blood - he's also the chief game statistician for Wilfrid Laurier University football and his day job is Director of Administration for the Ontario Hockey League, overseeing League statistics department and drawing the League schedule, among other things. At one point he served as Assistant Director of PR for the Toronto Blue Jays before joining the Ontario Hockey League on a fill-time basis.
14 December, 2020
An addition to the 1972 coverage to for our folks in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia.
Rich Necker and Lou DeRosa have game reports, tournaments, rosters, some statistics, and some photos from the 1972 season.
Seems Wayne Plummer, (right) who went on to play in Saskatchewan ball, was the top hurler that season winning seven of eight starts for Nelson of the Kootenay Major League.
In searching for a photo of Plummer we discovered he was a Vancouver product who played a couple of pro seasons in the Oakland system, under Russell W. Plummer. He was discovered while bat boy for the Vancouver Mounties of the Pacific Coast League.
13 December, 2020
There is lots to like in our expanded coverage of the 1972 season on the prairies. Rich Necker has dug into the newspaper archives to present game reports from the Manitoba Senior Baseball League, 
including both the Western and Eastern Divisions. In the Photo Gallery there are new/revised photos of Dave Rottman (left) , Marv Hollender and Joe Parks. There's even a couple of additions to the Manitoba Snapshots,
The Tournament page now includes reports on the Birtle and Brandon, Manitoba events along with the BC Senior Tournament and the Canadian Senior Championships.
Of course, the Roster page has dozens of additions to reflect the new game reports.
We're fortunate enough to have located more statistics and now present stats for the Victoria Senior League and the Manitoba Senior League.
The game reports for BC cover the Vancouver area with news on both the Industrial League and the Pacific International League. New reports for the Interior include the Quesnel area and for Vancouver Island there are reports for both the Victoria Senior League and a bit on the Mid-Island section.
The 1972 BC Photo Gallery gets additional images for Bob Gassoff, Bob Bridges (right), Dick Gibb, John Hogg, Terry Karpiuk, Jeff Oscarson, George Pakos, Barry Harvey, Doug Hill, Russ McKee and Gord Strongman.
On the BC Snapshot page we've added one of Bridges, long-time star of Kamloops ball, Bob Bowles, Tony DeCillia and others, including the MVPs of the Quesnel Tournament.
There's even a couple of additions to the Alberta Snapshots with Cliff Ballou and Wayne McKee featured.
Two new team photos have been added with pics of the 1972 Camrose Cubs the Alberta Baseball Association champions, and Billy Barker of Quesnel, the Quesnel Tournament champs.
And, thanks to renewed contact with former player and coach John Noce and Steve Callahan, another of Noce's San Mateo, California, Bulldogs to play in Western Canada, we have some tournament and photo updates, including a revised pic of the San Mateo college squad which toured Western Canada in '72.
26 November, 2020
Through the diligent sleuthing of Lou DeRosa and Rich Necker we present expanded coverage of baseball in the BC Interior in the 1960s and 1970s.
Among the updates, are details on games for the 1960, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969 seasons of the Okanagan Mainline League, a key circuit in the BC Interior.
In 1962 we've added a note about East Kootenay Junior ball.
The 1965 game reports in the Interior include contests in the Can-Am League and the West Kootenay Junior League.
In 1966 we also present game reports for the Kootenay Senior League and the West Kootenay Junior circuit along with tournament reports for the Nelson, Penticton and Kamloops events.
The West Kootenay Junior League has the playoff game reports for 1967, along with team rosters and Lou has dug out the final statistics for the 1967 West Kootenay Senior circuit and details on the 1967 Kamloops Labour Day Tournament. And there's coverage of the BC and Alberta Junior playoffs in 1968.
Statistics are also posted for the 1969 Okanagan Mainline League.
Lots of new photos too. The BC Snapshots of 1966 display additions, including one which puzzled us for awhile (with a lefty catcher) before realizing the paper had reversed the photo. The 1968 BC Snaps has one new photo featuring Reg Main. The Alberta Snapshot page of 1966 adds a photo of Joe Ferguson, then of the Kindersley Klippers, en route to a career of more than a dozen years in the majors.
We even slipped in a photo of Gord Strongman (left) for 1962 while he was still playing Babe Ruth ball in Victoria. In May of 1962, the 15-year-old Strongman tossed a dream game - a seven-inning no-hitter with 21 strikeouts ! He was two walks (the first two batters he faced) and a hit batsman away from a perfect game. His mound opponent, 13-year-old Doug Hannan allowed just one hit but four errors led to three runs as he lost 3-0.
The 1963 BC Gallery adds Gordie Beecroft, 1965 Larry Roberge, Bryan Dubasov, Denny Larson 1967 Ray Fujikawa and Butch Deadmarsh, 1968 Bud Atkins, Dennis Ferrey and George Makortoff. 1969 BC includes another version of a Jerry Reimer (right) photo.
And the BC Photo Gallery of 1966 itself is adorned with more than a dozen new faces including Tex Anderson, Mushy Anselmo, Eddie Begg, Larry Brandt, Howie Brost, John Drysdale, Gary Duthie, Dave Fisher, Mickey Fitzpatrick. Ray Fujikawa, Morey Johnston, Larry Kissock, Barry McGillivray, Larry McKay, Dave Murphy, Bob Profili, Randy Rota, Butch Simpson.
