CPR Store­keep­er Gor­don Crowe (no rela­tion to Mor­gan & his broth­er Gor­don) came to work in CPR stores at Souris in mid 1950’s. He was from Win­nipeg and intro­duced “Lit­tle League” base­ball to Souris. There were 4 teams estab­lished, name­ly, CPR, Legion, Kiwa­nis & Elks. Short­ly after the Legion, Kiwa­nis & Elks agreed to donate $500.00 each for a Recre­ation­al Direc­tor for July & August. The first one hired was Al Robert­son from Hamiota.
I remem­ber ask­ing CPR Engi­neer Bill Roney, what he thought of our new Rec.Director, and Bill replied “Any­one who can work my son (Allan) for 2 hours on a ball dia­mond and then when Allan comes home at noon and sleeps for an hour, is an OK per­son as far as I’m concerned”.
    Gordie Lyall was the Rec. Direc­tor in Souris from July 1 to Aug. 15, 1962. I was CPR Sta­tion Agent at Nes­bitt (22 miles East of Souris) and as a Past Pres­i­dent of Souris Lit­tle League I kept in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with them. 

   Jim Down (broth­er to Souris Butch­er Har­ry Down) used to bring his Bran­don Lit­tle League team to play our Nes­bitt team once a year for an exhi­bi­tion game. After the game he told me that  we should enter our team into the Provin­cial Play­downs because he thought we had one of the best pitch­ers in Man­i­to­ba. I called Pres­i­dent Al Richard­son at Mor­den to see if we could get entered, but he said that the draw was already made and mailed out. I said that I felt that I was respon­si­ble for these play­ers los­ing the chance to com­pete in the play­offs. He sug­gest­ed that I take play­ers to clos­est team entered. I asked about tak­ing them to Souris. And he said that was okay.

  I met Gordie Lyall and Bob Sander­son lat­er and asked them if they had the full com­ple­ment of 18 play­ers on their team. They said they had room for 4 more and I asked them if they want­ed to win the Provin­cial Cham­pi­onship, because I had some play­ers that could help their team out. They said bring them to their next game. The four play­ers I had in mind were Mark Fish­er (a good Nes­bitt Pitch­er & good bat­ter), Grant Ever­ard (anoth­er good pitch­er), Don Brown ( a relief pitch­er) and Greg Leach­man (a third base­man who was also good at bat).The last 3 boys were from Wawanesa.

    We won the Man­i­to­ba Provin­cial Ban­tam BB Cham­pi­onship in Morden,MB Sep­tem­ber Labour Day week­end of 1962. The Souris Elks Lodge host­ed a din­ner and donat­ed indi­vid­ual tro­phies to each play­er. Two play­ers on this team were sons of CPR employ­ees, name­ly George Davis (son of Engi­neer Norm Davis) and Paul     Eliuk (son of Sec­tion­man Con­rad Eliuk) also Gary David­son was son of CPR Watch Inspec­tor Allan David­son. Anoth­er boy who would have been on this team was Andy Mur­ray (who lat­er became NHL hock­ey coach) but he was on vaca­tion dur­ing this play­off session.Later in life, Gar­ry David­son would become own­er of Junior Hock­ey team, (The Port­land Win­ter­hawks), Greg Cameron, Grant Ever­ard, Mark Fish­er and Gordie Lyall would become induct­ed into the Man­i­to­ba Base­ball Hall of Fame. Please see pho­to below. Click your cur­sor on it to enlarge. Click a 2nd time and it will enlarge more. I have added 2 notes at top right hand cor­ner and bot­tom right hand cor­ner of the pho­to about Lit­tle Lea­guers Kei­th Edwards and Bob Neufeld.

    There was anoth­er play­er named Kei­th Edwards who would have been on this team. I left this part of the sto­ry for the last of this arti­cle. Kei­th was play­ing ball in June 1962 when he devel­oped a strong headache, and his coach Mur­ray Zuk took him out of the game. He went home com­plain­ing of a bad headache. He died in an ambu­lance enroute to Win­nipeg. The attend­ing Dr. declared that Kei­th had suf­fered from a rup­tured aneurysm.The team and man­age­ment along with the Souris B.P.O. Elks Lodge #21 decid­ed that a posthu­mous tro­phy be deliv­ered to Kei­th’s fam­i­ly at an appro­pri­ate time. It was the sad­dest Christ­mas Eve of my life. I went around to the Edwards home just before mid­night Dec. 24th 1962, after Kei­th’s Sis­ter Joan & younger Broth­er Clare were in bed. His Moth­er Flo­rence was busy putting togeth­er a bike for Clare for Christ­mas and I helped her. Final­ly, I said to Flo­rence that I had a sad duty and pre­sent­ed her with the tro­phy. Sur­pris­ing­ly she was very hap­py to receive it. We cried and we hugged. It was placed on their man­tle. Trainman/Conductor Al Edwards (father to Kei­th) was out on a CPR run at the time. They were very proud and hap­py to receive it. (This sto­ry was writ­ten by Ferg Devins)