I Hope I Didn’t Get Any Corn Stuck In My Teeth

 When I was twelve our Orillia peewee baseball team beat all comers, from little towns to big cities, and we won the all-Ontario championship. The following year, Orillia put on a Sports Celebrity dinner and our team and some successful minor hockey teams were invited and we accepted trophies and such from the celebrities –  like baseball legend Sal Maglie, hockey star Andy Bathgate, goalie great Roger Crozier, all-star fooball player Garney Henley, and champion boxer Carmen Basilio.

I’m in the bottom row, third from the right in the baseball picture, and Ricky Ley, who eventually played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New England Whalers, and Team Canada ’74, is in the hockey photo, bottom row, third from left with the “A” on his sweater. The Whalers actually retired Rick Ley’s sweater in Hartford and it’s hanging from the rafters there.

Ken McDonald, who was the local radio guy, was the master of ceremonies, and he eventually changed his name to Jiggs McDonald and became an iconic play-by-play broadcaster for the inaugural Los Angeles Kings, and later the Atlanta Flames.