Onto the 1970s and again we have game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League for 1970 and 1971 with the addition of the Quesnel Senior League in 1971 and Chris Swaine and Eddie Begg pictures in the 1970 BC Gallery and a Joe Watson and Dave Murphy photo to the 1971 BC Photo Gallery. Details are now posted for the 1970 and 1971 Kamloops Labour Day Tournaments.
Roster pages from the late 1950s through the early 1970s have seen major updates.
Thanks to Butch McLarty and Herb Morell out East we have additions to the Ontario Photo Gallery, especially 1957 with revised or new photos of Dale Creighton, Billy Dixon, Larry Dixon, Don Mayes, Rod McKay, Don McLennan, the Mendham twins, Dan and Dave, Les Thomas and Billy Zubyk. In 1965, it's John Ambrose, 1967 Court Heinbuch, Bob McKillop and Ron Smith, and, in the new, 1977 Ontario Gallery, a future major league star (left) who started out with the Cambridge Terriers of the Intercounty League and fired a no-hitter - Jesse Orosco.
There's a new Ontario Snapshot page for 1967, with an initial post.
In Alberta, we've chased down the correct season for the team photo of the Beaverlodge Royals, the Wheatbelt League champions of ... 1956. We had originally filed this one away for the "1960s". The photo is from the South Peace Regional Archives and after a bit of research advised them of a slight name correction, Jesse LaFrone to Jesse LaGrone, an American airman with the USAF base in the area who suited up with the Royals.
We've slipped in an additional photo in the Basin League Gallery of 1963, Doug Pautz of Winner.
A couple of spelling corrections across the site - Count Heinbuch (Ontario Intercounty), Bob Davisson (Vernon Luckies), Len Cederholm (Rossland).. And, we lucked into information to combine three Al Hebert listings (from Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC) into one playing for Melville, Saskatoon, Rossland and Peace River.
19 November, 2020
Gotta love this !
In the summer of 1971 our Rich Necker was at the helm of a team of 13-year-olds competing for the provincial Babe Ruth championship at Coquitlam. The Trail team went through undefeated to capture the crown. On the BC Snapshot page, there's a photo of Rich accepting an award for a preliminary event.
And, Lou DeRosa (left), who has been such an asset in tracking down information for our site and a former Necker colleague, was tossing 'em for the Rossland Capilanos of the West Kootenay Senior League in 1971.
Our extensive 1971 update features new game reports from Alberta and the three regions of British Columbia, Vancouver, Victoria and the Island and the Interior (including stories on West Kootenay ball and a list of the All-Stars) along with the page for Tournaments & Exhibitions. The reports provided a source for a major update of the team rosters.
A photo of DeRosa, along with Gary Picone, Barry Seal (far left), Joe Zannusi (near left), Dennis Larson, Rick Brown, Don Szilagyi and some hard to find Okanagan League photos - Jeff Clark, Ed Folk, Ron Gerk, Rod Laitinen, Stubby McLean and Dave Murphy - highlight the entries to the 1971 BC Photo Gallery. And in the snapshots, there's a Rocky Cull action shot and one of the Rossland club rejoicing.
There are photo additions for Alberta (Al McKee, Rick Grant, Tony Bonagofsky, Mel Korte, Clint Fyustro and Leo Gauthier), and one addition to the Alberta Snapshots, a newspaper action photo which includes Don Maxwell and Cliff Ballou of the Red Deer Elks.
There's lots to like about the latest additions for 1971 Manitoba baseball. Game reports for the Manitoba Senior League, East & West Divisions along with accompanying rosters for those circuits plus a half dozen others. The Manitoba Photo Gallery is enhanced with nearly a dozen new individual pictures, including - Frank Bruels (left), Don Werlinger, Bill Cook, Rick Cruise (right), Dave Bender, Bill Chapple, Ron Funk, Don Hunter, Brian Moffat and Les Lisowski. And there's Brock McConachy in the Manitoba Gallery and Snapshots.
Speaking of Lisowski, on the Snapshot Page we've added the story from the USA on his no-hitter for the University of Arizona in 1971 and the photo of his signing a pro contract with the Expos. A third addition is a photo of Ellis Woods of the Hamiota Red Sox.
And, there are some updates to the Tournament Page with stories on the Manitoba Senior Tournament, the Canadian Senior Championship and the annual Birtle Tournament in Manitoba.
16 November, 2020
Is it the 1970s already ?
Prairie left-handers were making quite an impression in college ball in the United States. Les Lisowski of Winnipeg (above right) , recruited by the University of Arizona at Tucson, fired a no-hitter on March 22nd, 1971 as the Wildcats blanked Northern Colorado 5-0. Lisowski, who had pitched just six innings before getting the start, struck out 16 and walked three in facing just 30 batters.
Southpaw Les Ohrn of Dapp, Alberta (above left) won a scholarship to California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) and quickly moved right into the starting rotation as a freshman. On May 9, 1971, he fired a no-hitter against Cal Poly Pomona, winning 1-0 with a run in the top of the ninth. Ohrn walked five, but three of the base runners where thrown out by catcher Robin Bagget. With a 2.24 ERA, Ohrn still holds the second best ERA mark in Mustang history.
There's lots to delve into in our expanded coverage of 1970s baseball on the prairies.
The Manitoba Photo Gallery, 1970 adds in Bob Neufeld, Herb Andres and Blaine Stoughton.
Alberta - Les Ohrn, Pete Czuy, Mel Korte, Don Tiffin.
1970 game reports for the Manitoba Senior League, both West and East Divisions.
The 1970 stats page has the addition of the Steinbach, Manitoba, hitters and pitchers. (And, in a flip back to 1968 we've added in the roster for Steinbach, Manitoba, Millers for that season.)
