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The Rosetown Baseball Riot
-- Dave
Shury (Battlefords Telegraph, Sept 16, 1983)
(There's an obvious typo in relation to the year of
the "riot", should be 1952)
 Of
all the escapades of the North Battleford Beavers Baseball team over the
years, the one most frequently mentioned, happened during the Legion
Tournament at Rosetown in 1953. Everyone that was there, and many
who weren't, recall it differently. (Left: In a picture from a weekly magazine
article, Curtis Tate holds a copy of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix report on the
riot. The headline -- "Baseball Bat, Rocks, Knife, Shotgun,
Rifle".)
Last February I attended a meeting of the
selection committee of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in Toronto and
one of my fellow committee members, Fergie Oliver, sports director of
station CFTO-TV and one of the crew on the Blue Jay's Baseball telecast,
recalled this incident. At that time Fergie was growing up in Moose Jaw
where he later went on to play for the Regals for the South Saskatchewan
Baseball League.
Les Dean of North Battleford who was
present during the fracas has lent me a write-up by Dallis Beck, sports
writer for the Star Phoenix which appeared on Friday, August 1,1953. The
sports page ran a headline which stretched from one side of the page to
the other, "Baseball Bat, Rocks, Knife, Shotgun, Rifle", and in
slightly smaller letters ran a second headline, "EyeWitnesses'
Account of Fracas at Rosetown Baseball Tournament" . . .
"Tate, the Negro third-baseman of the
North Battleford Club, already had quite a reputation for some
un-baseball-like antics at previous Rosetown money shows, but his part in
Wednesday's riot will outlive them all."
"It was he who beaned a Cuban All-Star
opponent with a baseball bat and then made a hurried and desperate exit
out of the ball park through a surrounding hedge of willows, across 200
yards of summer fallow and eventually into the house of a North Rosetown
grain-buyer."
"The victim of the 'rhubarb' which
actually started from a clash of two other players during a close play at
second base, was Cuban Leopoldo Reyes. He was still in Rosetown Hospital
Thursday afternoon, his condition termed as 'fairly good' . . .
"This reporter talked to Mrs. W.H.
Craddock, among others, and the account of her part in the fast paced
proceedings was the best. She is the wife of the elevator agent in whose
house the fleeing Tate sought refuge."
"Mrs. Craddock was busy washing at the
back step of her house Wednesday evening when she noticed a ball player
moving cautiously, but walking, across a ploughed field which is adjacent
to the Craddock back yard."
"She tried not to pay any attention to
the stranger approaching her until he was upon her with mutterings of 'you
gotta hide me ….. they're after me …. You gotta hide me!"
"The confused housewife by now found
herself being half pushed and half following this unknown man into her
kitchen, and upon reaching the kitchen she was more startled than ever
when the obviously scared-to-death stranger grabbed a king-size butcher
knife." . . .
"At this instance Mrs. Craddock, not
knowing quite what to think, hurried to a bedroom of the house and shooed
her small daughter and a playmate out of the front door, telling them dash
to the nearby elevator where her husband was working and tell him to get
over to the house -- but fast."
"In the meantime, the stranger, who of
course was Tate, had barricaded himself in a bedroom at the front of the
one-storey dwelling, being careful enough to cover the window with bed
sheet."
"A matter of a few minutes later when
her husband appeared on the scene at the front the house armed with a
shotgun, more startling events took place. Up rushed another ball player,
a highly enraged one, armed with two rocks he had taken from the back yard
on his way around the house. He was screaming, 'Where is he? Where is he?
… I keel heem!"
"The reassuring part of the
bewildering incident, at least for the Craddock family took place almost
at the same moment when two Royal Canadian Mounted Police constables
rounded the corner of the house on the heels of the rock-bearing Cuban. By
this time, a 14-year old Craddock son had instinctiveIy grabbed a nearby
rifle, but by no means, like his father, made any threatening gestures to
either the Cuban, whose name incidentally was Cisnero, or Tate, who was
still lying low." . . .
"The R.C.M.P. soon had things cooled
down and took both Tate and Cisnero to Rosetown headquarters in their car.
But even yesterday afternoon, almost 24 hours later, Mrs. Craddock, who
later found the knife hidden in bed-clothes, was not quite sure how it all
came about."
"She, at the time, had been too busy
making preparations to leave on the family vacation, to be worrying about
the ball tournament which was in progress a quarter of a mile
away."
"What did happen before the excitement
around the Craddock home?"
"Well, there many stories circulating
around the tournament grounds Thursday afternoon with the event moving
into the semi-finals, but we took the word of a prominent Rosetown sports
figure -- George Shaw."
"His version coincided with that of
the R.C.M.P. and many other reports of the incident."
"It was a flare-up at second base
between North Battleford catcher Louis Green and Cuban shortstop Diaz,
that eventually lead to the clubbing of Reyes, the Cuban player. On a
force-out play at second, with Diaz moving over to cover, Green went in
hard -- reportedly all elbows, spikes and knees." . . .
"At any rate, Green and Diaz
came up with fists flying, where upon members of both teams, umpires and Legion
officials poured onto the playing field. One incident led to another and
Tate who had been 'on deck' in the batters' circle made his appearance
wielding a bat in antagonistic fashion. At this, the Cuban players made, a
dash for their dugout at first appearing as if they were going to call the
whole thing off, but then quickly returning brandishing bats of their
own."
