Terrier Town: Summer of ’49

Hitting the Fence

221 The Galt Terriers of 1950 Hitting the Fence It was too early to start calling Brantford a team of destiny, but that is what they were, from the moment they beat London to get into the playoffs. O NE SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN BRANTFORD, WITH A FULL house on hand, Creedon did an interesting thing. While in the outfield, a long ball came his way. I was playing beside him in left field. All of us had been around long enough to know that any ball hitting the back fence was a ground-rule double. But on this occasion, Creedon was beat, so he kicked the ball into the fence as he pretended to pick it up. The Brantford batter only got two bases out of the deal when he should have had at least a triple. The Brantford fans were livid, and I thought there might be some trouble, but Creedon was a big guy and things finally settled down. I think Creedon knew every trick in the book. In his long career he came to know the game the way only a handful of men ever came to know it. That night I went down to a dance hall we called “The Bucket of Blood,” a place known for the many fights which broke out there. It sat on the corner of Ainslie and Dickson Streets. Normally the Women’s Institute held dances there through the week, but there was a special Saturday-night dance this night. The Bucket of Blood was a place good girls seldom frequented. Usually they were forbidden to go up there. There were three of us from my high-school class, and we were hoping to have a night of fun. But this night the zoot-suiters were there, and there was trouble from the beginning. My buddies and I weren’t looking for any trouble. It seemed to come looking for us. I was out on the dance floor with a very attractive brunette from school, trying to make the most of my split with Jenny, when I thought I heard someone call my name. I ignored it, believing I was just hearing things. Then someone walked by and bumped my arm hard, and looked at me in an odd way. I let it go. The small collision had caused a pin in my watch wristband to come loose, and my watch had fallen to the floor under a table. Since I was dancing, I decided to pick it up as soon as the song was over. When the same guy walked by me again and bumped into me once more a few moments later, I knew it was no accident. And the brunette I was dancing with knew it too. I recognized the guy— Roy—as being of my brother’s age. He was wearing a typical zoot suit and had a long chain dangling from his waist. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was a member of the Beanery Gang, a group of fedorawearing thugs with chapters in Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, and Toronto. They used to cause a lot of trouble at dances, and in the summers they were known to hang out at Wasaga Beach. Roy had not gone into the service, though I never knew why. I was fuming, but he made the next move before I could even say anything. “Jimmy’d never take that kind of crap,” he said. “But I guess you ain’t Jimmy now, are you?” He moved toward the table under which my watch lay, stooped down and grabbed my watch, and put it in his pocket. The watch meant a great deal to me. Jimmy had given it to me the day he left for the war. He hadn’t really given it to me, but had left it in my care, asking me to look after it while he was away. “Why don’t we step outside,” I said in a cold, calm voice, beguiling a fury I could scarcely contain. He probably thought I would be a pushover because he was older, and looked tougher. He may very well have been tougher than I was. But I also knew what I was capable of when provoked, and had no fear as we walked down the stairs and outside into the night. “I always wanted to take on your brother,” he said. “He was too good. Always good at everything. I wanted to take him on, then...