Terrier Town: Summer of ’49

Wes Lillie

325 The Lowry Street gang. Wes Lillie is second from right. Wes Lillie W ES LILLIE CONTINUED TO PLAY IN THE INTERCOUNTY for several years after that 1949 season. He was always regarded as a strong fielder and a weak hitter, and he never shook that perception. After being traded to the Waterloo Tigers early in the 1950 season, Lillie played a key role in helping Waterloo win an all-Ontario title. On September 25, 1950, it was “no-hit” Lillie who got the key hit to win a marathon twenty-one-inning game against Brantford in the third game of the senior Intercounty finals. The win gave Waterloo a 3-1 stranglehold on the series. Neither an Alberta-born fog, an eclipse of the moon, or a screening of Frankenstein at the Waterloo Theatre could cheat the Tigers, or Lillie, out of their share of the limelight that night. The game, played at Waterloo Park, lasted five hours—an all-time Intercounty endurance record. When it ended, on what was described as Lillie’s Texas Leaguer, Waterloo had scored a 7-6 win. It was an impressive victory. The Tigers erased a five-run deficit and then struggled through eleven innings with a makeshift lineup after three players were expelled from the game. The contest was won and lost by both sides at least half a dozen times, but the spotlight fell, for most of the game, on the relief hurling duel between Brantford’s Alf Gavey and Waterloo’s Al Dumouchelle. Kumornik worked behind the plate that night. It was the longest game he had ever been involved in. What most people didn’t know, however, was that he had umpired a seventeen-inning game in Kitchener that afternoon. Either one of those games would have been exhausting, but working both—thirty-eight innings in twelve hours— must have been a record in itself. Pitcher Joe Yosurak had started the game for Waterloo while Bob Whitcher had gotten the nod for the Red Sox. Yosurak was an interesting player. He first came up to Canada from the Pennsylvania coal mines to play for the Tigers. He’d played pro ball with Whitey Ford, among others. Upon arriving in the Kitchener-Waterloo area he happened to stop at Johnny Kumornik’s restaurant in downtown Kitchener en route to Waterloo. That’s where Kumornik first met him. Kumornik quickly realized that Yosurak had a penchant for swearing. “He really used a lot of vulgar words,” Kumornik said. “Every other word was ‘fuck this’ or ‘fuck that.’” Lillie was there when an ordained minister, who was also a good ballplayer, tried out for the Waterloo team. As might be expected, it didn’t take long for Yosurak’s foul mouth to irritate the minister. So the minister went up to Yosurak and politely asked him to stop swearing. It was a reasonable request. There was no need for that kind of language. “What the fuck do you mean?” Yosurak shot back. The minister, who didn’t make the team, kept his mouth shut after that. He could see there was no hope. Yosurak stayed on in the Kitchener area and married a local woman, eventually taking a job with the City of Waterloo’s cemetery department. He lived out the rest of his life in Waterloo. In the twenty-one-inning marathon in late September of 1950, Yosurak started on the mound for the Tigers. Before two innings were up, the Red Sox held a 5-0 lead. In the third inning some pajama-clad freshmen from Waterloo College, the forerunner of Wilfrid Laurier University, paraded in front of the home-plate bleachers. It was just one more unforgettable moment in the historic game. Five hours and 103 put-outs later the Red Sox players solemnly walked off the field, each of them cursing Lillie and Dumouchelle. Dumouchelle had relieved Yosurak in the eleventh after Yosurak had given up six runs on twelve hits, and was credited with the win after going ten and two-thirds innings in relief. He played superbly, holding Brantford to two hits and striking out eleven while walking three. But it was Lillie who was the hero of the day. It had been a game no one would soon forget. As the game progressed the air grew cool and it became quite foggy. It was late 326 Terrier Town—Summer of ’49 September...