Telling the Stories of London Majors' Alumni in Photos & Text, 1925-2024
WELCOME to the London Majors' Alumni Association pages on the Majors' website.
If you have any photographs, newspaper clippings or memories related to London Majors' team history that you are willing to share, please contact Majors' Alumni Chairperson Barry Boughner at: E-MAIL ~ barry.boughner7ATgmail.com or CELL ~ 519.777.1337.
> Please check out all the other tabs in the above Alumni drop-box, such as News, History, Labatt Park, Team Photos, Managers, Gold Bat Club and Contact, as we are in the process of moving content over to those pages. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
TO ADVERTISE on these popular alumni pages, email barry.boughner7ATgmail.com or barrywells7ATYahoo.ca. Reasonable monthly advertising rates to promote your business or organization. With thousands of Majors' alumni, IBL alumni/ fans and baseball fans/ historians generally, your ad is guaranteed high Internet exposure. Page content is changed and updated regularly.
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London Majors' Alumni Committee: Barry Boughner (Chair), Scott Aldridge, Dave Byers, Rick Corner, Ron Gervais, Stephen Harding (Friends of Labatt Park), Riley Nowakowski, Jon Owen, Stephanie Radu (Curator, Beachville District Museum) and Barry Wells (Friends of Labatt Park).
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The loss of Norm Aldridge and Gabby Anderson Led to Majors' Alumni association
 LEFT TO RIGHT: London Majors' Alumni Arden Eddie, #24, Barry Boughner, #7, Dave Byers, #18, Jon Owen, #1, Cleveland Brownlee (active player, #35), Wayne Fenlon, #9, Larry Haggitt, #5, and Richard Thompson, #5 ~ all made the IBL's Top 100 Players-of-All-Time List (Gold Bat Club). PHOTO: IBL's 100th Anniversary Banquet in Kitchener on Feb. 24, 2018. |
By Stephanie Radu, Curator, Beachville District Museum
Imagine baseball is a big part of your life, historic Labatt Park is your home field and the London Majors are your closest friends. Some of your best memories are clubhouse conversations, sweaty summer practices and the joy of victory and the hell of defeat. Your coaches, trainers, fans and teammates are your tribe and fuel your love of the game.
Now imagine the jersey comes off and you put down the bat and glove. What happens then?
The London Majors' Alumni Association was established in the Spring of 2017 to connect players and families from all eras.
Barry Boughner, chair of the Majors' Alumni, says that Labatt Park was once the meeting place for retired Majors when 20 or 30 guys would show up at the park to shoot the breeze and catch up. Too many of these get-togethers took place when they were mourning the loss of a former coach, manager or player.
When former coach and London Sports Hall of Famer Norm Aldridge, #3, died at age 90 on July 15, 2015, Norm's teammates got together to remember him.
Norm’s son, Scott Aldridge, remembers going through his father's collection of team memorabilia and finding a Rogers-TV video clip of a late June 1994 game at Labatt Park between the St. Thomas Elgins and the Majors on Eager Beaver Baseball Night. (The starting London lineup during the June 1994 game is: Pitcher Brett Thomas, Catcher Mike Hogan (Jr. call up), 1B Jamie Cook, 2B Alex McKay, 3B Dan Mendham, SS Mike Shewan, LF John Lierman, CF Richard Thompson, RF Ken Krieger. Regular London Catcher Kane Godwin had died on May 13, 1994 in single-car traffic accident.)
"Quite a few of the ghosts of Labatt Park are alive and well in that tape," says Aldridge. "Roy McKay, #16, Dad, #3 and Gabby Anderson, #5, are three of them.”
That video tape got him thinking about organizing events to celebrate Majors' history and past accomplishments.
Another loss was the catalyst to make it happen. When Stan (Gabby) Anderson, another London Sports Hall of Famer, died at 87 on June 7, 2016, “many former players and ball staff attended” says Aldridge. It was then the “idea of doing something for the living” was born. Aldridge says organizing events at the park and honouring players go hand-in-hand: “When the living are gathered, the dead will also be remembered."
Barry Boughner was the perfect guy to pull it all together. Boughner, called "a force of nature" by retired Free Press sportswriter Morris Dalla Costa, had played for the London Juniors, London Pontiacs, Avcos and Majors on and off between 1966 and 1984.
He remains in touch with many of his former hockey and baseball teammates and had recently organized a reunion at Budweiser Gardens. In 2015, Boughner brought former hockey teammates from all over the USA and Canada for the 50th anniversary of the London Nationals, London's first Junior 'A' hockey club.
