As the North Central Alberta Baseball League (NCABL) semifinals played out at nearby Keller Field, the league was also celebrating its 50th anniversary all weekend long.
On Friday night, alumni reminisced over the league’s 50 years at “The NCABL Meet and Greet” at the Rotary Spirit Centre fieldhouse.
A provincial championship team photo from 1979 greeted guests as old schedules and trophies lined the walls of the fieldhouse.
At the event, two players from each of the last five decades were inducted as the first members of the NCABL Hall of Fame, located in Morinville. Also unveiled were more than a dozen pressbooks documenting news coverage of the NCABL.
“I want to assure you our stories are worth telling and our histories worth remembering,” NCABL commissioner Paul Riopel said at the unveiling. “From the treasure troves of NCABL coverage, we capture and preserve history through the voices of many writers.”
A packed house of baseball alumni filtered through the room, catching up with old teammates and subsequent generations of players.
“It was a lot of years since we started,” said alumnus Bob Morland, who played for Linaria but subbed in for teams in Jarvie, Freedom and Barrhead at a time before there was an official baseball league.
“We were little farming communities. We would play Linaria and it was pretty tough for us to a field a team against Westlock, Barrhead and teams like that.”
Morland lives in Westlock now but moved back and forth from B.C. several times, where he played in Quesnel and Prince George.
When he played for Linaria, he said every little community had a tournament.
“If you kept winning you played a lot of ball. Lots of times in those days you played three games in a day.”
Ron Kennedy from Westbank, B.C. joined Morland at the meet and greet. Kennedy played in Barrhead and Freedom in the 1950s and afterwards moved to B.C. in 1959 where he continued to play ball.
“It was the thing to do every weekend,” he said. “Lots of great fellowship. That was the best thing about it, especially the type of ball we played here. It was almost all local kids — no imports to any extent.”
“Westlock was the only team that had any imports at that time,” Morland added. “They used to play a few of them every year.”
Morland joined ball at 15 years old, but Kennedy started playing in his early 20s by chance when he took a job at the Barrhead lumberyard.
“I went out with my friend and he drove me out to the ballpark one day, and they were short of players so I joined in and played with them for a year and played with Freedom for two years,” Kennedy said. “It wasn’t as far of a drive.”
Representing the Red Lions was alumnus Gord Glebe, who played for the club from 1975-1994.
Glebe, who now lives in Edmonton, said he catches up with former players from around Westlock reasonably often, but it had been a few years since he saw players from other teams.
“Most of them are pretty recognizable, actually,” he said, though some had “a lot less hair or a little rounder, like myself.”
Back when Glebe played with the Lions, the club would travel to Athabasca, Mayerthorpe and Bon Accord for games.
“It was a pretty good calibre and everybody was competitive on it,” he said. “There were a lot more tournaments around. We played a lot more games because we played probably 12 tournaments a year.”
As time went on, there were fewer tournaments and aluminum bats were swapped out for wooden ones.
“It changed the game completely,” he said. “With aluminum bats you’re going to get a lot more home runs. Wood bats just don’t have that pop.”
For some of the younger generations of players, the struggle has been filling out their roster.
Barrhead Orioles Joe Greilach said the team had been restarted and got going for the last three years — and in the early 2000s as the Yankees — but folded this year due to a lack of committed players.
“We were hoping lots of the younger guys would step up and take over the league,” Greilach said. “Us three guys who started it back up — Ryan (Warehime) has two kids now, Warren (Warehime) has three and I’ve got a business in Barrhead. Priorities change I guess.”
In order to be a competitive team, Greilach said they would need at least 13 or 14 dedicated players to round out the roster.
“Hopefully the younger guys step up and bring the team back again now that we’re out,” he said. “That was the idea when we started the team, that some of the kids would look up to the Orioles again and hopefully keep it going.”
Awards dinner
The celebrations continued on Saturday with an alumni golf tournament at the Westlock Golf Club and a “Salute to our Communities” expo inside the Spirit Centre.
At the expo, Edmonton Eskimos players Chris Getzlaf and Simeon Rottier signed autographs for fans while visitors could check out information displays.
On Saturday night, the NCABL hosted its official awards ceremony, an event that would normally be hosted out in a baseball field, said Riopel.
Most the recipients were from outside of Westlock with the exception of Red Lions player Nathan Swap, who received the All-Star Game MVP award.
Prior to the awards being handed out, Riopel called for a standing ovation to thank the 50th anniversary organizing committee, which included several members from Westlock like Dean Fagnan and Ryan Rau.
“An endeavour such as this one, the 50th anniversary celebrations, carries a whole lot of work, and it’s very easy to just buy a ticket and show up,” he said.
“It takes a lot of responsibility and a long period of time during which true devotion truly come through.”
Riopel also asked the crowd to give a standing ovation for the past recipients of the Ken Schultz Memorial Award, which is given to the builders and promoters of the NCABL.
These included three recipients from Westlock: Chuck Keller (1996), John Golinowski (1999) and Ray Senkoe (2006).
“They are what we could refer to as the godfathers of this great league. For their individual contributions in time, in effort, in energy and in talent far exceeded that of everyone else around them,” said Riopel.
“They were and are the pillars of our league. They are what made us stand tall, stand proud and be counted after 50 years.”
Riopel was himself surprised with a special award recognizing his 50 years of working within the NCABL.
Associate commissioner Ed Ewasiuk said the NCABL is “where it is today and where it’s going tomorrow” thanks to the passions of Riopel.
“I certainly couldn’t find anybody out there … who has put 50 years into something like this and continues to ensure it is driven forward,” Ewasiuk said.
The evening also featured Getzlaf and legendary Alberta sports journalist and broadcaster John Short, who shared many tales from his decades-long career, including coverage of sporting events from behind the Iron Curtain.
However, he said that what he has done as an individual doesn’t warrant any comparison with what the NCABL has done in 50 years, and what its member communities have done for sports, for health and for so many other things.
“You should be incredibly proud of yourselves. That’s one of the reasons I’m so proud to be here,” Short said.
