Manitoba’s junior baseball champions of 1965

Winnipeg

Winnipeg hosted the first Canadian Junior Men’s Baseball Championship in 1965. Played at the Winnipeg Stadium from July 29 to Aug. 2, seven provinces plus Manitoba competed in a single knockout tournament for the title. The East was represented by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. Saskatchewan and Alberta came from the West.

Players were under 21 with the majority of Manitobans coming from teams in the Manitoba Senior League’s eastern and western divisions. Each team was required to have six players on the roster, who were under 18 as of Sept. 30, 1965. A team that would represent Canada in the World Junior Championship in Mexico City that fall would be selected from that group. Outfielder Mel Smith, 17, of Hamiota and first baseman Wayne Janz, 18, from St. James Canadians made the team.

In Manitoba’ s first game, Bobby Hunter of the Winnipeg Orioles threw a two-hitter and struck out 16 in a 2-1 win over Prince Edward Island. His Oriole teammate, shortstop Buzz Lamond, stole home in the third inning for the first run and Oriole third baseman Rick Simcoe then drove in the winner. Cyril MacDonald’s RBI single in the seventh inning ended Hunter’s shutout.

Manitoba reached the final by beating the highly touted Quebec team 5-3. Claude Lambert was the winning pitcher while catcher Don Smith from Hamiota led the attack with an RBI single in the first inning and two more RBIs in the sixth that scored Lamond and Brian Smith, both of whom singled. The Smiths combined for two more runs in the 8th. Quebec’s three runs came in the ninth on Don LePage’s homer.

In the final, the Alberta Dodgers beat the host team 3-2. Manitoba scored first in the opening inning on Mel Smith’s triple and Lamond’s sacrifice fly. The Dodgers tied it in the second. Hunter singled home Simcoe in the fourth to put Manitoba up 2-1. In the bottom of the inning, first baseman Ron Moffat doubled home two runs to give Alberta the lead and the eventual title. Alberta had beaten Saskatchewan 8-5 to reach the final.

Following the tournament, Lambert signed a professional contract with the Houston Astros. The St. Laurent product was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 while Hunter was inducted in 2003.

Lamond, who played for the junior West End Orioles in 1964, had attended the University of North Dakota on a baseball scholarship in the 1964-65 school year. When he returned home in May 1965, Terry Hind, the longtime Winnipeg Goldeyes general manager, said, “This kid looks like a ballplayer from A to Z.”

Hind proved to be a prophet when you look at Lamond’s career on the local baseball and softball diamonds where championships seemed to follow him. In 1966, he played for the Transcona Atomics, who won the both the Winnipeg Senior League and the provincial championship. Lamond led the league in hits with 22 and finished second in the batting race at .379.

In 1967, the Weston product switched to softball with the senior A Molson Canadians. Molson won Manitoba’s only Canadian senior men’s title that summer and finished second in the International Softball World Championship in Oklahoma City the next season.

He played for the Canadians through 1971 and moved to the K&A Black Knights in 1972 after Molson folded. Knights represented Manitoba that summer in the Canadian championship. The nucleus of that team, including Lamond, became the Winnipeg Colonels the next season and won the first Western Major Fastball League championship.

In 1974 and 1975, Lamond played for the St. Vital Flocking Ducks, who represented Manitoba in the Canadian championship. He later played the Sportstraders team that dominated senior slo-pitch in Manitoba and won the 2003 Senior Softball AA 55+ World Championship in Winnipeg.

While the Canadians, Knights, Colonels, Flocking Ducks and Sportstraders teams have all been inducted into the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame, Lamond has been overlooked individually.

Lamond was a versatile athlete, who was a Free Press high school all-star quarterback in 1962 with the Daniel McIntyre Maroons. In those days, the Grade 11 student was known by his given name Uan.

Lamond died in April of this year. If you read his obituary in the Free Press Passages, you would never know about his sports accomplishments. As one person commented, he was “another awesome Weston athlete and a better person.”