Along with Majors' alumni Scott Aldridge, Wayne Fenlon, Dave Byers, Alex McKay, Jon Owen, Arden Eddie and Barry Wells from the Friends of Labatt Park, they got things rolling. With an eye to developing an annual “Alumni Day,” the group's first meeting was at Dave Byers’ house.
For the first Alumni Day on July 22, 2017, they filled the Roy McKay Clubhouse with historical baseball displays. Past players and today's fans arrived in droves despite the lousy weather, before the Brantford Red Sox-London game. Majors' management even flew in Ted Giannoulas, the San Diego Chicken, who'd worked as a kid changing the old manual scoreboard at Labatt Park for 25 cents a game in the late 1960s. An on-field presentation recognized former catchers Stan (Tubby) Jones and Jack Fairs, former pitcher Barry Moore, former shortstop Bob Deakin and former owner-player-manager Arden Eddie.
Whether attending meetings, setting up clubhouse displays, organizing on-field presentations, posting team photos on the Majors' website, facebook and twitter, hunting for old newspaper clippings at the Central Library, the Majors' Alumni executive continue to generate interest in their Intercounty Baseball League ball club, which dates back to 1925.
What happens after the jerseys come off and the bat and glove are put away? Once you're a London Major, you’re always on the team.
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A 68-second YouTube video of a game between the London Majors and the Brantford Red Sox in 1984 (Wayne Fenlon, #9, is catching for London, with Chris Barr on the mound. Gary Dix is batting for Brantford. Bill 'Rims' Squires was the Majors' PA man for Rogers-TV, with statistician Don Plumb his sidekick and colour man)
: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaj1PhbyjEM London Majors' Alumni Association on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1673714042930978/
London Majors' Alumni Association's archived photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1673714042930978/photos/
London Majors' Alumni Association on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LSIBasebAlumni
London Majors' Roster and Stats, 2010-2019
The London Majors' team bus put out to pasture. The bus knew its own way to The Beer Store. PHOTO: The London Free Press. circa 1988.
LEFT TO RIGHT: OF Chad Cowan, MGR Roy McKay (Aug. 11, 1933-Dec. 25, 1995) and 3B Dan Mendham of the London Majors in front of the old grandstand at Labatt Park in the Spring of 1995 as the IBL returns to wooden bats after 16 years. PHOTO: London Free Press, 1995.
 The late Mike 'Killer' Kenny, Detroit Tigers, 1971. |
 The late Mike 'Killer' Kilkenny, London Majors, 1983. |
Mike 'Killer' Kilkenny, #17, on the mound for the London Majors in 1983 (right). Kilkenny, a former LHP pitcher in Major League Baseball, was London's ace in 1975 when the Majors won the IBL Pennant and the IBL Championship. PHOTO: The London Free Press. Killer's MLB stats: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kilkemi01.shtml
Mike Kilkenny succumbs to cancer at age 73, LFP, July 4, 2018: https://lfpress.com/sports/baseball/kilkenny-was-ace-on-and-off-the-baseball-diamond
 Russ Evon, Tommy White and Ken McFadden, 1948 London Majors. |
 1948 London Majors, IBL, Canadian Baseball Congress and Can-AM Baseball Congress Champions. |
LEFT TO RIGHT: OF Russ Evon, Pitcher Tommy White and 3B Ken McFadden of the legendary 1948 London Majors, inaugural team inductees into the London Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. The 1948 London Majors won the Senior IBL Championship, the Canadian Baseball Congress Championship and the Can-Am Baseball Congress Championship, the only IBL team to have won the above three titles during the same season. PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.
1948 LONDON MAJORS, LEFT TO RIGHT, BACK ROW: Earl Boyd P, Tommy White P, Gord McWaine UTILITY, Bill Wagner P, John Gillies P, Bill Cunningham OF, London Sports Hall of Famer Jack Fairs C, Clare Van Horne MGR-OF; FRONT ROW: Gord McMackon 2B, London Sports Hall of Famer Russ Evon OF, Al Dumouchelle P, Don Cooper SS, Bob Rose UT, Joe Black 1B, Ken McFadden 3B, Joe Bechard OF; ABSENT: Russ Getsinger P, London Sports Hall of Famer Stan (Gabby) Anderson OF, junior call-up, Cy Bricker P, John Lockington OF, Gil Robertson C, Skip Pawley UTL, Mush Higgins UTL, Norm Aldridge (Trainer) and London Sports Hall of Famer Bill 'Mr. Everything' Farquharson Team Owner. PHOTO: The London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.
