by Barry Stagg>
November 1994
I am so disgusted with the sickening greed and stupidity of players and owners in hockey and baseball that this month I can find nothing that merits recording. Instead I am repeating last Fall's column about the plain uncomplicated virtues of Rob Butler and the mutual embrace between this young uncorrupted baseball player and his hometown folks from East York. Maybe it can be a tonic for the illness that plagues professional sports. Read on.
I rode the bus to the Rob Butler Day celebrations at the East York City Hall. On Friday, October 29 at 1:00 p.m. the Borough of East York in the heart of Metropolitan Toronto brought out its civic finest to honour its twenty-three year old celebrity.
Under cool, windy and overcast weather, with just a bit of sun, really a typical Newfoundland fall day, this young man just one bare generation removed from Conception Bay, stood shyly and even a bit unwillingly on the public stage and listened to praise from all sectors of the community.
This was not just another Blue Jay professional celebrity coming to pay respects to the local fans. This was twenty-three year old Rob Butler from Barrington Avenue on the Danforth coming home to see the autumn leaves blowing around on the playground where he learned his baseball and where he grew up to become, in every sense, an ordinary hero.
The seeming contradiction in this phrase is not really there. Rob Butler is an ordinary, modest and very down to earth young person. It is obvious that these traits were transferred directly from his parents and his large extended family. It is also a certainty that the international gathering place that the Borough of East York has become played a large part in the making of this young man. At the gathering on the commons, in front of the City Hall, were people from every corner of the earth. In ten square feet of crowd it would have been possible to find a representative from every continent of the world, all of whom have tramped the same paths and streets that the Butlers did in the necessary voyage from Butlerville, Conception Bay to work, prosperity and security in East York, Ontario.
Rob Butler is a product of the movement of people from places where prospects are few to central points where work is available. His parents were part of that movement and Rob and his brother, Richard are marvellous productions of that process.
These celebrations on a windy East York day were a real civic event. Rob Butler as the object of the affection of the people is an in-product of a whole wave of movement to the cities that took place in the decades after World War II. In Conception Bay Rob Butler could never exist as a major leaguer. It is only here on East York soil on the shores of Lake Ontario that in the true Newfoundland scheme of things he can be a real Newfoundlander as well as being a true East Yorker. Newfoundlanders do not leave their homeland behind. Instead, Newfoundlanders in the times worn way of the British seamen and fishermen that came before them, bring their memories, their culture and their homeland with them when they shift.
Young Rob Butler was born on April 7, 1970 at Toronto East General Hospital on Coxwell Avenue in East York. His proud parents were young, hard-working people who had made their home a few short blocks down Coxwell and to the East along the Danforth. Rob grew up and went to the local East York schools. On Rob Butler Day, his school principals were unanimous in describing Rob as a truly "downhome person" and as a fine athlete with character to match.
I was struck by Rob's own tributes to the people who helped him along the way. He was truly genuine in his praise of his longtime East York baseball coach, Harry McAloney. I know first hand of Harry McAloney's commitment to baseball as my own fifteen year old has been a regular disciple of the East York Baseball program since he was a diminutive nine year old. Harry McAloney is a presence at Stan Wadlow Park just about everyday that the baseball program is running. Rob Butler clearly had it right when he paid tribute to Harry and all of the other dedicated volunteers from his parents on up through to the baseball association organizers.
It was fitting at the end of the ceremonies that Rob was presented with the Bulldog Trophy which is emblematic of true grit in the East York scheme of things. Grit, honesty and humility really come to mind as the best descriptive phrases for this young product of East York and its minor baseball program.
When Rob received the Key to the Borough from the East York Mayor, he seemed to be accepting it on behalf of all East Yorkers both young and old in a true demonstration of common democracy.
In the Winter of 1995 Rob Butler will be playing baseball in Latin America where love of the sport still transcends greed. We can only hope that Rob and his team mates can bring some of that worthy sentiment back to North America for the Spring.
Until next month, be proud, be prosperous.