Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire “, brought to you by Hal Wright Chevrolet-Cadillac-GMC-Buick on the Sunset Strip in Owen Sound.
This is the 40th anniversary of a memorable elementary school experience.
On June 20th, 1974, Huron Park met Regent Public for the Town of Midland Elementary School Softball Championship.
Now keep in mind, Huron Park & Regent were located exactly 3 blocks apart, so there was a natural geographic rivalry, the first rivalry I ever knew.
Regent was a turn-of-the-century school with a long &, they claimed, ” proud ” history, and thus condescendingly looked down their noses at us newbies from Huron Park who had existed for less than a decade at the time.
Of course, a newer school meant a more contemporary learning environment, ergo, a more educated student body than what was being produced at the perceived ancient dungeon at Regent, home of the……. ” Rats “.
And finally, only the year before, in what was a stunning upset, Huron Park blanked Regent 1-0 in the Championship game on Frank Palmer’s clutch rbi single in the bottom of the 7th, touching off a wild sequence of fights in the neighbourhood, including Peggy Henderson pounding out a decision over Bill ” Bonehead ” Brown at the corner of Robert & Johnson, the established borderline between the two schools.
So here we were, a year later, Regent at Huron Park for the Softball Championship.
I don’t have time to go into all the game details or key moments. Suffice it to say, Regent won 12-11, with Terry Archer making the key defensive play to seal the victory for the Rats and leave me with a devastating, yet still warm memory, exactly 40 years later.
I’m Fred Wallace