The community of Goodwater and area honoured the ball players who have been inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame, with the unveiling of a monument at the Goodwater ball diamonds on Saturday afternoon.
The community held a parade, and also did a balloon release in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday in addition to having fundraising activities for the Lomond 4-H Club at the fair grounds.
The unveiling of the monument was emceed by Ron Ror, who told the gathered residents he played baseball as well, but wasn’t very talented at it. He said he loved the game, but preferred to be on the sidelines, finally learning about scorekeeping from Ivan McKay of Halbrite.
The unveiling of the steel monument was by Laurence Woodard and Earl Berard, who have both been inducted as individuals to the province’s Baseball Hall of Fame, and the display includes a listing of all the inductees to the Hall of Fame as players and builders.
This includes Art Berard, inducted in 1996, his brother Earl Berard in 1997, Merv Freeman in 2015 and Laurence Woodard in 2016. This year, the Woodard family is being inducted, in a ceremony to be held in August, and several members of the Woodard family, along with members of the Freeman and Berard families, were on hand for the unveiling.
Two of the inductees have passed on, Art Berard and Merv Freeman.
Ror told the crowd at the event his love of the game was due in part to Earl Berard, who was a great coach who showed the how and why of playing ball, and of all the inductees, he said they played wherever and whenever there was a game to play, many playing for Goodwater or Colgate, Weyburn and then beyond as their lives took them outside of the area.