There are a few reports for the Interior's 1970 Okanagan Mainline League.
The new Alberta, game reports, focus on the Alberta playoffs and Lethbridge.
The 1970 Tournament page now includes the events at Birtle, the Manitoba Senior Championships and the Souris Tournament.
In the 1970 Seine River League of Manitoba, the Woodridge Braves were a power, winning the league championship four consecutive years. The Giroux Athletics were the runners-up.
We managed to find a couple of action photos for the Manitoba Snapshot page one which included both Roy Seidler and Don Belisle of the Seine circuit. Seidler, who played for 38 seasons over four decades compiled an impressive career, winning a spot in the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame. Seidler and Belisle are now also included in the Gallery.
17 October, 2020
Before moving on to our 1969 updates, let me make note of some additions from a slightly earlier period the mid to late 1960s, mainly concerning baseball in British Columbia as Lou DeRosa has been going through old newspaper editions of Kootenay papers.
The 1965 BC Photo Gallery now sports individual photos of Jack Ling, Steve Gustafson, Gary Morris, Keith Healey (left), Larry Kissock (right) Jim Alton, Jack Fowles, Derek McGillivray, Dale Cassell, Gord Beecroft, Don Holmes, Ed Legare and Billy Martin.
The 1965 BC Snapshots now include four new photos all from the southern BC region featuring players from Trail and Rossland.
Then in 1966, we've added to the BC Gallery with Al Doherty and Billy Martin.
There are adds to 1967 ball in the East Kootenay League, including team photos of the Kimberley Angels and Kimberley Tempests. There's even a photo of long-time Kimberley star and manager Dave McLay in the BC Photo Gallery along with Keith Healey
And, for 1968 we offer some reports on junior baseball in Alberta and the West Kootenay area of BC. In addition there are additions to the 1968 BC Photo Gallery (Al Doherty, Don Mainland and Al DeCecco) and the Alberta Gallery (Bob Trembecky and Malcolm Lynn).
Moving on to 1969, Rich Necker has provided game reports for Manitoba ball, including the two divisions of the Manitoba Senior League. There's also some addition reports for games in Alberta.
The 1969 Tournament page gets some updates for tourneys in Manitoba and the rosters show significant additions.
We've even found some statistics for the East Division of the Manitoba Senior League (check out those ERAs) !
1969 Manitoba Photo Gallery adds pictures of Marv Hollender, Ron Funk, Brian Reimer, Bob Fitchner, Rick Hefford, Les Lisowski, Ron Low and Bill McNamee
1969 Snapshot Page now includes a photo featuring pitcher Ron Funk with Wally Rempel and Dennis Guenther of the Steinbach Millers-and one of a Bill Chapple game-winning hit.
The 1969 Saskatchewan Photo Gallery has a new photo of pitching star Vince Rucobo (right).
1969 Alberta baseball gets some coverage with some snapshots which include Hy Lewis, Rick Horb and Al Twa.
The team photo of the Brandon Cloverleafs also is an addition to the 1969 Manitoba material.
In the middle of the coverage on the 1969 Tournament Page we've added game reports on the Alberta championship series.
13, October, 2020
This is a treat ! Herb Morell, the statistician for the Intercounty League of Southern Ontario, has been in touch and provided some key material to help us with our Ontario rosters. Herb has provided an Intercouny League player list from 1958 to 1972 which we've begun to incorporate into our Ontario player list. This will take a lot of time, but what a treasure.
And, he's spotted a few rosters which needed some work, such as the 1970 Ontario team roster for the Canadian Senior Baseball Championship.
We got all the rosters from the event program but Herb first noted it wasn't the Peterborough Seniors who represented Ontario but the Kitchener Panthers, then there were some corrections needed including :
Bietz Ed Coach - Beitz Ed Coach,
Dewalde Roger - Dewaele Roger
Hiebien Hugh - Heibein Hugh
Hienduck Court - Heinbuch Court
Lambreth Doug - Landreth Doug
Peraren Brian - Pearen Brian
Senlin Wayne - Fenlon Wayne
Thank you so much Herb and welcome aboard !
This photo saved us from total disappointment.
Right-hander Bob Mabee pitched in the Victoria Senior League for a dozen years into the 1970s. You'd think the local paper would at least have a few photos of the player. Our search of the Victoria papers turned up none. Not one.
We are fairly certain he's in this team photo of the 1970 Victoria Centennials the Canadian Senior champions, but as yet have been unable to identify the individual players.
Well, not until 2012 when at age 66, he took to the mound as his Victoria Eagles Junior team took on the Victoria Maverick Senior team in an exhibition contest. It was 50 years, almost to the day, when Mabee, as a 16-year-old, first pitched in senior ball for the Victoria Eagles of the day. He managed to get through an inning allowing one run. Still, it's the lone baseball photo of Mabee we've been able to find.
Well Max, if you'd told me about this a few years ago you could have saved me from a week or two of frustration in trying to track down a photo of Clarence M. "Soddy" Groat.
That's Max Weder, with an enormous collection of baseball and hockey (and maybe other sports) memorabilia. He's been a great friend of our little operation over the years and has recently posted another of his acquisitions, a program of the 1954 Galt Terriers of the Ontario Intercounty League. In it is a photo of Groat, who played with St. Thomas and Galt in the circuit. When I first learned of the Groat story I spend many fruitless days trying to find a picture, any photo, of him in baseball gear. I finally did find a couple but it was challenging.
