The Loss of Norm Aldridge & Gabby Anderson led to the Majors' Alumni Association
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 died on May 13, 1994, in a 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, or hunting for old newspaper clippings at the Central Library, the Majors' Alumni executive continues 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 removed? Once you're a London Major, you’re always on the team