1948 London Majors' newspaper articles and images: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TsUdDd_R4bkKp4gSC6Ty8_7h7Y4LcJm-
London Majors' photos recently found in the Ivey Family London Room of the Central Library: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1O9x6WaWgS-olCF8bOpEEA7NFYMYVtkdR
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (1948 London Majors): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrcPzmKvs_k
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Jack Fairs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlqB6_Q0zjk
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Russ Evon): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvnGFkodNHQ
 Circa 1940. PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Collection. |  1961. The London Diamonds were London's Sr. IBL franchise in 1960 and 1961, sponsored by Chester Pegg Diamonds. |
 Circa 1940. PHOTO: Labatt Collection, Western University Archives |
The above Art-Deco gate off Dundas Street (today's Riverside Drive) was constructed in 1938 to commemorate the renaming of Tecumseh Park to Labatt Memorial Park, after John Labatt Limited purchased the park and donated it to the Corporation of the City of London, effective January 1, 1937, on the proviso the park remain a public athletic park in perpetuity. Notice the billboard for the London Lords Senior Football Club (middle photo), a now-defunct team which also played its home games for 18 years at Labatt Park. Unfortunately, the above gate was demolished circa 1980, in favour of the gates around the corner at 25 Wilson Avenue. MIDDLE PHOTO: 1961 (private collection).
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Eight Decades of Outstanding London Majors' Players, 1940s-2019: The above 14 London Majors players were selected to approximately 45 IBL all-star teams over the years. BACK ROW (L-R): Pitcher Barry Moore 1942, 1945; INF Barry Boughner 1966-1976, 1980, 1984; Pitcher Jon Owen 1977-1999; LF-1B-DH Cleveland Brownlee 2010-2019; Dave Byers SS, 1969-1986; 2B Brian Pearen 1961-1972; CF Richard Thompson, 1988-1998; FRONT ROW: SS Bob Deakin 1951-1954; 1B-3B Dave 'Whitey' Lapthorne, 1960-1976; Catcher-MGR Wayne 'Dog' Fenlon, 1966-1991; Catcher Stan 'Tubby' Jones 1943, 1946; Catcher/ London Sports Hall of Famer Jack Fairs 1948-1954; OF-Owner-MGR/ London Sports Hall of Famer Arden Eddie 1967-2003; Pitcher Mike 'Killer' Kilkenny, 1975, 1983. PHOTO: Kathy Kewley, Nov. 1, 2017.
A 98-second YouTube video of London Majors' infielder Bobby Deakin and future Majors' pitcher Roy McKay, filmed by Victor Aziz Sr. in about 1950: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1uZVIJ-Omg
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Arden Eddie): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daLHaJUYYX0
 LEFT TO RIGHT: Pitcher Tommy White, Catcher Jack Fairs and Team Owner Bill 'Mr. Everything' Farquharson, 1948 London Majors. PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives. |  LEFT TO RIGHT: LHP Roy McKay (Aug. 11, 1933-Dec.25, 1995), team owner-MGR/ Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer/ London Sports Hall of Famer Frank Colman (March 2, 1918 – February 19, 1983) and OF/ London Sports Hall of Famer Stan 'Gabby' Anderson (1929-June 7, 2016) with their respective trophies at Labatt Park in 1957 ~ the one year since 1925 the London Majors played in the Great Lakes-Niagara District Baseball League, not the Intercounty Baseball League (IBL). The Majors also won the Sr. IBL Championship the previous year in 1956. PHOTO: Victor Aziz Sr. |
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Bill Farquharson): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8JePN4Ow6I
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Frank Colman): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U0SKB_GxwM
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (Stan 'Gabby' Anderson): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afs22YzIqaA
 Fergie Jenkins: 2 balls, 2 strikes with two out and London up 1-0 in the top of the 2nd. |
 Fergie Jenkins on the mound at Labatt Park, 1984 or 1985. |
An 8 X10 signed photograph of Cooperstown and Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins, #31, on the mound at Labatt Park for the London Majors, in either 1984 or 1985 ~ two seasons when Fergie pitched for the London Majors after retiring from Major League Baseball in 1983. Nineteen-seventy-one Cy Young Award-winning Jenkins was recruited to play for the London Majors by team owner-player Arden Eddie.