Groat was a star Canadian athlete ((football, lacrosse, baseball) a Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ontario. Soddy, whose family moved to Buffalo when he was seven, excelled in sports in high school in Buffalo and went on to star in pro baseball, including a stint in the the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system where his roommate was Gil Hodges (Soddy named his son Gil, after Hodges).
His pro career was interrupted by distinguished military service in Europe during the Second World War. Groat was a decorated soldier being awarded a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and a Silver Star. After the war, he suited up in the Intercounty League and in the Basin League in South Dakota.
Just before we get to the next year (1968) of our chronological updates, some additions to earlier years thanks again to former Kootenay hurler and current researcher Lou DeRosa and, of course, our Rich Necker.
They've dug up a ton of material on baseball in BC and elsewhere in the West, reflected on 26 different pages.
For 1961 it's some game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League along with a few statistics and some individual photos for the BC Gallery - Harvey Handley (right), Garry Morris, Pinoke McIntyre, George McIntyre, Owen Mailey, Primo Secco and Bob Seaman all of Trail and Jim Moro of the Vernon Carlings.
The material also includes details on the 1961 Kamloops Labour Day Tournament and the start of a report and rosters on West Kootenay Junior baseball.
For the 1962 season, Lou has sent along the beginnings of coverage of West Kootenay Junior Baseball, including rosters.
For the 1963 season, we are really pleased to present game reports for it appears to be the entire season for the Okanagan Mainline League. We have some statistics, unfortunately only for the Kamloops Lelands, but both hitting and pitching. Two major 1963 tournaments are also included in this update, the Kamloops Labour Day Tourney and the BC Senior Tournament. The BC Photo Gallery has a couple of new faces, Barry Elson, Jack Fowles, both of the Kamloops Lelands ..
The 1964 additions include game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League, and standings of the North Okanagan League along with rosters and Tournament reports on the Annual Kamloops Labour Day event and the BC Senior Championships.
A treat to add to our 1967 coverage, a reunion photo (2018) from the Brandon Sun of the 1967 Brandon Parklane Juniors who won the Canadian junior championship. We've also posted details of the championship on our Tournament page. The reunion story in the paper helped us to correct a couple of spellings as well and they are reflected on the roster page.
Also for 1967, statistics for the Winnipeg Metro League (AKA Manitoba Senior League East Division). Not a lot of detail but at least we know the batting and pitching leaders.
On to 1968 - we have a couple of 1968 photo additions, Bob Burrows (both in the 1968 BC Gallery and Snapshots), Roger Dejordy, Don Darling and Don Maxwell in the Alberta Gallery.
Also a couple of additions to the Alberta Snapshots with photos of Mel Meyers, Tom Longmore and Joey Fletcher.
The 1968 Manitoba Gallery now includes Marv Hollender and Brian Reimer (right) of the Steinbach Millers while we have also posted the team photo of the 1968 league champion Steinbach Millers.
And, to slip in one "future" item, the team photo of the 1972 San Mateo College Bulldogs who toured Western Canada playing in exhibitions and tournaments.
John Noce (left), who coached the team (and had earlier played in Medicine Hat in the early 1950s and the Provincial League in Quebec) has been in touch to send along details especially of the team's victory in the 1972 Barrhead, Alberta, Tournament.
We had originally posted that Calgary had won the event. But it was the California college kids who whipped Calgary Jimmies 11-2 in the final to take first money.
Noce coached at San Mateo for more than 30 years, 1962 to 1995, and was inducted into the San Mateo County Hall of Fame in 1992, the California Community College Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1993, the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1994, the Peninsula Basketball Officials Hall of Fame in 1996 and the College of San Mateo Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.
11, October, 2020
Ah, the Sixties !
Local ball in 1967 remained strong in parts of the prairies with Manitoba a key spot. Rich Necker has compiled Manitoba game reports on the two divisions of the Manitoba Senior League, the Neepawa & District League and the South-Central League.
The Manitoba photos feature in the main some of the junior players of the day - Ken Lowry, Myron Zbyradowski, Terry Owens, Garry Sloik, Dave Addison, Allen Carlisle, Garry Bowles, Jim Silver, Dave Saulnier
And, still on the junior ball theme, a team photo of the Canadian Junior champions, the Brandon Parklane Juniors
For the far west, again, the Victoria Senior League is well documented with game reports. Art Worth (left), who started his career in 1944 in the Victoria League was still going strong in the 1967 season, his 23rd season. The 38-year-old who still took a turn on the mound, led his team, the Transport Workers, to another league championship.
There are a couple of additions to the BC Photo Gallery - George Brice, Wyatt Dreger and Worth.
The Alberta report includes some bits and pieces on the Oilfield League, Sunburst League, Southern Alberta Intermediate League, Central Alberta League, some notes on Junior ball and the Intermediate "A" playoffs. We've added a photo of pitcher Rick Horb in the Alberta Photo Gallery and one of Julie Owchar in the Snapshot section.
The roster page, of course, gets a big update with all the new game reports and the Tournament page now includes the events at Birtle, Manitoba and the Kamloops, BC, Labour Day Tournament
04, October, 2020
Some tidbits here and there to be noted before we forget what we've done !
We go all the way back to 1923 to add in the photo of Charles Stevenson to the BC Photo Gallery.
In the 1931 Alberta Gallery it's Emerson "Buck" Eaton (left).
For good measure there's also statistics for the 1931 Edmonton City Senior League where a catcher by the name of Joe Onions captured the batting crown.
