THE LONG BALL
Royals coach Wayne Strueby is part of a remarkable tradition in the hamlet of Marysburg (current population 23) which has fielded a baseball team every season for the past 100 years.
In what the Marysburg Royals baseball team proclaims to be God’s country, you’ll find the historic Assumption Church within walking distance of some other local holy ground: the ball diamond. Patrons appear to be equally devoted to both, their prayers directed toward the altar and home plate.
The two landmarks of the community sit nearly side by side, just a handful of pews apart, with a community hall sandwiched in between. There’s not much else to Marysburg, a hamlet 130 kilometres east of Saskatoon on Highway 5. About a half-dozen houses. A little over 20 residents. The town dog and ballpark fixture, Jersey.
Despite a population of just 23, Marysburg still fields, summer after summer, a men’s baseball team in the competitive senior AA ranks. The hamlet has been home to a senior team for 100 years.
In these parts, the passion for baseball is constant, says Royals coach Wayne Strueby, 64, who has retired from full-time farming and now resides in nearby Humboldt.
“It’s just the love of the game,” he says. “It’s just a thing to do here.”
It’s been a season to celebrate for alumni as well as the current Royals team, which finished atop the regular-season standings in the Saskatoon Senior Men’s Baseball League. As the Royals hit the century mark, a reunion was held in mid-July, bringing together more than 200 people from the past and present.
The Royals have endured the Great Depression and a world war, not to mention a dwindling rural population in Saskatchewan.
“At one time — this is back years ago in the 1940s and 1950s and the earlier days — there was a lot of people here and this church was filled,” Strueby says of Assumption Church, which was built to accommodate upwards of 400 people.
“But over the years, that’s all just slowly eroded away and yet we’ve been able to keep the ball team going.”
Playing on the Marysburg Royals senior baseball team is all relative. It’s been that way for a century.
Brothers. Cousins. Dads. Uncles. The Strueby family. The Bauml clan. Other family names — Puetz, Gerwing, Haeusler, Stroeder — have been constant parts of the lineup dating back 100 years.
Brent Puetz, a member of the Royals for nearly two decades, followed his dad, Murray, and late grandfather, Isidore, who was a member of the first Royals squad in 1918. Brent currently plays alongside a cousin and nephew.
“Looking back all those years, when my father played, it was the same way — his cousins were playing — and beyond that, too, when my grandfather played,” says Brent Puetz.
It’s just the love of the game. It’s just a thing to do here. Wayne Strueby, coach, Marysburg Royals
“You just have more connections and ties to the team and that’s really where the sense of pride comes from.”
With such strong personal roots, Puetz — who farms five kilometres east of Marysburg — has a deep appreciation for the team hitting the century mark and continuing to thrive season after season. Sure, some outside kids come in each year, he says, but the core remains the locals.
Curtis Strueby, at age 39, is finishing his 24th season playing with the Royals. Before joining the team on the field, he says, “as long as I can remember, I was running around the park.”
His first year in the lineup, the summer of 1995, he played with his father, Wayne, and uncle, Dave. His grandfather, Isidore, coached his final season.
The current roster has three members of the Strueby family and a couple from the Bauml clan. Look back far enough in the family trees, they ’d be related, says Curtis, a fourth-generation Strueby with the Royals.
The connections don’t end there, either. The Frerichs brothers are second cousins of Strueby through Strueby’s grandmother. The Frerichs are also first cousins with the Baumls through their mothers, who are Haeuslers.
Some of the top players from the Marysburg area come from the Bauml side.
Ronnie and Murray were Royals legends back in their day. Cole Bauml was taken in the 10th round of the 2015 Major League Baseball draft by the Detroit Tigers, and played Class A ball in the Tigers’ organization this season. Murray Bauml’s boys are in midget and will likely join the senior ranks in the coming years.
The Royals are never without a Strueby in the field or the dugout. In fact, as far as the club can discern, there has been a member of the Strueby family on the team every year dating back to its official formation in 1918 — and even prior to that, when it was a looselyorganized squad for more than a decade.
The Bauml family and Puetz family have been represented over four generations, too.
They’d come together and play ball, a temporary reprieve from pioneer life, Wayne Strueby says.
“Those are the families that lived here. That’s why it is. It started right from the start, the love of the game and it just carried down the generations,” he adds.
Growing up in the Marysburg area, playing baseball can almost seem mandatory. It’s in their blood.
“You grow up with baseball,” Brent Puetz says. “It’s definitely the first love.”
They gathered at the ball diamond in July, friends and family, alumni and current players, all united in Marysburg to celebrate the club turning 100.
(Weeks later, the empty cans still in the visitors’ dugout were reminders of Saskatchewan’s biggest ball party of the summer.)
At the age of 91, Arnold Strueby was the oldest former player to take part in reunion weekend. He threw out the first pitch prior to the July 14 SSMBL game, a 7-2 win against the visiting Saskatoon Stallions.
The Royals’ history is filled with league titles, provincial championships and hundreds of victories. Generation after generation, players who suited up together in mosquito and bantam and midget ball went on to represent the Royals in senior ball.
For a small core, Puetz says, “we churn out some pretty good ball teams.”
This summer, the Royals finished atop the SSMBL regular season standings.
“We’ve just been showing up to the park and having fun,” Curtis Strueby says. “I guess it’s all been taking care of itself.”
This year’s team is a mix of new names and familiar faces. Even those who don’t have familial relations have connections to members of the Royals. Small world, after all.
Drake’s Cam Blair, who played his midget baseball in Humboldt, and John Lawrence, who is back living in Humboldt, both played hockey for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. Curtis Strueby’s brother, Luke, coached Lawrence with the Humboldt Broncos and Blair was a friend from his time with the Huskies.
Coach Shaun Timmerman has been with the team 15 years, including serving as coach since 2011. He still gets the odd at-bat when the team is short players. He went to school in Muenster starting in Grade 7 with plenty of future Royals, but calls himself “one of the odd ones” who doesn’t have a relative on the team.
He’ll take being part of the Royals family.
Having “all the old-timers” in the same place, swapping stories and sharing memories during the reunion and anniversary celebrations was a weekend he won’t soon forget.
“It’s been pretty special to be a part of it. It’s been a long lead-up for the last few years,” Timmerman says.
“We’ve kind of been talking about it. We kept saying, ‘A couple more years, a couple more years,’ and finally it happened this year. It’s everything I thought it would be.”