"I called Fergie at his home in Blenheim, Ontario to ask him to pitch for the Majors in 1984. It was the only time I'd ever called him and he actually picked up the phone himself," says Arden Eddie.
"There was an agreement with the IBL that Fergie would pitch at least once in each park on the road. And he did. When Fergie played in London he didn’t expect any special treatment and was comfortable just being one of the guys. He really enjoyed his stay with us. It was fun again after the grind of 19 seasons of pro ball. He signed in 1986 but left for the States before the season started."
Notice the old manual scoreboard in the background, which was replaced by an electronic scoreboard in 1989 when the Eastern League's AA London Tigers first called Labatt Park home. PHOTO: Michael Steven.
In 1984, Fergie notched an IBL-leading nine wins and 81 strikeouts for the London Majors. Fergie's #31 Majors' jersey was retired in June 1992 during Fergie Jenkins Night prior to a home game. The 6-foot-5-inch Jenkins is the only Canadian to be inducted into both the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (1987) and the Cooperstown Hall of Fame (1991). PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives. Fergie's MLB stats: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jenkife01.shtml
This complimentary pass was stapled to the inside of the 1992 London Majors' Baseball program. IMAGE: Courtesy of Alex McKay.
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The Strangest Home-Run Smash in Labatt Park History
© by Barry Wells, Founder (1993), Friends of Labatt Park
FIFTY YEARS AGO, when the wood-loving beaver became Canada’s official mascot, the 1975 London Majors, skippered by the late Roy McKay, won the Intercounty Baseball League (IBL) pennant (20-8 record) and championship series against the Guelph Royals, using a dynamite combination of pitching, defence and lumber.
McKay’s outstanding ’75 club was deep in talent and long on camaraderie and teamwork. Two of its five all-stars were league MVP Mike (Killer) Kilkenny and slugger Larry (Haggar) Haggitt.
Killer was a tall, southpaw pitcher fresh from five seasons in The Bigs (Detroit Tigers, Oakland A's, San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians) who still had all his stuff on the mound. He went undefeated (9-0) during the regular season and 5-2 in the playoffs with an ERA of 1.07. First-baseman Larry Haggitt won the ’75 IBL batting crown with a .412 season average.
According to IBL Iron Man and all-star teammate Arden Eddie, “Killer used to say before games he pitched, ‘Just give me two runs and I’ll take care of the rest.’” Getting a hit off Kilkenny was like trying to steal a pork chop from a pit-bull terrier.
Larry Haggitt, a powerful six-footer built like a brick outhouse, could really crush a baseball. “One night in ’75 during the bottom of the 1st,” says Eddie, “Haggar’s at the plate and he launched one into orbit; a moon shot over the wood fence in right-field and out of the park.”
As the tumblers of time would have it, Larry’s wife, Rachel, who’d gone shopping at White Oaks Mall before the game, was travelling westward over the new Queens Avenue bridge on her way back to watch the game. Just after she arrived at the bridge’s western end, a meteor-like baseball smashed into her front windshield. Or as Arden Eddie describes it, “the ball and the windshield arrived at the same Earth co-ordinates together and the ball and the windshield became one.”
Only after Rachel returned to the park did she discover it was husband Larry who'd dispatched the ball like a cannon out of the park onto Riverside Drive. “It was funny as hell to everyone except Rachel and Haggar,” says Eddie.
What are the odds of clobbering a game ball 540 feet into the windshield of your own moving car? Given that only one man in a million can even hit a baseball 500 feet, the odds of randomly smashing the windshield of your own moving car at that distance are astronomical. It’s the only home-run blast during Haggitt’s career that lightened his wallet at Apple Auto Glass.
Teammate Barry Fuller contends Haggitt “also drilled another one that bounced off the old Dutch Laundry on the other side of Riverside,” an estimated 590 feet from home plate, during another game.
“Haggitt was on fire that year,” says all-star infielder Barry Boughner. “He hit that ball out of the yard in right field onto Riverside Drive and it’s still going.”