By some fluke I surfed into copies of the Kelowna newspaper from the 1930s and 1940s. There's not much for baseball during these war years, but a few game reports -- 1941, 1942, 1943 - have been added for teams in the Okanagan region of BC. So far there is no indication of a real league, but just exhibition games involving teams in Kelowna, Penticton, Vernon and Kamloops The roster pages for those three years show the players we've been able to identify.
In Ontario, we've added a photo of the 1945 London Majors, the Intercounty champions. The 1945 home page includes a small photo of the London program. And the Ontario Photo Gallery of 1936 adds a photo of Alf White of London.
A few new/revised individual photos added - 1948 Joe Bechard of London Majors, 1950 Zoonie McLean Minot Mallards and 1962 Joe Weremy of the Peace River Stampeders.
29 September, 2020
Moving along to 1966, our additional coverage includes game reports for Alberta especially the Edmonton Metropolitan League (which played an interlocking schedule with teams from Calgary). Football star Rollie Miles led his Edmonton squad to the league championship.
There's also bits and pieces on the Wheatbelt League and others. Of course, updated rosters are posted as well.
In British Columbia, a no-hitter by 17-year-old John Knowles was a highlight of the Victoria Senior Amateur League. The youngster fanned 26. It's among the game reports now posted. And, there's the beginning of game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League.
One small addition to the Tournament page, the Nelson event.
Bob Burrows (right) of Victoria is among the new photos in the BC Photo Gallery. Burrows was an outstanding high school athlete in Victoria, winning a basketball scholarship to Spokane Junior College. In the 1966 Washington State championship he hit .600 drove in 10 runs and belted two homers and was named to the All-State team and was selected as tournament Most Valuable Player. He came back home to suit up with Greave’s Movers. Also featured in the BC Gallery - Reg Main, Paul Bazeley, Barry Elson, Wyatt Dreger, Larry McKinty, John Knowles and Al Hurst.
The BC Snapshot page has a photo of veteran Art Worth, at 37, still one of the top hurlers & hitters in the league and we've added in an item on Jim Terbasket.
25 September, 2020
Too bad we missed this one. The 2018 baseball reunion in Kimberley. Rich Necker pointed us to this photo from the event showing former Dynamo catcher Tony Brummet with old teammate, pitcher Ike Bodin (Al Patterson photo).
Brummet, some might remember was a provincial politician in British Columbia for a dozen years, until 1991.
He served as a cabinet minister in three portfolios including prominent positions as Minister of the Environment and Minister of Education.
That brings to mind our old friend and one-time workmate Al "Boomer" Adair from Peace River, Alberta.
Adair was an Alberta Member of the Legislature for 22 years, including stints in the cabinet as Minister of Recreation and Parks, Consumer Affairs and Transportation. Before Adair got into politics he did some sports announcing on CKYL Radio in Peace River, among other things after a career in baseball with the Peace River Stampeders.
You likely recall our notes about Allan Wachowich (far right) former Chief Justice of Alberta, who was the former bat boy for the Edmonton Eskimos. And the late Clarence Yanosik (near right), a fixture with the Lethbridge baseball teams of the 1940s and 1950s, who advanced through the judicial system in Alberta to sit as a justice of the Alberta Court of Appeal and deputy judge of the Supreme Court of the Yukon Territory.
Just a couple of the success stories in politics and the law.
21 September, 2020
Rich Necker keeps us on our toes with more detail flowing in on baseball in 1965.
Our updates would not be complete without some new photo evidence. Among the additions to the Manitoba Photo Gallery are Bill Gray, Bill Chapple, Marv Robinson, Don Hunter, Claude Lambert and Neil Andrews,
New in the Alberta Gallery are Jack Crockett, Chuck Moser and Norm Casault.
And, in the BC Gallery - Barry Harvey, Barry Elson, Sandy McLellan, Ian Dixon, George Fuller and George Hemming. While it is more pronounced in the 1963 BC Gallery, again you'll note the peculiar editing of photos in the BC papers where they didn't seem to like having ears showing ! For whatever reasons, so many of their individual photos show faces without full ears.
For the Basin League of South Dakota/Nebraska we add a few new faces in the Photo Gallery - Rusty Adkins, Lou Camilli and Carl Schreine
The Snapshot pages also show some additions - there's one with Barry Harvey and George Fuller in the BC Snaps, Dennis Churchill in the Alberta Snapshots and Chris Riddell and Claude Lambert on the Manitoba page.
And, we have a couple of 1964 leftovers - while it's not a very good image, we have the picture of Charlie Welbourne and John Haar of the Burnaby O'Keefe's after winning the 1964 Kamloops Labour Day Weekend Tournament for which we have some details. In addition there's some additional information in the game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League.
19 September, 2020
Before we take a look at the updates for 1965, just a reminder about the year from our timeline.
