The late Albert Cottenie of Kamsack will be inducted, posthumously, into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame in the individual category as a player and builder, during a reception at Battleford on August 15.
The son of Gustaf and Irma Cottenie, Albert was born January 10, 1921, said information from the Baseball Hall of Fame. His parents had come to Canada from Belgium in 1920, settling in the Prairie View area north of Veregin. From there they moved to Kamsack where Albert’s love of baseball started with interschool competition.
Initially, Cottenie played with the Cote Royals but in 1947, he became an original member of the Kamsack Cyclones. That name “Kamsack Cyclones” was prompted by a devastating tornado that struck the town on August 9, 1944.
Ever versatile, Cottenie also played outfi eld. Tommy Yee of the Star Café in Kamsack supplied a steak dinner for any Cyclone who had hit a home run. Cottenie was very well fed, thanks to his batting power at the plate.
As a farmer and an elevator agent, there was little time for ball.
As his widow, Ethel, put it, “He made time.” The success of the Kamsack Cyclones over a period of three years, was historic and attributable to four factors: a strong core of local players including Cottenie, Stan Green, Dave Kosteniuk and Achtemychuk; a group of talented young players from the College of Sequoias in California; a strong group of volunteers including Cottenie and other players, and Roy Taylor, athletic director of the College of Sequoias as team manager.
Weekends meant baseball games or sports days somewhere, and Cottenie was the first to go, the information said. For home games, Cottenie would get a public address speaker on the box of
the truck, take a microphone and drive to surrounding towns and villages informing locals it was baseball night in Kamsack.
The place to meet, visit and have a beer was the Cottenie home in Kamsack or their cottage at Madge Lake.
“Albert was always affable and smiling, promoting a sense of family and comradeship amongst the players,” it said. “Ethel, his wife, said she misses those times of fellowship.”
Cottenie’s great passion and love of the game of baseball was put to a severe test in March of 1953 when an accident at the elevator severed his little finger on his left hand, part of his hand and part of his arm, requiring extensive skin grafting and physiotherapy, the information said. His doctor told him his baseball playing days were over, but
Cottenie had other ideas. He worked on his disability and when he was satisfied that he could carry his share of the load on the playing field, he was back playing the game he loved.
Baseball was very prominent on the Canadian prairies when the towns had their own teams and tournaments that offered handsome cash prizes, it said.
Cottenie was part of that as both a player and builder. When Cottenie died in Kamsack on January 21, 1999, “the community came out to say goodbye to a good man who cherished the great game of baseball, and played it very well.”
