by Barry Stagg
July 1998
YANKEE BASEBALL IN NEWFOUNDLAND
Yankee baseball has two meanings for some Newfoundlanders. Fans of the fabled New York Yankees, such as this writer, think of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry and David Cone when the term Yankee baseball is used. However Yankee baseball also sums up a wonderful era in Newfoundland sport mostly in the 1950's and 1960's when the American military bases in Newfoundland produced great players, coaches and overall great baseball for Newfoundland players and fans.
The Harmon Huskies were the base baseball team at Ernest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville. The Huskies, with their team of young American servicemen, played against the local squads from Stephenville and Port au Port and Corner Brook. The calibre of play from the base team might vary from game to game or season to season depending on the personnel available and the level of enthusiasm and competition involved. However one thing that the base did produce was a contingent of good American coaches. The baseball systems in Corner Brook and Stephenville and Port au Port benefited greatly from this. When the Americans flew out of Harmon Field for the last time in 1966 they took with them the foundation of a solid baseball program that had prospered along with the military town of Stephenville and the surrounding communities.
When I played baseball in that area in the 70's and 80's it was quite noticeable that the calibre of baseball had gone down since the heyday of the sport while the Americans were still around. The American coaches had moved on to serve the American military effort in places like Saigon. The sixties were a time of change and Stephenville's military role disappeared into the morass of the Viet Nam War. The Harmon Huskies were to play no more.
In many ways Stephenville in the days of the American base was like a small American town. The local citizens could count on steady jobs and good wages from the base and the recreational opportunities were the same as if the base were located in the mid-Western U.S. or perhaps in the state of Maine. All of this changed and not for the better when the Americans left.
The economic story of the downfall and revival of Stephenville is for another time and for another column. However in these days when Newfoundland history seems too much to concentrate on stories of disaster and the perpetual enfeeblement of Newfoundland it is noteworthy to remember that in the town of Stephenville, Yankee baseball was like a proud economic flag.
Newfoundlanders knew how to take advantage of economic opportunities. Baseball fields sprouted up as a result of the solid economy that the Americans brought to western Newfoundland. Yankee baseball is long gone. Perhaps the reasons that it existed at all are being lost in obscurity as well.
The Americans came to Stephenville because of Sir Winston Churchill. During World War II, the British prime minister negotiated the vital agreement with the Americans known as the Lend-Lease Program. Britain got desperately needed war supplies to fight and defeat the Nazis while the Americans received ,among other things, the right to establish military bases in Newfoundland. Thus Harmon Field was born. Thank you Mr. Churchill. While Canada's sixties savior , Pierre Trudeau, sported his German military garb in Montreal, Churchill brought economic prosperity to Newfoundland. What was it again that Mr. Trudeau did for Newfoundland?
That is the short version of how the Americans brought baseball to Stephenville. The story has a lot of other angles for another time.
Until next month: Be proud , be prosperous.