Elliott: View from Korte front porch a Saskatchewan slice of heaven
The Korte front porch in Muenster, Sask. Photos: Garret Korte.
“If the world had a front porch like we did back then
We’d still have our problems but we’d all be friends ...”
_ Country singer Tracy Lawrence
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
WELLAND _ It’s roughly a 28-hour drive from the front porch in the farming community of Muenster, Sask. to the Niagara District, home of the 2022 Summer Games.
Right-hander Adam Korte (Muenster) gained the 5-4 win over Ontario at Oakes Park in Niagara Falls on Tuesday. He pitched the fifth and sixth innings, allowing two runs -- one earned. He grew up playing on James Korte Field.
There are championships, awards and all kinds of honours for players to win playing the game itself, yet my father always said the greatest honour of all was having a ball field named after you.
So to recap, winning pitcher Adam Korte grew up playing for his father, coach Garret Korte, on a field named after his grandfather James Korte, a member of the Saskatchewan Hall of Fame.
Was your grandfather here, Adam was asked sitting in Scott Bullet’s spacey hitting facility in Thorold before playing Nova Scotia?
Adam said no. Grandpa was in a home. The unfair disease known as Alzheimer’s was the reason.
Do you think he knows what happened ... that you got the win against Ontario?
“I think you are right,” said the winning pitcher. “I think he knows.”
Team Saskatchewan after beating Ontario Tuesday 5-4.
Later in the bottom of the first inning as coach Greg Brons’ Team Saskatchewan scored eight on the way to beating Nova Scotia 18-8 at Welland Stadium it was confirmed that the patriarch of the family did indeed know what had transpired.
Nine rows behind the third base dugout Adam’s father confirmed that the next generation was well aware.
“My mom, Janice, showed my father pictures of the game from our website,” Garret said. “My father had tears in his eyes. He KNEW what happened today.
“I wish he was here ... not to get to emotional, but one grandson got the win ... another grandson got the save.”
Grandpa James Korte (seated) with his grandsons Maddix (front row), Merek Yeager (back row left) and Adam Korte .
Closing things out for Saskatchewan was Merek Yeager (Muenster), whose mom Amy just happens to be Garret’s sister which makes her Adam’s aunt ... if my version of the family tree is growing in the right direction.
Yeager took over in the seventh with a man on first. Ontario’s Brendan Lawson (Toronto, Ont.) doubled to left, advanced to third on a ground ball out, which made it a one-run game with the tying run in scoring position. A grounder and a fly ball avenged Saskatchewan’s opening-game loss to Ontario in the opener.
* * *
“It was where my mama sat on that old swing with her crochet
It was where granddaddy taught me how to cuss and how to pray ...”
* * *
Garret Korte said his grandfather , Joe,built the ball park about 100 years ago. His father’s house, where he now lives, is 97 years old.
“The park is right in the middle of town, so when there is a game people come, it’s not like the park is on the outskirts,” Garret said.
The house is across the street down the first base line. Look through the trees and you can see most of the diamond.
“We have a big front porch, people come and gather to watch the game from our porch ... maybe even have a beer some nights,” said Garret.
* * *
“It was where we made our own ice cream, those sultry summer nights
Where the bulldog had her puppies, and us brothers had our fights ...”
* * *
Told that Korte’s father was the man wearing the green and white hat, your intrepid servant headed to a man seated with his family.
After introducing myself I said, “I’d like to talk to you about the ball diamond being named after your father ... and how the park in Muenster is named after him.”
“Not Muenster ... Lang.”
Lang?
“Yep, Lang,” said Ray Beck.
Turned out we had the man in the white and green ball cap, not the guy in green and white lid.
Beck Field in Lang was named after Beck’s grandfather, Russell Beck. Russell coached the Lang seniors from 1934 until the end of the 1979 season -- how do you match that for a love of the game? He was inducted into the Saskatchewan HOF in 1990.
As my father always said -- in case you haven’t heard -- the greatest honour of all was having a ball field named in your memory.
