Rosedales players were great athletes

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This article was published 11/06/2015 (4050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In today’s sports world, specialization is the key to success. Young athletes with potential are pushed to focus on one sport year-round.

That wasn’t the case with the players on the 1945 to 1950 Rosedales baseball teams, who epitomized the all-around athletes of their day. Many Rosedales team members played high school and junior football in the fall and minor and then junior hockey in the winter.

At its 19th annual induction dinner in Morden on June 6, the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame honoured the Winnipeg organization that operated teams from junior down to bantam.

Jack Hind and his son Terry formed a junior baseball team in 1945 that played its home games at Sherburn Park, which was once was the home of the Winnipeg Maroons of the Northern League. Rosedales, named after a brand of coal sold by the team’s sponsor, Thomas Jackson and Sons, won the Greater Winnipeg championship that first season.

At age 15, Fred Dunsmore began a six-year run as a pitcher and third baseman with the junior team that won the title three more times. An all-star quarterback at Daniel MacIntyre High School and a junior and senior hockey star, Dunsmore was one of five finalists for the province’s Centennial Athlete in 1970.

Original Rosedales Don (Red) McRae and future NHLer Clint Albright helped Winnipeg Monarchs win the Canadian junior hockey championship in the spring of 1946.

A Rosedale in 1945 and 1947 and later a pro hockey player, Don Slater played for Edmonton Canadians against the Monarchs in the 1946 Western final. Monarchs backup goalie Ted Chitty played for the junior Rosedales in 1946 and 1947.

The organization’s first juvenile team, which won the city championship in 1946, was filled with all-around athletes. Ken Little was the most versatile, setting sprint records and playing hockey and football. After he left hockey with the senior Maroons, Little took up curling and played second on two provincial championship teams skipped by his teammate, Bruce Hudson.

A high school football all-star centre for Gordon Bell, Hudson caught for five seasons. Reg Abbott, Ed Mazur, Roy McMeekin, Milt Swindlehurst and Gordie Watters all played pro hockey.
New to the 1947 junior team were Norwood juvenile George Burke, along with Bob Gray, Johnny Warren and Gordie Simpson from the West End Orioles.

Burke went on to a lengthy pro hockey career. Gray played four seasons of junior hockey and was a member of four Manitoba Willingdon Cup golf teams in the 1950s. Warren, a Gordon Bell product, was a terrific player in the three major sports from minor to senior.

A junior Monarch and a senior Maroon, Simpson coached the Maroons to the Canadian senior title in 1964. Terry Hind was the team president, Dunsmore was the captain and brothers Bill and Al Johnson played. Bill was an original Rosedale in 1945 and Al, a former NHLer,  played with the juvenile champions in 1950.

Harry Langford was a star lineman at Daniel Mac and a Rosedale in 1949; his pro football career with the Calgary Stampeders earned him induction into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. Blue Bomber great and Toronto Maple Leaf Gerry James pitched for the 1950 juveniles and the catcher was Garry (Boomer) Blaine, a future hockey pro.

And those are but a few. Many other Rosedales played junior hockey or went on to star in other sports.

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