Written By Jeffrey Reed
No matter where I travelled across Middlesex County this summer, it hit home that minor baseball is alive and well. Over the past decade, youth baseball has seen increased numbers invading our local diamonds. Soccer may rule the pitches, but baseball remains our favourite summer pastime.
Organized minor baseball in Southwestern Ontario owes a lot to the Eager Beaver Baseball Association (EBBA). This year, EBBA (est. 1955) celebrated its 70th anniversary season. In fact, EBBA is not only London’s first organized youth baseball league, but it’s also one of Canada’s first Little League baseball organizations, and London’s original minor sports association.
Every organized minor sports group in London – including football, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse, and yes, even hockey – attributes a small part of its own success to EBBA. And every area minor sports group has borrowed EBBA’s template as a model for their own success.
The most important finding during my research for my book, EBBA 40 Years of Baseball (1994) was the discovery of the association’s forgotten founder, Gordon Berryhill. In the early-1950s, Berryhill – a long-time baseball enthusiast and friend of both Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb – approached former major league ballplayer and fellow Londoner, Frank Colman, with the idea of forming a truly-organized minor baseball association.
Along with dozens of Londoners, including Bill Farquarson, Bob Ferguson, Don Greason, Clare Hatt, Al Marshall, Tom Munro, Alex Park and the London Majors ballclub, Berryhill and Colman formed one of Canada’s first Little League loops, and London’s first minor sports association.
It was Ferguson, then a London Free Press reporter, who came up with the name, Eager Beaver. On December 23, 1955, Ferguson (author of Who’s Who in Canadian Sport) wrote: “It all began as a dream in the mind of one Gordon Berryhill, a former ballplayer himself, and a man with a keen urge to do something to provide the benefits of the game to the youth of London.”
Berryhill, who died in 1988, is now recognized by EBBA with its annual Gordon Berryhill Volunteer Award, given to a recipient who volunteers services and endless time to EBBA.
In 1984, the annual EBBA Labatt Park All-Star Day was renamed, Frank Colman Day. A New York Yankee and Pittsburgh Pirate, and owner/manager/player with the Intercounty Baseball League London Majors, Colman was the face of EBBA during its early years, and association president in 1955 and ’56. Colman died in 1983.
Somewhere, Colman and Berryhill are smiling. In fact, this was the driving force behind my wish to publish EBBA 40 Years of Baseball: to recognize an important part of local sports history. With the re-discovery of folks like Berryhill and of EBBA’s importance to local sports, today’s youngsters can further appreciate our minor baseball roots.
Award-winning writer Jeffrey Reed has covered Middlesex County sports since 1980. He is publisher and editor of
LondonOntarioSports.com. Reach him at
jeff@londonontariosports.com.
