Pitcher, catcher keeping Canada Day tradition alive
Elmer Anderson wasn’t there 49 years ago for the first Canada Day Fastpitch Tournament at Spruce City Stadium in 1969 but in the years he did show up with the Peavine Rangers he made it a worthwhile trip for his team from northern Alberta. They dominated the annual native tournament in Prince George in the ’70s and ’80s, taking home the lion’s share of the loot several times in the A Division, and Anderson’s arm was one of the big reason for their success.
“The years that we came, we probably won 90 per cent of the tournaments, so there’s no one real highlight, all of them were highlights,” said Anderson.
“We weren’t super-strong, but we were strong. We must have came about 20 years and 90 per cent of them we won.”
In 1979, with Anderson carrying the load as the only Peavine pitcher, the Rangers went undefeated in five games at Spruce City Stadium. He allowed just nine runs and shut out three teams, including a 7-0, 15-strikeout gem to defeat Dawson Creek in the final.
The Canada Day event routinely attracted 60 or 70 teams each year and they came from as far away as Ontario to try to win in Prince George. As Anderson remembers it, the ball diamonds at Carrie Jane Gray Park were the backdrop for what became a weekend campground.
“They used to let us camp in that area and we’d pitch up our tents and whole families would come and there would be a big gathering with big crowds,” said Anderson. “Our team used to camp and we’d bring our moose meat and bannock. One the things I can say about our team then is we were all locals from Peavine.”
Located near High Prairie, Peavine is a Metis settlement of about 400 people and Anderson admits he was a late bloomer in the game.
“I was raised more or less in poverty, in an isolated area and I didn’t realize a game of fastball until I was 22 years old,” he said.
“I threw rocks. I saw a guy in high school throwing like than and it caught my eye and I thought, ‘this is cool.’ I started to throw everything I could pick up. I went to work on the railroad for 21 days straight and I’d throw rocks at trees and off the railroad tracks and by the time I came out of those camps I was ready to play fastball, that’s how it started.
“‘We were all sort of in isolation and a bunch of us in my age group came up to start fastball and we matured as a team.