Pro baseball player Doris Shero dies

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/03/2014 (4463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A League of Their Own, a movie starring Tom Hanks as a crotchety manager and Geena Davis,

Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna as players, brought the story of women’s baseball into the public eye in 1992.

The movie was based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), that operated in the American midwest from 1943 until 1954. Players were recruited from Canada to play in what was called the “glamour” league, where short skirts and lady-like conduct were the order of the day and evening.

In 1998, the 64 Canadians who played the league were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame as a special group. That summer the 11 players from Manitoba were honoured by the provincial baseball shrine at its second induction dinner in Brandon.
Doris (Shero) Witiuk, who died in Spokane, Wash., on Jan. 26 at age 84, was one of the local players. A graduate of Isaac Newton High School, she roamed the outfield for the CUAC Blues before going to Wisconsin in 1950 to play for the Racine Belles and for Battle Creek the next season.

While there, Shero earned the nickname “Baser” for her speed rounding the bases. Doris was the sister of  pro hockey player and legendary Philadelphia Flyers coach Fred Shero. In 1953, she married Steve Witiuk, another pro from the North End. His hockey odyssey included 33 games with the Chicago Blackhawks and stops in the Western Hockey League that included Winnipeg with the Warriors in the late 1950s and Spokane, where the Witiuks lived from 1962 on. Their son Steve is the golf pro at the South Interlake Golf and Country Club north of the city near Warren.

While the AAGPBL was billed as baseball to attract fans, in the early years the pitchers threw underhand like softball.

The Manitoba girls mainly played in the Greater Winnipeg Senior Girls Softball League before going to the States, where they were paid $45 to $85 a week to play a game they loved.
Pitcher Audrey (Haine) Daniels, who was 17 when she went to the AAGPBL in 1944, said she earned three times what she made at Eaton’s. Daniels, who lives in Ohio, and infielder Evelyn (Wawryshyn) Moroz of Winnipeg, who played from 1946 to 1951, are the only surviving Manitoba players. Both are members of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.

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According to Churchill High School coach Yussef Hawash, the school’s football alumni are excited to be holding their annual Hall of Fame induction dinner for the first time in the Pinnacle Room at Investors Group Field on April 9.

The class of 2014, which is the 12th, includes kicker/punter Walt McKee (1964-66), linebacker Ron Pucci (1965-67), defensive lineman Ed Zeglen (1973-75), offensive lineman Stino Urso (1980-82), running back Chris Jamieson (1982-84) quarterback Colin Pochailo (1993-95) and Omar Hawash (1984-85) and Brock Campbell (1996-98), both of whom played fullback and linebacker. Ron Gustafson, who was an assistant coach to present U of M Bisons head coach Brian Dobie at Churchill from 1979 to 1982, will also be inducted. Gustafson later served many seasons as commissioner of the Winnipeg High School Football League.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com