"They took after Tate with Reyes being
the nearest in pursuit, also with bat in hand. The chase led past third
base and to a two-feet-high fence surrounding the diamond. Reyes at this
point either tripped over the fence or was hauled down by another Beaver
player. (It was impossible to decide in the confusion). Tate turned on
him, hit him on the head with his bat, then fled in even more haste across
the big parking lot which runs adjacent to the field."
"Cisnero took up the chase this time,
was momentarily cooled down by two Mounted Police officers, but headed off
again in search of Tate. One man, an anonymous, husky Rosetown district
farmer, had previously got a hold on Tate to slow him down, but the
desperate Beaver had slipped away."
"From here on, Mrs. Craddock's story
compIetes the tale."
"When the R.C.M.P. finally rounded up
Tate and Cisnero at the farm house, they took them both to headquarters
and held Tate, merely as a means of protecting him. There were no charges
and no arrests."
The Cuban managers commented, "We're
sorry such a thing has happened. We came to Canada this summer for one
purpose only and that l was to play baseball."
Emile Francis
(in an interview in 2001) recalled the infamous affair :
" ... They wanted to
guarantee we'd come there because if we came and played they'd
get good crowds. So they guaranteed us a thousand dollars
to even come ... well, we won three games and now we had to play
Sceptre, 16 innings, to get to the finals. So we're
playing the Cubans and in those days there would be a two-day
tournament and they'd have ten-thousand people. People
would come from all over the province.
The Cubans and the blacks, they didn't like one
another. And we're into about the 7th inning and the score
is nothing-nothing. I had a guy by the name of Louis
Green, a catcher, and he's on first base and the ball it was hit
to the short stop who tossed it to second base to go for the
double play. Louie Green went in and, instead of
sliding in, he went into second base and hit him with an
elbow and took him out on the play.
With that a little fight started at second base. I was
on third base at the time. In the on deck circle was a guy by
the name of Curtis Tate, our third baseman. When he saw this
little scuffle start at second base he started coming out from
the batters' circle -- our dugout was on the third base side --
carrying his bat.
When the Cubans saw him coming with that bat, they left the
second base area and they all headed for their dugout which was
on the first base side. It was like they
evaporated. By that time I'm at second base and Jackie
McLeod was at the pitchers' mound and he was carrying a
bat. All of a sudden I see all these Cubans, who ran to
their dugout, and grabbed bats. So I turned to McLeod and
tried to grab his bat but he wouldn't give it to me.
They came running right past McLeod and me and they're
heading for Tate who now is in front of our dugout. The
closest Cuban to him, I'll never forget his name, was
Leopoldo Reyes, shortstop. Well when he came close to Tate, Tate
took a full swing at him and hit him right in the head. He went
down like he got shot. After hitting him, Tate took off. He ran
down the third base line then he cut across -- they had all
these portable bleachers -- and he ran through there and
everybody is wrestling and grabbing one another.
I saw Tate go down the third base side and two Cubans take
off so I took off because I'm chasing them you know. But,
they left me in the dust.
Tate, ran all through the parking lot and he ran out to the
highway which was about a mile away, a gravel highway. I'm
going through the bush, and all of a sudden here's two
Cubans. They still had bats in their hands so I'm
wrestling with the Cubans and a friend of mine, who sees it all,
he was running, tracking us all down so I told him, grab these
guys. I've got to take off.
So Tate runs. There was an elevator, a farmer's house and he
ran right into the house and the wife was making dinner ... her
husband and son were out working in the elevator. Tate ran
in the house and the first thing he grabbed was a knife. Well,
she ran out of the house to the elevator ... and the
husband grabbed a gun and came running back. Here was Tate
in there with a ball uniform on. He explained what had
happened and said if these guys catch him they're going to kill
him. Up come the two Cubans and up come the Mounties.
About an hour later we had to go back and finish the ball
game. They put Tate in jail. We finished the game
and we won and went back and had to get him out of jail.
We were traveling in four cars, five guys to a car, somebody cut
the tires on all the cars, but mine.
There was a guy by the name of Bill Cameron, who worked for
CFQC in Saskatoon, a real good sportscaster. So,
we're driving to Moose Jaw, about midnight and he's talking
"Who does that Francis think he is, running around here
causing riots, hitting guys over the head with baseball bats,
they should take that team and deport them."
Now we play in Moose Jaw the next afternoon, a split
doubleheader. In the first game Tate went 5 for 5, his eyes were
like saucers, scared to death. There were no faxes in
those days, so I get in my car, drive down to the CNR Telegraph.
I sent Bill Cameron a telegraph "If you're going to run
Curtis Tate out of the country, better run him out real fast, he
just went five for five."
So now we have to play that night. We're all in the
dugout and a little guy comes up on a bicycle in his little
uniform, CNR Telegraph. "Mr. Francis, Mr. Francis". I
put my hand up. "I have a telegram for
you." I opened it up. It's from Bill Cameron,
"Of the five hits that Curtis Tate got, how many are in the
hospital?"
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