Elmer Anderson wasn't there 49 years ago for the first Canada Day Fastpitch Tournament at Spruce City Stadium in 1969 but in the years he did show up with the Peavine Rangers he made it a worthwhile trip for his team from northern Alberta.
They dominated the annual native tournament in Prince George in the '70s and '80s, taking home the lion's share of the loot several times in the A Division, and Anderson's arm was one of the big reason for their success.
"The years that we came, we probably won 90 per cent of the tournaments, so there's no one real highlight, all of them were highlights," said Anderson. "We weren't super-strong, but we were strong. We must have came about 20 years and 90 per cent of them we won."
In 1979, with Anderson carrying the load as the only Peavine pitcher, the Rangers went undefeated in five games at Spruce City Stadium. He allowed just nine runs and shut out three teams, including a 7-0, 15-strikeout gem to defeat Dawson Creek in the final.
The Canada Day event routinely attracted 60 or 70 teams each year and they came from as far away as Ontario to try to win in Prince George. As Anderson remembers it, the ball diamonds at Carrie Jane Gray Park were the backdrop for what became a weekend campground.
"They used to let us camp in that area and we'd pitch up our tents and whole families would come and there would be a big gathering with big crowds," said Anderson. "Our team used to camp and we'd bring our moose meat and bannock.
"One the things I can say about our team then is we were all locals from Peavine."
Located near High Prairie, Peavine is a Metis settlement of about 400 people and Anderson admits he was a late bloomer in the game.
"I was raised more or less in poverty, in an isolated area and I didn't realize a game of fastball until I was 22 years old," he said. "I threw rocks. I saw a guy in high school throwing like than and it caught my eye and I thought, 'this is cool.' I started to throw everything I could pick up. I went to work on the railroad for 21 days straight and I'd throw rocks at trees and off the railroad tracks and by the time I came out of those camps I was ready to play fastball, that's how it started.
'We were all sort of in isolation and a bunch of us in my age group came up to start fastball and we matured as a team. We were locals, we didn't have outside people coming in. We all wanted to be a team and we worked hard at it."
Before he knew it, Anderson wasn't just going to tournaments in western Canada with his Peavine team. He became a hired gun, getting picked up by teams and to play for North American championships in places like Oklahoma, California and Washington. He pitched until he was 55.
"I didn't make money but I had my expenses paid for to go all over the western United States and I met lots of people and enjoyed my time and the competition was good," he said.
Peavine was back in the Canada Day tournament lineup for the first time in 15 years. After losing their first game to Falcon Contracting of Prince George the beat the Nak'azdli Pirates 5-1 Saturday night and will face Big Guy Lake Sunday at 8 a.m., and the winner will advance to the semifinal round.
Anderson returned to find a few familiar faces in the crowd at Spruce City Stadium and he was there strictly as a spectator. Now 70, Anderson had his sons Al and Jay playing in the Rangers' infield, while his grandson (Al's 16-year-old son) Blake was covering right field.
"We've all gotten old and this team that's here now is kind of the next generation," said Elmer. "Once in a while I'll grab the ball and the arm still feels really good, but I've had my years. It's nice to see this coming back up again. Peavine is starting to start up the young guys now. It was just lack of interest from our area, slow-pitch took over and there were no younger people coming up to pitch.
"Prince George was the team that started to beat us. When they came into their prime, we were the opposite. We kind of dropped off."
The Regina Golden Hawks were back to try to bring the Canada Day title back to Saskatchewan, having won it in 2015, followed by back-to-back losses to the Westbank Cardinals in the championship game in 2016 and 2017.
Albert McNab, a perennial Prince George tournament all-star catcher and former MVP for the Regina team known as the Sundance Hawks, has been coming back every year for the last 30 years. Like Anderson, the team McNab now cooaches spans three generations.
Three of McNab's sons - Calvin, Lyle and Ron - and two of his grandsons - Brandon McNab and Josh Montana - play for the Golden Hawks. Montana, 19, also plays baseball for Cañada College in San Francisco. The Golden Hawks roster of 11 players also includes pitcher Brock Perry of Prince Albert, Sask., who played for Westbank the previous five seasons.
"All these young guys here on the team, most of their dads played for the Sundance Hawks, so it just kind of carries on," said McNab. "We're mostly family-related and that makes it easier for the management and the coach. We get in a couple of vans when we travel, we buy sandwiches and we're four to a (hotel) room - we don't live high in the hog, unless they bring their wives.
"We keep coming back here because Sheldon (tournament organizer Bjorklund) treats us well and he keeps inviting us back and he's a good friend of ours. We like it here."
Regina will be hosting the Canadian Native Fastball Championship, Aug. 3-5. As many as 90 teams are coming and the Canada Day tournament was one of several the Golden Hawks will use as a tune-up for nationals. The Hawks are focused on playing tournaments closer to home and have set aside senior A ambitions. They haven't competed at the ISC world tournament for two years. The competition in Prince George isn't quite as strong as it was when the elder McNab was in his prime and it's the quantity, not the quality, that has diminished.
"Back in the day, you had 10 teams that could win it, here you maybe have three or four that will be there," said McNab.
To a large degree, it's First Nations ball players who are keeping fastball at the higher levels alive in Canada and McNab is not alone in his worries for the game's longterm future.
"Back in Regina we've got 16 teams in the league and 12 of them are probably native teams and if we were to pull away and form our own league, that league would probably fold," he said. "Sad to say but it's a dying sport. It's the pitching. The top three teams here have to have the top pitchers. Pitching is big part of the game. Kids are playing in the native communities but the non-native (teams) are struggling now because they didn't bring up young guys like this. We'll be good for a while yet, though."