For residents of Ontario, New York, New Jersey and some neighbouring states, 1965 would be well remembered as the year of the Great Northeastern Blackout. On November 9th, at rush hour, 30-million people were affected 
with the loss of power for up to 12 hours. Sparked by the arrest of a black motorist, riots broke out in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Six days of rioting resulted in 34 deaths, more than 1,000 injured, and hundreds of buildings damaged or destroyed. Malcolm X was assassinated by rival National of Islam members while addressing his congregation in Harlem. Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones climbed to number one on the music charts. Bob Dylan caused a sensation at the Newport Folk Festival by "going electric". One of Toronto's most distinctive landmarks, City Hall, was officially opened. New York Jets signed quarterback Joe Namath. 16-year-old Peggy Fleming won the U.S. ladies figure skating title. The first U.S. combat forces, 3.500 Marines, arrived in Vietnam. Morley Safer of CBS 
reported the U.S. as losing the war. Baseball went indoors. In the first game in Houston's Astrodome, Houston beat the Yankees 2-1 in exhibition play as Mickey Mantle hit the first indoor homer. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters. Sonny and Cher made their first television appearance. The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction climbed to number one on the charts. Sandy Koufax pitched his fourth no-hitter, this one a perfect game. A new Disney theme park was announced for the Orlando, Florida area. Designer Mary Quant popularized the mini-skirt. Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed was published and creates quite a stir. In California's Central Valley, workers walked out at 33 grape ranches in the Delano area and were joined by members of the National Farm Workers Association under César Chávez. The strike and a boycott of table grapes went on for five years but finally resulted in a contract with the major grape growers in the state. The Oscar for best movie went to The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews.
Our 1965 roundup beings with game reports from Manitoba, including the Manitoba Senior League, the Winnipeg Metropolitan Senior League, South-Central League and others.
Import Oscar Walker (right) had quite the season in leading St. Lazare to the Manitoba Senior title.
Lots of baseball in Alberta as we provide coverage of the Edmonton Metropolitan League, the Wheatbelt League, the Big Four, Rosebud and Oilfield Leagues, the Sunburst and Southern Irrigation Leagues and the Southern Junior League.
In British Columbia, our main focus is on ball on the Island, specifically the Victoria Senior Amateur League.
Of note is George Hemming (left), a local hurler, back from a try in pro ball to rack up 25 strikeouts in a nine inning game.
The 1965 Tournament page has some additions to cover tourneys in Courtenay, Victoria, Chemainus, Birtle, Manitoba and the Canadian Junior Championships. Of course, the roster page now includes a bunch more players.
And, we managed to find some statistics (albeit with some questions) for the 1965 Victoria Senior loop with Tom Moore as the top swatsmith and Les Brice the ace on the hill. . We've also managed to find some statistics for the 1965 Basin League as Ted Bashore of Rapid City Chiefs was the batting champ and Don Cook of Sturgis, the ERA leader.
12 September, 2020
More thanks to Lou DeRosa.
Through Lou our Rich Necker has been reconnected with former workmate Mel Johnson (right), who suited up for baseball in the old East Kootenay Baseball League. Mel has been kinda enough to allow us to scan through old scrapbooks to dig out material from baseball in the late 1950s.
Among the finds are team photos from 1957 (a second photo of the 1957 Kimberley Hobos) and 1959, the Kimberley Cougars.
The Kimberley Sorenson's Hobos won the Kootenay baseball championship in 1957 defeating Trail in a best of three final. The game reports are included in the BC Interior game reports.
Subsequently, we've added and updated East Kootenay game reports from 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1964. (The '64 report is for the Can-Am International League which included Kimberley, Nelson, Trail and Cranbrook.)
Those reports also led to the expansion of the roster pages for 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1964 as well as add to the Tournament pages (covering tourneys in Fernie, Creston, Kimberley and Invermere) of 1958, 1961, 1962 and 1963
Then there's a few photos too, both from the Johnson scrapbook and Lou's research.
In the BC Photo Galleries, in 1956 there's Bruno DeRosa and Gerry Fabbro, in 1957 it's a picture of Kimberley teenager Mel Johnson, in 1960 we've added a revised photo of Tony DeRosa, then in 1961 it's Lefty Gould and Bob Profili.
The 1961 Snapshot page has three new additions featuring Jim Putsey, Moose Ronquist. Art King, John Kosiancic and Harvey Nash from which we've extracted individual shots for the 1961 BC Photo Gallery which now includes those Kimberley players and for 1964 there's a Snapshot of Kimberley's Mel Johnson.
10 September, 2020
Lou DeRosa sends along some interesting bits and pieces, including some possible explanations for the "Mystery" nickname for Bill DiPasquale of Trail and Rossland baseball of the 1920s and 1930s. Lou called upon an old classmate Don DiPasquale, son of “Mystery. for the answer :
Dad's name was Gugliemo (William) in English There are two versions of how my dad received his nickname..... Dad was standing by the road to Central School by himself and a group of other boys, Hank and Fred Lauriente, Tony Tonelli, Steve Matovich Gisto Decembrini, Happy Tognotti and a few more when Hank Lauriente asked out loud "who's the new kid?" and someone commented "don't know he's a mystery to me!" The other version is he went to see a movie 6 times entitled "Sweet Mystery of Life"! Way before my time so I cannot decide which version is correct
Lou also dug up some material written by Kevin O'Connell a catcher for Penticton in the early 1950s when the star hurler on the team was future major leaguer Ted Bowsfield. We've added the stories on our "I Remember" page.
From the Ymir, BC, Herald of July 2, 1904 Lou sent along a clipping :
A base ball match which afforded considerable entertainment to a large crowd of spectators, was played on Sunday afternoon between the regular Ymir base ball team and a team made up of base ball enthusiasts around town. The game resulted in a defeat for the regular team by a score of 27-26, but it is only fair to the team to say that a number of the regular team played with the "scrubs."
And Lou has received confirmation from Gonzaga University that five members of the 1926 Rossland, BC, team were students and baseball players at the Washington State school - William Costello (Freshman), John Hunton (Senior), Paul Teters (Freshman), Herb Rotchford (Junior) and Leo Burke (Sophomore). Their names have been added to the Gonzaga list in our College section.