Carter Beck’s father, Ray Beck, was inducted in 2008 after 29 years of playing and coaching senior in Lang and as the Lang Angels won 12 league titles.
And in 2019 the Beck family was inducted in the Saskatchewan HOF. Roughly 25 Beck offspring played the game as Russell and Marguerite passed on a passion for the game to their children and grandchildren.
In the two Tuesday wins, Beck was 3-for-5 with four RBIs.
The view from the Korte front porch of James Korte Field.
* * *
“There were many nights I’d sit right there and look out at the stars
To the sound of a distant whippoorwill or the hum of a passing car ...”
* * *
I grew up in what I thought was a small town of Kingston ... 60,000 when I moved to Ottawa in 1973 ... or 59,998 when we left. But the Saskatchewan team is made up of players from tiny farming communities. We asked the grade 11 students for their town’s population and some we’re sure were in the ball park ... we went with 2021 Census conducted by Statistics Canada.
Lang has a population of 176.
A happy gang after a 5-4 win over Ontario in Niagara Falls.
Cole Bauml (Lake Lenore) is from a town of 289 people. He attends a K-12 school where the total enrollment is 80 students.
Muenster has 403 residents.
OF Oakland Flodell (Clavet) is from a town of 450 residents.
OF Jackson Martin (Grand Coulee) lives in a village with 605 other residents.
OF Callum Hollinger (Carnduff) comes from a town of 1,150.
Alex Ellert (White City) is from a village of 3,702.
INF Cam Marshak (Humboldt) lives in a town with 6,033 others.
“We have 12 miles of acreage,” said Marshak. Does that mean you have 12 acres? “No, it means that we don’t farm any more.”
He guesses his best game came as a peewee playing for when he hit two homers in the same game against the Regina Pacers ... “it was at Jeff Hughes Field.” A dual sport man, he says he likes baseball better than hockey, although he once scored eight goals in a game against Hepburn.
EIGHT GOALS?
“They weren’t very good, think we won 17-0,” Marshak said.
* * *
“It was where I first got up the nerve to steal me my first kiss
And it was where I learned to play guitar and pray I had the gift ...”
No. 14 Oakland Flodell (Clavet, Sask.) celebrates Saskatchewan win at Welland.
* * *
Whether it was watching LHP Andrew Albers (North Battleford, Sask.) start for the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis or the Seattle Mariners at Safeco ... or flipping the TV, stopping on CFL game and seeing sections of green Roughriders jerseys ... only to notice that the game was in Edmonton or Vancouver.
“We’re prairie people we know how to work hard, we don’t have too many make the majors,” Marshak said. He knew of Albers and I added Terry Puhl (Melville, Sask). Muenster has produced one NHLer, Ralph Klassen, who played 497 games with the California Seals, Cleveland Barons, Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Blues. “And Gordie Howe was pretty good huh?”
Howe was one of he best I ever saw and this winter Marshak trained at the Gordie Howe complex in Saskatoon.
Cam Marshak went deep in the win over Ontario
Marshak hit a solo homer against Ontario and was 1-for-4, knocking in a run against Nova Scotia. The son of Juanine, who helps finding work for others “getting people get back on their feet,” and Garrett, who works in purchasing for Olymel, which supplies pig farms both feed and office supplies for indoor workers.
“Being in this area you don’t really realize how many people are here,” Cole Bauml said. “Beating Ontario was fun. They were a little yappy, but man they have some good hitters.”
Broadcasters often some NCAA college football programs “travel well.” The same could be said about Saskatchewan fans. Garret Korte said, “Let’s face it ... all we do is drive.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest football fan, but I’ll watch the Roughrider games,” said Merek Yeager. “I think it’s pretty neat to have a football team represent your whole province.”
* * *
“Purple hulls and pintos, I’ve shelled more than my share
As lightening bugs and crickets danced in the evening air ...”
* * *
INF Joel Bauml has what is a familiar surname in the province ... Kole Bauml won the best defensive infielder at the 2007 peewee nationals in Quebec City ... Cole Bauml was drafted in the 10th round by the Detroit Tigers in 2015 from Northern Kentucky University.
