One of the all-around greats

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This article was published 25/01/2019 (2486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A fastball career built on ball diamonds in the West End, the sales floor of a sporting goods department, and on an infamous junk pitch is being recognized by the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame.

Charlie Brown will be inducted into the hall in the all-around category as part of its 2019 class this May.The hall honours individuals, teams, and organizations for outstanding achievement in softball and contributions to the sport.

Brown’s long tenure in Manitoba fastball has seen him pitch for teams locally and nationally at the senior A, senior B, and masters levels; coach midget teams at the Sir John Franklin Community Centre to provincial championships; and serve as an umpire for tournaments across the province.

Brown, who grew up in the “hotbed of fastball” also known as Winnipeg’s West End, said he was first introduced to the sport after high school, while working in the sporting goods section at J.H. Ashdown Hardware in the mid-1950s.

As the son of a war widow, Brown said he didn’t have the opportunity to play organized sports growing up.
“When the other guys were playing softball after school, I was busy running doing paper routes and stuff like that,” Brown, 80, said.

Wanting to learn more about what he was selling, Brown joined Ashdown’s curling and fastball teams. He started at second base and field with Ashdown, competing in the Prairie Distributors Fastball League, and was soon introduced to the technique of windmill pitching.

“Our team was in need of some pitching, so I decided to teach myself how to throw and that’s how it started,” Brown said. “I had a friend, who wasn’t a ball player at all, who I persuaded to go on the field at Daniel Mac and try to catch for me. He didn’t catch very many of them, but he was very supportive.
“I was all over the place, I had no idea what I was doing,” he laughed.

For a pitcher who later went on to throw perfect games, earn all-star recognitions, and represent the province at a national level — one time pitching 42 innings over a weekend provincial tournament — Brown chuckles when he looks back on his first game. He estimates having walked half of the opposing team in his first inning as a pitcher.

“But it worked out alright in the long run,” he said.

The River Heights local said he stuck with the game because of the friendships that come from being in team sports and jokes he made the most out of “not very much skill.”

“Pitchers don’t make it unless they’ve got really good catchers and there’s a couple of guys, especially in my career… one is Bob Turner who really turned me from a run of the mill pitcher to one of the more successful ones,” Brown said.

“I started late so I could never throw the ball as fast as some the best pitchers, so I had to learn to make the ball move more, to throw more, the term in the day was, junk,” he added. “I became known for offspeed pitches. Some of the opposition would say it was only offspeed because I couldn’t throw it fast.”

Over the course of his career, Brown said the support from his wife and children were instrumental in his continued participation, and the opportunity to combine family and fastball was special.

He involved his children with the Sir John Franklin Explorers team as players and bat boys, and in 1984 and 1985 won provincial midget titles with the team. The travelling he did with his senior and masters teams, and at the junior and midget coaching levels, was always a family affair, he added.

“In some ways (coaching) was more important to me even than my own playing career because of the family element,” he said. “It was kind of making up for all the time I was away as a player.”

Brown, who was previously inducted into the hall in 2013 as a member of the 1984-1987 Manitoba Men’s Masters Softball Team, is joined in the 2019 class by Daryl Beamish, Michael Blackburn, Rollie Boucher, Leanne (Scott) Papineau, Frankie (Little) Cochlan, Larry Dewis, Brett Turner, and the 2002 – 2007 Bison Blondes Women’s Slo-Pitch, 2002 -2006 Smitty’s Senior Open A Women’s Fastpitch, and 2006 – 2011 St. James Canad Inns 55+ Mixed Slo-Pitch teams.

The induction ceremony will be May 11 at the Victoria Inn.