06 September, 2020
Tom Hawthorn has a great piece in the on-line paper, The Tyee on 1920s ball in Vancouver, especially the integrated International Longshoremen's team in the Vancouver City League.
He digs out exquisite detail on three of the stars of the team - Ab Mortimer, Eddie Nahanee and Jumbo Nahu.
05 September, 2020
There's more from the scrapbooks of the Ralph Mabee collection, thanks to daughter Kim Mabee.
We have three pretty good quality photo additions to the 1956 Mandak League gallery - left to right, Bill Raehse, Dolph Regelsky and Roy Weatherly, all key members of the Williston Oilers. The 1957 Gallery has a new photo of Saskatoon star pitcher Jim Stevens.
And, we haven't neglected the Snapshot pages!
The 1950 page adds a newspaper photo of a familiar sight - Doug Bentley of Delisle trotting home to score another for the Gems. For 1951, it's a photo of North Battleford's Andy Swota receiving the MVP trophy for the Northern Saskatchewan League. In 1952, it's Max Bentley with a group of younger players including Len Breckner, Colonsay, Ron Curby, last year with Redding, California, Vic Freiheit, last year with Rena, Nevada, and Doug Dodd, formerly with the North Battleford Beavers.
There are four new photos in the 1953 Snapshots - a photo of the team executives, including Ralph Mabee, as they planned an interlocking schedule between the Western Canada League and the Mandak circuit, a photo of John Dean, new catcher for Saskatoon Gems, a newspaper photo of Saskatoon's Cuban imports with their first taste of snow and Bennie Griggs shown in his U.S. Army gear from his stint in Korea and in his Saskatoon Gems' uniform.
The 1955 Snapshots adds a photo of the Western Canada League execs, including Mabee and Lloydminster's Slim Thorpe, planning for the new season, along with a newspaper shot of Mabee and North Battleford's Kenny Nelson before the season opening game, and a picture of Jim Shirley, the Saskatoon catcher, making a thank you speech at Jim Shirley Night at Cairns Field. We had previously posted a photo here of Mabee, ace pitcher Don Kirk and hit machine Cliff Pemberton.
The 1956 Snaps has a photo of Lloydminster president Slim Thorpe, Roy Weatherly, former major leaguer, and Father Athol Murray, Notre Dame College, Wilcox, Saskatchewan from the annual baseball dinner to raise funds for the coming season.
The Mabee scrapbooks have provided additional information for the 1956 and 1957 game reports and we've included a bit on the team finances on the 1957 home page.
28 August, 2020
My heart sank when I saw the subject line of the email from Greg Seastrom. It said simply "Jack Altman." And, I knew.
I had an inkling of something wrong just two days ago and had made a mental note to give Jack a call to check in.
Greg's note advised that Jack had died July 31st at his home in Ashland, Oregon. He was 85. Jack and Greg were lifelong friends since growing up in Hawaii and moving to California for school and baseball.
It seems as if it were just yesterday that Jack and Beverley made the track up to BC and stopped in to visit. But, it turns out, it was seven years ago.
Jack was a major force in the expansion of our little web site from the Saskatchewan roots of the project as he had come up from California to play in Granum and Lethbridge, Alberta, in the 1950s and kept detailed notes of his seasons in Canada. He helped to gather information on the Alberta leagues and in general with access to his many sources of baseball information.
Jack and I had great fun when I asked for all the details of his 1954 season (when Jack was 19) as I wanted to do a "Portrait of a Young Arm". I was fascinated by the workload (turned out to be 365 1/3 innings pitching for seven different teams over a ten month period) at a time when major league teams were expressing deep concern over the innings put in by young pitchers.
Jack Altman was a thoughtful, peaceful man, always energized just by the thought of a game of catch with old friends. While the landscape is poorer without Jack among us, our lives are richer for having known him.
26 August, 2020
And a few more additions to our 1964 coverage thanks to Lou DeRosa of Trail who is such a good friend of our project.
Lou has dug up a some photos of members of the 1964 Trail Smoke Eaters - Mushy Anselmo, Keith Healey, Wayne Magee and Don McLeod. Along with the photos, we've also added a few game reports for the Okanagan Mainline League.
Also, the 1964 BC Gallery includes Pete Leiman of Cranbrook and Mike Laughton who played with Nelson.
Butch McLarty, the baseball historian from London, Ontario, has provided some programs from the InterCounty League of Southern Ontario, from which we've managed to extract a bunch of individual photos.
From 1948, the Ontario Gallery includes Tommy White (left) , Russ Evon (right) and Jack Fairs of the London Majors.
From the 1952 London program we've managed to dig out some individual photos of players of the London Majors - Joe Bechard, Bob Bloxom, Cam Church, Don Cooper, Russ Evon, Jack Fairs, Len Johnson, Ken McFadden, Gord McMackon, Bobby Rose, Clare Van Horne and Tommy White.
In addition we've updated the 1963 photo of Stan "Gabby" Anderson with a better quality version and added in the 1974 picture of former 30-game winner Denny McLain when he suited up one year with London.
23 August, 2020
Returning to 1964, we pick up with lots of photos.
In the BC Snapshots there are four new additions, including pics of Steve Cohen, Gary McCloy, Mike Hodge, Barry Harvey, Brian McKenzie, Bruce McKenzie and Ted Bowyer.
The Alberta Snapshot page has a neat photo of award winners Owen Mailey and Les Wiberg and an action shot which includes Mailey.
