SAINT JOHN – It was one of the golden ages for softball in Saint John and from 1971-80, the late Harold Armstrong and Mel Vincent built a diamond dynasty with the Saint John Alpines senior men’s squad.
Jeff Ducharme/Telegraph-Journal
Members of the Saint John Ladies Alpines softball team are celebrating these days as they prepare for their induction into the Softball New Brunswick Hall of Fame. Pictured above are Nancy Morrison, Linda Bizeau, Bev Doyle, Gayle Buckley, Debbie Cooper, Sharon Jacquard, Lima Vautour, Leanna Hickman, Sue Beaman-Folkins and Cathy Collins-Shannon.
The team wasn’t unbeatable but was pretty close to that standard during the electric era on the diamond.
And for that excellence, both Arsenault and Vincent will be inducted into the Softball New Brunswick Hall of Fame during a ceremony in Fredericton Saturday.
“This is the greatest honour that could ever be bestowed upon my father,” John Armstrong said. “The saddest that he passed away three years ago. As far as our family goes, everyone of us is overwhelmed and overjoyed he was chosen.”
Mel Vincent Jr. will join his father Mel Sr. in Fredericton on Saturday as well his mother Bette and siblings Mike, Jill and Amy (Another Elizabeth can’t make it from Pembrooke, Ont.) to celebrate the greatest days of the sport in the area.
“In our neck of the woods, it was almost legendary what those two were able to achieve,” said Vincent Jr., a bat boy for his father’s teams.
“I spent a lot of time in the dugout with those guys. It was the closeness of the teams. They were more than ball players, they were close knit groups that protected one another’s backs. They (formed) a cohesive unit that played that way and that created a really special bond.”
Armstrong and Vincent will be joined by the Saint John Senior Ladies Alpines, who won eight championships in the 1989-99 span and represented the province at five national championships.
The other inductees are Saint John umpire Doug Young, player Brad Cameron, formerly of Loggieville and now living in Fredericton and the late builder Beverly (Buster) Maisey of Campbellton.
In addition to the Hall of Fame festivities, Bob Stanton of Fredericton will be presented the Charlie O’Brien Memorial Award and Krista Richard of Moncton will take home the Henry Kelly Memorial awards for community service.
Harold Arsenault’s sons – John and Darrell – and his two daughters – Diane and Karen – will attend Saturday’s ceremony, which salutes the team that was part of a vibrant scene in the Port City.
“For my dad, to watch all of that and be a big part of that and bring it to the city, I know he was so proud of that. That was a great big part of it. He used to wear that Alpine smile all the time.”
They dominated regional and provincial softball scene during the 1970s, finished third at the nationals once and hosted the nationals in 1978.
“They just seemed to know how to build and market rivalries,” Vincent Jr. said. “Some of it was huff and puff but they knew how to get people to come to the ball field.”
The largest delegation will consist of approximately 28 members of the Saint John Ladies Alpines who played with the team that won eight provincial titles and represented the province at five national championships from 1989-99.
Coach Debbie Cooper got the ball rolling in 1989 by forming a squad with a mix of key players from a successful junior program and a collection of top senior players in the city.
The first big win came in 1989 when trailing 7-0 entering the seventh inning of the provincial final against a rival team from Saint John, the Alpines rallied for an 8-7 victory.
“That started us off with a big bang,” said Alpines player Cathy Collins-Shannon.
There were a few changes each year but the core of the team stayed intact. In the 11 years of excellence, 43 players played at least one complete season.
Chemistry played a big role for the squad, which went to its first nationals in 1989, hoping to score a run. It eventually reached the cross overs in 1995.
Through that span, they spent countless hours together, either training or preparing for the season in other ways – such as fundraising. It was time away from the diamond that means as much as their performance on it, Shannon said, through the amusing experiences they encountered together to the battles on the field.
“Not all of the memories are softball memories,” Shannon said. “We spent so much time together in the gym and all year long with fundraising – bake sales, bingos, raffle ticket, auctions, you name it. The memories are silly things that might not have anything to so with softball.”
Young, who will be honoured in the officials category, remembers the people and the big events he’s been fortunate to umpire since he started in the Allied League at Shamrock Park in 1981.
In his career, Young has umpired at 11 Canadian championships, seven Eastern Canadians and more than 20 provincial championship events.
He will add to that total this year when he works the Canadian junior men’s fast pitch championships in St. Croix, N.S. this summer.
“The reason you do it is the love of the game. If you didn’t love to do it, you would not be there,” said Young, now in his fifth year of retirement after a 35-year career as a registered nursing assistant with Atlantic Health Sciences.
His motto is simple – let the coaches be heard. “You have to let the coaches have their say and when they are done, you give them your opinion,” he explained