The Laurie brothers and Alberta Baseball 1953 - 1956

There is a website for Western Canada Baseball and they have provided the following information. It was compiled by Jay-Dell Mah who played baseball and then was a sports broadcaster. It is quite the website and we are grateful for his excellent help in identifying our Laurie boys and their teams. His information is as follows.

http://www.attheplate.com/

this information all comes from newspaper clippings so there may be more information out there somewhere but this is what we have so far.

1953 Bob playing with a Junior team, Taber Fireman according to a newspaper clipping, maybe the name changed by the next year or there were other teams.

1954 Bob, Gord, Dan playing with Taber Merchant Juniors who won their league and then went  went to the Alberta Jr. final losing to the Tofield Legionnaires in the final game.

1955 Gord plays with Taber Merchant Jrs
         Danny plays with Warner of the Sunshine League        
         Bob plays with Granum White Sox of the Foothills-Weatbelt League.

1956 Bob and Gordon playing for Taber Merchants of the Big 5 League (this must have been a senior league because they played against the Vauxhall Jets who won the league that year

1957 Dan and Gord played for the Vauxhall Jets :  Baker Vern P, Cleland Dennis, Cleland Roy LHP/MGR, Haugen John, Laurie Danny, Laurie Gord, Rhodes Dusty

1959 Dan played on an Southeastern All Star team
1962 Bob played for the Vauxhall Jets
1965 Bob played for the Brooks Lions

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Bob was a catcher, Dan played third base and outfield and Gordie was a shortstop.

In 1954 the three brothers, Bob, Dan and Gord Laurie played for the Taber Merchant Juniors. They won the Southern Alberta Championship and were featured in the Taber Times on Sep 16th, 1954. They went on to the Provincial Playoffs at Trochu, Alberta but lost the championship to Tofield.

It is very interesting to read the roster below and see what the boys excelled in. Bob was the team captain for this team.

Here is a photo of this same team that was in Bob's box of photos. Dan has one where his kids used photoshop to insert him into this photo. He was out working on a farm and couldn't make it back in time for the team photo. Aunt Ruth Konno Laurie was able to identify these team members.

Taber Merchant Juniors in 1954:

Back Row L-R: Harry McKibbon coach, Harry Sekiya, Ray Whitehead, Mr Savage, Casey Anderson, Larry Anderson, Lynn Layton, Ross McKibbon, Dickie Wiest, Van Duncombe

Front Row L-R: Bob Laurie, Charlie Wentz, Gordie Laurie, Bill Burge, Bill Tanaguchi and Lyle Howg.

Bat boy Johnny Konno in front.
(Missing from the photo are Dan Laurie, Bob Furakowa, Sat Muriyama, Marvin baker and Ralph Maier)
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In 1955 Bob was too old for the Juniors team and called up to the Granum White Socks in the Foothills-Wheatbelt League. He is first mentioned on June 26th when "Bob Laurie, in his first league action, had 4 singles."

Bob as a catcher.

The 1955 Granum White Sox Team

Front row: Roy Johnson, Frank Stone, Tedd Bogal, Gordie Vejprava, Jim MacDonald, Steve Odney, TBA, Jocko Tarnava, Lee Wesley Back row: George Wesley, Bill Fennessy, Gordie Wesley, Jack Altman, Darwin Walkingshaw, Don Johnson, Al Malarchuck, Bill Kucheran, Earl Ingarfield, Willie Walasko. (Photo courtesy Jack Altman) 

We think TBA on the front row is Bob.

 (a newspaper article that Gordie had says that the Granum White Sox manager "Wesley had acquired highly rated Bob Laurie of Taber to handle his catching chores. Laurie has starred for the last four years with the Taber Juniors, provincial finalists last year." this means he would have started in 1951 when he was 18 maybe) 

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This is Danny at bat. I'm not sure which year or team it was for or where the photo was taken.
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In 1956 Gord and Bob played together for the same team, the Taber Merchants.

In 1957 Dan and Gord played for the Vauxhall Jets.

At some point of time Bob played for this team. We have learned that they are the Beaverlodge Royals but we can't put a date to these photos but it may have been in 1957, 1958 or 1959. They came from the Bob's box of photos. At this point Bob had moved to Beaverlodge where Bev was from. He was a player coach in 1959 and was Coach of the year according to a newspaper article in Aug of 1959.

In 1959 Dan was played on the Southeastern Allstars in a tournament against the Cold Lake Cardinals.

in 1962 Bob is playing on the Vauxhall Jets

In 1965 we find Bob playing on a baseball team in Brooks, called the Brooks Lions, with Dusty Rhodes. Dusty was a pitcher for the Vauxhall Jets and had known Bob for a long time. Bob was working as a parts man at the time for the John Deere dealership in Brooks. They also had a bowling team that Bob and Dusty played on with Johnny Penner and Stevee Safranavich called the Zippy Cats after the name of Steve's company.

Dusty Rhodes tells us that sometimes the boys were called up to play in certain games with a team or in a tournament. Bob played in a tournament in Kamloops with the Central Alberta All Star team on one of these occasions. They played against a Vancouver Ramada Inn team that was a 3A team and made up mostly of Mounties.

On another occaision Bob, Dusty, Neil Anderson and Dennis were hired by Vaushall to play in a tournament in Kimberley. Dusty was a pitcher but had his left wrist in a cast and was supposed to play in a championship game for his team the next day so they told him he couldn't pitch. Well the game started going badly and he couldn't stand it anymore and begged to be put in. Bob was the catcher and had played with Dusty a lot but on this time it was different. Dusty threw the first pitch and then Bob called for a curve ball. Dusty threw that one and then Bob got up and said, "I can't catch for you today, you are gonna hurt someone." According to Dusty he was too hot that night. However, Dusty says that Bobby, as he called him, was a top notch catcher!