Baseball is a magical game of synchronicity, where playful Baseball Gods revel in creating unusual coincidences where split-second timing is everything. The field is the sacred stage, the infield a diamond. There’s nine defensive players and nine innings. Runners move around the bases counter clockwise, but there’s no time clock. Theoretically, a game can last forever. When you think you’ve seen all the strange plays imaginable, another one unfolds before your eyes. As the late Yankee catcher Yogi Berra would say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
London Sports Hall of Fame YouTube Video (1975 London Majors): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsirnu45gdA
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 September 1969. |  1969 London Pontiacs, IBL Pennant Winners and IBL Champions. |
26. OF Arden Eddie and MGR Roy McKay of the 1969 London Pontiacs celebrating in late September 1969 after the Pontiacs won the Sr. IBL Championship. In the IBL playoffs, the 1969 Pontiacs defeated the Listowel Legionnaires four games to none (4-0) and then in the playoff finals, defeated the Stratford Hoods four games to three (4-3). The 1969 London Pontiacs finished atop the IBL standings during the regular season with a win-loss record of 23-5. PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.
27. 1969 LONDON PONTIACS, Sr. IBL Pennant-Winners and Sr. IBL Champions: BACK ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT) ~ George Hall (GM), John Cooke, Dick Ouderkerk, Dave Byers, Graham Ballantine, Fred Fickling, Ty Crawford, Barry Fuller, Mike Lerner, Ed Loney (Trainer), Norm Aldridge (Coach); FRONT ROW: Paul Allen, Brian Pearen, Dave Moharter, Dave Hall, Alex McKay (BB), Roy McKay, Ted Earley (OWN), Scott Aldridge (BB), Dave 'Whitey' Lapthorne, Wayne Fenlon, Arden Eddie, Joe Hough; ABSENT: Don Martin LHP, Jim Rodrigues, Dave Hammond RHP, Brian Murphy RHP, Rick 'the Barber' Birmingham RHP, Barry Boughner INF. PHOTO: Victor Aziz Sr.
 Spring 1974. |
 May 24, 1974. |
LEFT TO RIGHT: 1974 London Majors' MGR Roy McKay shakes hands with Denny McLain, who signed a contract to play for the 1974 Majors for $1,000 a game. Two-time (1968-1969) Cy Young Award-winning Detroit Tigers' pitcher Denny McLain played for the London Majors in 1974 after he had retired from Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1972. McLain restricted himself to home games at Labatt Park while staying at the National Traveller Hotel. Due to arm problems, McLain only pitched nine innings for the Majors, but did play in 14 home games at either first base, shortstop or catcher while batting .380, including smacking two home runs in a single game. Onlooking is former Detroit Tigers' catcher Jim Price. PHOTO: Victor Aziz Sr.
Denny McLain's MLB stats: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mclaide01.shtml
1974 London Majors' MGR Roy McKay with Denny McLain on May 24, 1974 at Labatt Memorial Park. PHOTO: London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.
 Norm Aldridge, circa mid-to-late 1980s, at Labatt Park. |
 Scott Aldridge, circa 1965, at Labatt Park. |
Legendary Coach Norman J. Aldridge (Jan 25, 1925-July 15, 2015): The only Londoner inducted into the London Sports Hall of Fame with FOUR different championship teams. 1. 1948 London Majors, Can-Am Champs | 2. 1951-52 Lou Ball Juniors, Ontario Jr. Champs | 3. 1970 London TV-Cable Fastball Team, Canadian Champs | 4. 1975 London Majors, IBL Champs |. How long do you think that outstanding record will stand? Forever and a Day. PHOTO: London Free Press, circa mid-to-late 1980s.
AT THE PLATE: Batboy Scott Aldridge, London Pontiacs, circa 1965 at historic Labatt Memorial Park in London, Ontario, Canada. There's no clay mixture around that home plate, just rich Canadian top soil. PHOTO: Courtesy, Scott Aldridge.
 June 28, 1950. |
 1959. |
Pitcher Ted 'Red' Alexander (September 15, 1912 ~ March 6, 1999) of the 1950 London Majors at Labatt Park on June 28, 1950. Alexander enjoyed a storied pitching career in the Negro American League with the Kansas City Monarchs and the Negro National League with the Homestead Grays , winning the Negro League World Series with the Grays in 1948. Alexander also enjoyed a stint as a barnstorming pitcher with Satchel Paige's All-Stars, before coming north to London, Ontario, in 1950 to pitch for the London Majors. Alexander also pitched the following year for the 1951 London Majors, IBL Champions. PHOTO: Jeanne Graham, London Free Press Collection, Western University Archives.
See Ted Alexander's SABR biography here: https://sabr.org/node/38083
LEFT TO RIGHT: The twins Dave and Dan Mendham, Bill Zubyk and Stan 'Gabby' Anderson of the London Majors, c. 1959. PHOTO: Courtesy, the Anderson family.
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