Joel is Cole’s first cousin, who played four years in the Tigers’ system. Now, 29, he is playing for the the Marysburg Royals ... now in their 104th season. The town has a church, a ball field and a population of 23, drawing players from surrounding communities.
The Royals’ roots go back to four families and four generations from the Strueby clan, as well as the Puetz, Bauml and Haeusler families. Only the Haeuslers have been around for ‘only’ three. Andrew Hendriks was on it for the 100th anniversary as were others
Joel remembers his best game as a doubleheader when the East Central Red Sox played Swift Current and he singled, doubled and homered. The right-handed hitter drove a pitch into the Screen Monster in right.
“Instead of one panel of chain-link fence, it’s three,” he explained. “The thing about our coach, Greg Brons, is he always knows ways to help you. He always suggests the best possible move.”
* * *
“And like a beacon that old yellow bulb, it always led me home
Somehow mama always knew just when to leave it on ...”
* * *
Yeagar is a converted catcher with a big arm, maybe the best arm on the staff. But he had help making it from one end of 60 feet, six inches to the other. Logan Hofmann (Muenster), a Pittsburgh Pirates draft from Northwestern State in Louisiana in 2020, helped him make the change.
South East Twins teammates Carter Beck, Sutter Balog, and Callum Hollinger (left to right) of Team Saskatchewan. Photo supplied by Blair Beck.
“It was borderline whether I’d be a catcher or a pitcher,” Yeager said. When COVID-19 struck, Hofmann was home to work out with the high schoolers.
“Logan’s big motto was ‘throw strikes, work fast, keep your defence in the game and keep the hitters off balance,’” said Yeager.
So how often does Yeager, former catcher and former deep thinker with the gear on, think standing on the mound awaiting his catcher’s signs?
“Depends on the catcher,” Yeager said, “pitchers are creatures of habit, they like to go to a certain rhythm. Catchers can get caught up in the same rhythm. Sometimes instead of going fastball, fastball, fastball, fastball, we might throw a first-pitch curveball or maybe even double up. You have to look at who is hitting.”
* * *
“Treating your neighbor like he’s your next of kin
Wouldn’t be gone with the wind
If the world had a front porch, like we did back then ...”
* * *
The Korte family consisted of seven children Dennis, Tony, Loretta, Garret, Maryanne, James and Mel, whose son Mark is an offensive guard with the CFL’s Edmonton Elks.
The Elks signed Korte to a two-year contract in free agency worth $210,000 in 2022, making him the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league.
* * *
As songwriters Kenny Beard, Paul Nelson and Tracy Lawrence wrote in the chorus:
“Treating your neighbor like he’s your next of kin
Wouldn’t be gone with the wind
If the world had a front porch, like we did back then.”
* * *
Joel Bauml, Adam Korte, Merek Yeager and Cam Marshak all play for Korte’s father with the East Central Red Sox and when they arrive home in the land of green, they will have a few days before heading to the Western Canadian championships in Regina.
Korte remembers a doubleheader against the Sask5 Giants. He pitched the first game, went six innings for the win, allowed one run and picked up the victory. And in the nitecap in double duty, he went 4-for-4 with two doubles and five RBIs.
Connections are everywhere on Team Sask going back through the Canada Game years: The father of Sutter Balog (Weyburn), Tyson Balog, played in the 1993 Canada Summer games with Brons in Kamloops ... Both Joel Bauml and Jonah Kuntz’s father (Murray Bauml and Kevin Kuntz) played on the 1989 Summer Games Team that won the silver medal under coach Jim Baba (Moose Jaw/Ottawa).
With a loss on Wednesday to British Columbia, Saskatchewan finish round-robin play with a 4-2 record. Now they will play a semi-final Friday night at 7 p.m. against the winner of the Ontario-Quebec qualifier.
Tracy Lawrence’s “If the World Had a Front Porch ...”
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