Cap tip to Dave Blackburn for this one:
King of the hill – North Van’s Buster Moberg was B.C.’s premier fastpitch pitcher from 1958 to 1971. -Len Corben photo
By Len Corben – North Shore Outlook
Batters were like putty in Buster Moberg’s hands… his left hand in particular.
The southpaw-throwing Buster – the eldest of four softball-playing brothers from North Vancouver that included Vern, Ted and Don, all outstanding in their own right – is arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the sport in B.C.
His impressive records in the South Hill Major Men’s League, accumulated from 1958-71 during the league’s heyday as B.C.’s top senior “A†circuit, show just how dominant he was.
Check this out: Most career wins (111), most innings pitched (l,099), most strikeouts (1,598; an average of almost 1.5 per inning), most no-hitters (11), most one-hitters (14) and most shutouts (33).
The burly southpaw (6’2â€, 215 pounds) once struck out 10 straight, the first 10 batters in the game. Another time he threw 16 1/3 consecutive hitless innings. At one point over four seasons, he won 28 league games in a row.
He held the league record for most strikeouts in a game, first at 20 in 1963, then 21 in a 10-inning game in 1964 and finally at 22 in a 13-inning contest in 1965. (Brother Don eclipsed that mark when he struck out 30 in a 24-inning game in 1981.)
Buster, who also batted left-handed, could hit as well, once clubbing two home runs in a 1961 game to tie a league record.
Of course these records include only league competition and there were countless additional games in league playoffs, invitational tournaments and in B.C., Western Canada, Canadian and world championships too.
Notwithstanding these brilliant marks, perhaps his greatest games as a senior “A†hurler – certainly the ones he treasures most – came at the very beginning and very end of his storied South Hill career.
The first came over half a century ago in Minneapolis – on Sept. 13, 1958, exactly 51 years ago this weekend – during the first of the six world tournaments in which he participated.
Moberg had played baseball and softball before turning full-time to fastpitch with Bob Sarginson’s Northwest United junior team in 1955 and 1956.
One game in junior he pitched a 10-inning shutout with 18 strikeouts. In another, a 10-inning 2-2 tie, he got two of his team’s four hits, including a two-run homer, while setting down 24 on strikes and allowing only one hit, a precursor of what was soon to come in senior ball. Unfortunately the daily papers got his name wrong both times and wrote him up as Buzz Noeberg.
Actually his real name wasn’t even Buster. It was Bernard, but his grandmother gave him the nickname to differentiate the youngster from his grandfather who was also Bernard, and the name stuck.
After graduating from North Van High with girlfriend Pat Barry in 1957 and marrying on Feb. 15, 1958, when he was only 18 and she just 17, Moberg became a standout rookie with Carling Pilseners in the South Hill senior league that operated out of Vancouver’s South Memorial Park.
He was 19 by then. Not bad for a lad that couldn’t officially lift a pint of his team-sponsor’s liquid for two more years since the legal drinking age was 21 in B.C. until lowered to 19 in 1970.
Buster’s fastballs – a rise and a drop – and a wicked changeup, developed through Sarginson’s coaching, stood Moberg up extremely well in senior company. So much so that when Pils went to Minneapolis for the world championships at the end of the ’58 season as Western Canada representatives, Moberg was the team’s key pitcher and its starter in the 21-team tournament’s opening game against Cairo, Georgia.
The game went 16 innings. Pils lost 1-0 with the run scoring on a close play at the plate. Moberg went the distance, striking out 18. Despite the loss, it remains one of Moberg’s cherished memories.
He did pitch two wins in the double-loss knockout tourney, both two-hitters – 2-0 over Washington, D.C. and 4-1 versus Cloquet, Minnesota – before the team was eliminated 3-1 by Lake Charles, Louisiana. Veteran Don Danbert, another fine North Van-developed windmill hurler, pitched that one.
The team placed eighth, the best finish in the six years Moberg was at the world championships (1958, ’59, ’60, ’63, ’64, and ’65).
Due to sponsor changes and the occasional move by Moberg to another team, Buster also played for Fera Sheet Metal, Pattison Motors, Fraser Arms Hotel, Johnston Motors, O’Keefe Breweries, Blue Boy Hotel and Vancouver Police/Eldorado Hotel.
His “day†job was as a Vancouver City fireman, a 35-year calling that began in 1964 and wound up as a battalion chief in 1999.
Two memorable games were the bookends at the close of Moberg’s South Hill career. His 100th league victory – a much-hyped event – came on June 29th, 1970, at Capilano (now Nat Bailey) Stadium, the year the softballers took over the park following the Vancouver Mounties’ last season in the Pacific Coast Baseball League in 1969.
The game was a 2-0, 13-inning triumph for Johnstons over Blaine on the strength of 20 strikeouts. Moberg also singled three times and scored the winning run.
“That stadium was beautiful place to play ball and that night was deluxe,†Moberg offered the other day as we relived the glory days of his pitching career.
The following season, his last in the South Hill League, he pitched a perfect game for Blue Boys at the prestigious Klondike Gold Rush Days invitational in Edmonton.
Balls from those two significant games are in the photo above.
However when the season ended, Bus’ arm went dead and his doctor advised him to quit the game. “I could not lift my arm,†Moberg acknowledges, “and there aren’t too many one-armed firemen, so I had to stop playing.â€
He did return two years later with North Shore Merchants to play several seasons in the lower-class North Shore senior league and even pitched against and beat the one-and-only Eddie Feigner of the famous four-man touring team “The King and His Court.†That’s another story for another day.
Moberg was inducted into the Softball B.C. Hall of Fame in 1990. His handprints, like those of other inductees, can be found in a home plate made of cement at Softball City in Surrey.
Someone must have figured that encasing Moberg’s hands in concrete was the only way to prevent Buster from striking him out.
This is episode 346 from Len Corben’s treasure chest of stories – the great events and the quirky – that bring to life the North Shore’s rich sports history.