Hatter Delores Clark recently dug up this Indian Head Rockets team photo. The team was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame last weekend--SUBMITTED PHOTO
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Memories of 70 years ago came flooding back Wednesday morning while Hatter Delores Clark flipped through the News.
Then she grabbed her photo album to find her 1952 team picture card of the Indian Head Rockets complete with autographs on the back.
Clark was just in junior high school when her hometown Indian Head Rockets headlined and hosted a North America wide tournament of barnstorming baseball teams.
The town of 2,500 would swell to 10,000, earning renown for the town and squad that was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame last weekend.
One of the last Rockets players, 90-year-old Nat Bates, this week toured Athletic Park in Medicine Hat, where he also played following time in the Black professional leagues, and spoke to the News.
“Oh, it was a lot of fun,” said Clark, 85, a resident of the Cypress View Foundation.
“I don’t even really like baseball, but it was fun to watch. My summer job was at the fairgrounds fixing diners, so I had to watch through the window of the booth.
“It was just wonderful.”
Clark said her family rented a house to members of the visiting club over two seasons.
She has many fond memories of those days, the players and the excitement that abounded in the town.
On playing in Canada, Bates told the Medicine Hat News in Wednesday’s edition: “We were like heroes, kids would come up and ask for autographs, families would invite us into their home for dinner.
“It was just something that we had never experienced and never anticipated.”
