Neepawa Tigers 1950 little leaguers

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Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Photo Courtesy of Neepawa Land of Plenty Heritage Book 1883-1983. Neepawa Tigers Little Baseball Club. First little league team organized outside of Winnipeg, 1950. Front Row, left to right: Murray Reid, Mervyn Brown, Mel McGregor, Wayne Murray, Don LeBoutillier, Cecil Pittman. Back Row, left to right: Stan Hudey, Kas Holod, Mervyn Pilkey. Missing: Coaches Jim Scott and Jim Bulloch, Manager Scotty McGregor.

By Rick Sparling

The Neepawa Press

Back in February of 2014, I wrote an article for the Neepawa Press about the 1950 Neepawa Tigers and how they were one of the first little league teams in Canada. Vince Leah had formed a league in Winnipeg and a few Manitoba towns had established teams, Neepawa being one of them. There were teams in Brandon, Dauphin, Roblin, Gilbert Plains and Grandview as well. Interesting, seeing as Wikipedia says little league came into Canada in 1951, but had no record of Manitoba ever having a little league.

Just Alberta and Saskatchewan were listed for the Prairies.

The Neepawa squad played some exhibition matches throughout the summer and played versus Brandon at Kinsman Stadium under the lights and had a home and away series against one of Vince Leah’s teams from Winnipeg. They played scrub teams with smaller towns around Neepawa and in many cases against older boys and could ‘hold their own’ even against those boys.

Vince had over 200 boys try out for what would be four teams in the city league with 15 on each team. After league play ended, they played off for the city championship and The Dominion News Maple Leafs won that championship. That league announced North and South All Star teams consisting of 15 players on each team. From those 30 players, 15 were selected to represent Winnipeg in what would be called The Little League World Series – A best of five series to determine the 1950 Little League Provincial Champions.

The series would take place over three days in Neepawa against the Neepawa Tigers.

The Tigers surprised their visitors in the first game of a double-header taking that game by a score of 8-6, but in the evening match, Winnipeg tied the series at a game apiece with a 13-8 win.

On day two, Winnipeg surged ahead in the series with a 9-4 win and in the evening game, Neepawa, in an extra inning, tied the series at two games each with a 7-6 victory in front of 1,500 spectators. The five games attracted over 4,000 fans!

With the deciding game played the next afternoon (after a morning swim and lunch up at Clear Lake), Neepawa opened the scoring with two runs in the first inning, but Winnipeg blew the game wide open with five in the second inning and five more in the third. Neepawa managed to score five more runs, but fell short and lost the game 11-7 and the series 3-2

Nevertheless, a valiant effort from the rural boys against what was hailed as the ‘dream team’.

Having heard that Winnipeg had claimed the Manitoba Championship with their win over Neepawa, Dauphin set up a seven team tournament which they felt should determine the true Manitoba championship. As it turned out, Dauphin won that tournament and now there were two Manitoba champions. It was decided that there would be a best of five series between them and the winner would be the official 1950 Little League Champions. Winnipeg took the series in three straight and were declared the champions.

That was the beginning of little league for Neepawa. An exciting debut to say the least. Little league thrived for years in Neepawa and I remember when I played in 1957. We had four teams at that time. The Legion, the Lion’s Club, the Rotary Club and the Elks were the sponsors. I’m not certain when Baseball Manitoba came into being, but I believe there is “Bantam” baseball still being played, although I don’t think it’s called little league any longer, at least in Manitoba.

Neepawa has first little league ball in dominion

An item in Vince Leah’s sports column in a Winnipeg newspaper last week is of interest to Neepawa and district residents. Vince, who has many friends in this area, gave his readers the following information: “There are 300,000 kids playing little league baseball in Canada and the United States, but we are still weary of reading the game was first played in Canada in Montreal, rubbish. Little league baseball, with Carl Stotz’s blessing, was started in Winnipeg in 1950. Flood interfered and we didn’t get going until June and Neepawa, under Jim Bullock, beat us to the gun. The first playoff in Manitoba was held in Neepawa and had Stotz’s sanction. Dauphin started the same season and now the game is played through the province.”

That was Kenny Framptons’ June 14, 1956 column. Vince Leah had it in the Tribune June 7.