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Ball, used in Port Perry Legion Squirts 1965 OASA Champions In 1965, the Port Perry Legion Squirts managed to capture the town’s first minor ball OASA Championship. Front left: Ron Redman, John Bour- row, left: Steve Cal Cochrane, Bill Jeffery. Third row from left: Roland Skinner, Brent Heard, Gary Waller, Lauri Williams, Bob Young. Back left: Ed Mulholland (President of Port Perry Legion), Jim Irvine (Coach), Vin Walker (Manager) Garry Evans (Coach), Bill Taylor (Legion sports offi- cer). Photo by Per Hvidsten, Port Perry Star, 1965 Continued from page 5 blood to run the association. I signed on as secretary that year and have been in- volved ever since. I believe it’s important there’s minor ball in Port Perry.” Similar sentiments guided the association’s founder, Vin Walker. “T played ball myself, and eventually started coaching in Oshawa. When my wife and I moved to Port Perry, forming a team just seemed the natural thing to do.” But where to play...? Vin quickly devised a “homegrown” solution. “Our lot had a large back yard, which we originally intended to use as a vegetable garden. Instead, I put up a backstop and we played there.” In 1962, he used a newspaper ad to recruit volunteers to form a Minor Softball Association. The town by then boasted a new lakeside diamond and soon a house league of teams stocked with enthusiastic youngsters, whose families registered them for a single dollar a player. Again, Vin’s ingenuity resolved a community need. “He bought four poles from Hydro for ten bucks apiece,” relates Wayne Venning, himself a former association executive. “One parent, who operated a float truck, brought them back, where Vin and some others wired them. That’s how we got lights on our field!” SIGNWORKS Signs + Vehicle Wrapping Lettering & Graphics Port Perry 905-985-0802 RAY_ HOBBS GARAGE watrv business for over FO years Owned and Operated by Brian Tassell 182 Northport Road Unit #8 & #9 Port Perry 905-985-0059 6 FOCUS - AUGUST 2012 08.FOCUS, AUGUST.32 pgsindd 6 But for all the credit given to his early organizing, Vin quickly deflects the spot- light. “We were successful because we had support from th ity — whatever we needed, we got.” Help was certainly forthcoming — and very much needed — when the Port Perry Association faced a dilemma while hosting a tourna- ment one year. “That Sunday, the skies opened up and our diamonds turned into ponds,” Vin remembers with a chuckle. “Some out-of-town teams were set to leave, but we promised: ‘Give us an hour and a half, and you'll be playing.’ “So we brought in a load of sawdust, manned some shovels. We doused that saw- dust with kerosene, then lit it. And yup, they played that afternoon!” 1207-23 8:59AM