The 1964 Alberta Photo Gallery now shows, among others,Tony Geisinger, Bob Senger, Ken Holcomb, Pius “Zeke” Ziebart all of the Medicine Hat Royals; Doug Marquardt, Owen Mailey, Dale Gaume, Ron Baryluk and Doug Murray of the Red Deer Eskimos, plus Les Wiberg of Innisfail.
The 1964 season in Manitoba gets some additions to the Photo Gallery with Carl Cunningham and Bill Gray of the Brandon Canucks; Ray Brunel, Gerry Brisson and Ray Gariepy of Winnipeg Precious Blood; Howie Hughes and Don Bamburak of the Transcona Atomics; Cliff Pennington and Terry Braunstein of Carman Cubs; Laurie Langrell, Balmoral Orioles; and Bob Hunter who suited up with both Transcona and Carman.
And, in BC, 1964, the Photo Gallery now shows Dave Cutler (also a Canadian Football League star), Jim Moody and Bob Holness of Victoria Independents; Herb Wetherall and Larry Montgomery of Victoria Greave’s Movers; Barry Harvey of Victoria Transport Workers; Bill MacAdams, Vancouver C.Y.O. and Joe Patterson of Victoria McLaren Construction.
14 August, 2020
Moving on to 1964, Rich Necker impresses even more with detailed game reports for a variety of leagues across the prairies and even into Northern Ontario.
In Alberta, the season is covered in detail for the Edmonton Metropolitan League and the Big Four League with snippets as well for Rosebud League, Wheatbelt League, North Peace, Sunburst, Oilfield, Southern Irrigation, Foothills, Central Alberta, Bow Valley, Eastern Alberta along with Intermediate ball and provincial playoffs. Whew.
The one new team photo is from Alberta, it's the 1964 Red Deer Eskimos, the champions of the Rosebud League.
The Manitoba game reports include the Manitoba Senior League, the Winnipeg Metro Senior League, the South-Central League, Northwestern League and Neepawa and District League.
Happy to locate some statistics for the 1964 Winnipeg Metro League which produced some eye-popping numbers both for hitters and pitchers.
For the Lower Mainland of BC, the game reports include the Vancouver Industrial League, Pacific International League and provincial playoffs.
The Victoria Senior Amateur League is the major circuit covered for Vancouver Island, but there's also the Mid-Island League.
For the BC Interior, just a single new report, but a game in which a pitcher lost a no-hitter in the bottom of the ninth because he lost the ball in his baseball pants.
In Ontario, we' added a bit on the Lakehead Senior League.
Of course, the roster page is updated with all the new players.
The 1964 tournament page now includes the tourneys from Victoria, the BC Senior event, Birtle and Neepawa in Manitoba and one in Kenora, Ontario.
07 August, 2020
So pleased to see Christian Trudeau's web site on the Quebec Provincial League of the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
It is a very welcome addition to the history of Canadian baseball and we are especially pleased with the English translations.
The Provincial League of Quebec featured a host of former Negro Leaguers and some college kids many of whom also spent time on the prairies.
In French & English - Histoire de la ligue provinciale de baseball
06 August, 2020
More from the Ralph Mabee scrapbooks, thanks to daughter Kim Mabee.
Programs of the Saskatoon Gems, which included some lineups, have enabled us to post some additional information on the roster pages - uniform numbers and positions for some of the teams - for 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957
The Western Canada Photo Galleries have been enhanced by the addition of photos of Jack Hannah, Reg Bentley, Don Hinchberger, Chris Makras, John Dean, Acie Griggs, Sergio Martinez (left), Reg Pendleton, Sylvester Snead, Del St. John, Roland Garcia, Ernie Koroluk, Cliff Pemberton, Bob Singleton (right), Charlie Neal, Jackie McLeod, Ed Garay, Joe Kretschmar, Eddie Tanner, Ron Perranoski and Denny Evenson 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957
The Saskatchewan Photo Gallery of 1952 adds Metro Prystai.
02 August, 2020
To continue the 1963 updates, we now have some additional game reports for the BC Interior both for the Okanagan Mainline League and the Spokane International Twilight League of which Trail Smoke Eaters were a member.
The 1963 updates also include the rosters, and the Photo Gallery for Skip Ferguson of Trail and Jim Terbasket of Penticton.
An unexpected find in newspaper research - a 1963 photo of Hall of Famer Satchel Paige during one of his many stops on the Canadian prairies, this one in Brandon, Manitoba, in a game against the Cloverleafs. Paige, believed to be more than 60 years old at the time is shown with 16-year-old Brandon outfielder Greg Borotsik
01 August, 2020
Two stars of the old Western Canada Baseball League get the star treatment in the sport pages of the Los Angeles Times.
Conrad Munatones (left) and Ernie Rodriguez, (below) who came out of Southern California to light up the diamonds of the prairies in the 1950s and 1960s were highlighted in a story leading up to the kickoff of the new baseball season in California.
The pair were familiar from their playing days as teenagers in East Los Angeles to university ball at UCLA to prairie ball in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Rodriguez, playing for Moose Jaw Mallards, won the batting title in 1957 with a .402 mark.
Munatones, with the Edmonton Eskimos, finished at .306. Both played in 1956 and 1957 and Munatones returned in 1960.
Both represented Canada at the Global World Series in 1957 when the Canadian squad lost an 11-inning heart breaker to Japan, 4-2, in the final of the event at Briggs Stadium in Detroit.
Check it out in the Los Angeles Times.
The last batch of news bits has been moved over to the Archives, News Page #24.