Terrier Town: Summer of ’49

The Prelude

231 Tom Padden, Number 9 The Prelude “Oh, did he rip it!” said Wes. “Goody hit this thing over the coal pile, 950 miles over the right-field wall.” As we slapped his back, he turned, spat out a stream of tobacco juice, and said, “Aw, hell, what did you expect?” No player in the history of Dickson Park had ever hit a ball into the Grand River. And though they looked for it, the ball was never found. W HEN PEOPLE TELL YOU HOW GOOD YOU ARE, THERE IS A danger in actually believing them. My father ingrained in us a sense of Presbyterian piety, or modesty, which made it hard to ever accept a compliment fully. But it was a great gift to be taught modesty. I was eighteen that summer, and in awe of the players around me. I believed they couldn’t lose, and further, that since I was a part of the team, we couldn’t lose. We should have trusted our Presbyterian instincts. It is true that no one gave Brantford much of a chance to win our semifinal series. We had won the pennant ten and a half games in front of them, while Brantford had backdoored it into the playoffs with a nail-biting 1-0 win over London. We boasted four ex-major-leaguers; Brantford had none. All the Red Sox had were a handful of players with Class B or A experience like Gibbs, Gavey, Fisher, Parker, and a few others, and, of course, the formidable talents of Lockington and Lipka. Some of us thought we might even beat Brantford in four straight games; then it would be on to play the real series for the Intercounty championship against Kitchener or Waterloo. Laurie Brain tried to be objective, and still he came to the conclusion that Galt looked unbeatable. He was reminded of the column he had written only a year or two before when he predicted Galt would go into Guelph and earn an easy win. “The Terriers are off to Guelph this afternoon and should, without much trouble, come back with a win,” he had confidently predicted. “The Guelph Maple Leafs are in the cellar of the Intercounty senior series and from impressions gleaned from writers around the circuit, are destined to stay there … The Terriers should boost their stock considerably with wins over Guelph today and Waterloo Saturday.” Of course, the Terriers had gone to Guelph and lost, and Brain’s prediction found its way into the rival Kitchener-Waterloo Record, “illustrating the folly of predicting,” as the Record pointed out. Tongue in cheek, the piece went on to say that “Laurie Brain now qualifies to become a member of that select group of the sports writing fraternity who called and lost. But spare those tears men; bet the Galt scribe didn’t have any money riding on that prophecy.” Now Brain caught himself wanting to predict a fast series win for the powerhouse Terriers. Instead, he used caution. He would let the game be played on the field. The Galts quickly proved everybody right, taking a commanding 3-1 series lead. Things were going so well that Brain didn’t have to state the obvious: that Galt would win the series easily. Brantford fans were prepared for the worst. Though he was never a rah-rah type of reporter-cheerleader, Brain could not always resist plugging the Terriers when they were deserving. But he also carried a sharp pen and wasn’t afraid to call them like he saw them. So it was not surprising when rumours began circulating that the well-liked Brain and the fiery Murray engaged in fisticuffs that season, though Murray denies it. If they had a few quarrels , they managed to patch things up. In later years Murray talked about Brain with fondness. Brain seemed to relate well with the players. He was able to get close to them and yet still write critically about them when circumstances demanded. He was a former athlete, and his golfing prowess and baseball experience stood him in good stead with the players. He knew what he was writing about. One time when umpire Ed Fowler failed to show for a junior game, Brain was asked to fill in. The Terriers knew that though he wrote for the paper, he was almost one 232 Terrier Town—Summer of ’49 [3.141.244.201] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 10:59 GMT...