May 24, 2022

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

As a coach, he was beloved by his players.

As a manager, he was as loyal as a paratrooper to another, dropped behind enemy lines and just as feisty. But rain or shine, highlight reel play or clan ... he had your back.

And as a mentor, he was a coach for life ... not just the regular schedule.

The man had a quick, caustic tongue which often fired 98-WPS (words per second) missiles across the diamond.

John Hurd was all of those things and so much more running the York Pioneers and later helping with the Bloor Blue Jays.

The loyalty he showed his players was returned. When Jack Dominico of the Toronto Maple Leafs phoned the likes of Mike Carnegie, Mark Zwolinski and Remo Cardinale, they all turned him down. Few players left Hurd for greener pastures or the so-often used “next level.”

“We wanted to play for John, we wanted to play with our buddies,” Cardinale said as he and dozens of other former Hurd Men gathered at Fred’s, a Mississauga restaurant, after John’s funeral.

While his dugout knew John, across the field, questions are still being asked.

Bob Nelson, who ran East York before joining the Toronto Blue Jays as farm director, called Cardinale when he heard the news of John’s death to express his sympathies. Nelson told Cardinale he knew how much John meant to Cardinale, how John was Cardinale’s mentor and after all those years of coaching against John asked, “What was it about the man that made him so popular with his players?”

“If John Hurd was alive today he would tell you that he could not teach the finer points of the game,” Cardinale said. “What John did was force accountability. He always made sure he got the best out of his players. He pushed education. I can remember him calling practices Saturday mornings at 7:30 when we were juniors. Juniors working out Saturday after a Friday night?

“By the way ... we were all there.”

Three of his pitchers signed: Junior Phillips and Cardinale (both with the Toronto Blue Jays) and Mark Zwolinski (New York Mets), but the game was more than getting “my guy” signed to John. He made it fun. Every outing was not Game 7.

Funny thing was in John’s first year Cardinale and others thought John was “too tough on them.” Little did they know relationships would grow into a life long love affair.

* * *

In 2000, the Canadian Junior National Team, Team USA and Australia gathered in Oakville for a series on their way west to the world championships in Edmonton. A fourth team was needed to balance the schedule. John was asked to form a senior all-star team.

So, it comes time for the Canuck juniors to play the local seniors. Junior manager Greg Hamilton asked pitching coach Cardinale to go to home plate for the ground rules and the exchange of lineups with John, his former manager.

The Canuck juniors included future all-star catcher Russell Martin (Montreal, Que.), INF Ivan Naccaratta (Montreal, Ont.) and LHP Evan Grills (Whitby, Ont.), who is now with the Ottawa-Nepean Canadians.

Out came Hurd wearing shorts with his German Shepherd, Chico, trailing behind. When Hurd saw the umpires eyeing his beloved dog, he said:

“Don’t worry guys ... he’s Level II certified.”

* * *

We asked a few former players how they would describe John to someone who had never met him:

Gino Campoli, who played 14 years for John and then John coached alongside him at Bloor: “He didn’t hold back, he cared about his players. He was sarcastic, but would do anything for his players if anyone ever got in trouble. Not me, but he got plenty of kids their summer jobs. John would go after umpires to protect a player from getting ejected -- if he could get there quick enough. I was bad. I was intense and I would swear a lot. I needed protection. I was in trouble with (commissioner) Carmen Bush a lot.”

Michael Cardinale, never played for John, but John’s wife Mary was his god mother, and John probably saw almost as many Mississauga North Tiger games as the Tiger coaches. After a good play at second or a line drive he’d hear: “Hey No. 4, you are a better player than your old man.” Michael wore No. 4 and his father Remo was the coach.

Remo Cardinale, who played for 12 seasons for John before moving on to coach Mississauga North, as well as serve as pitching coach with the Junior National Team and manage the senior team: “One night we’re getting beat about 10-1 in the second inning. Everything is going wrong. Errors. Walks. John goes out to argue with the ump (Joe Sawchuk). John is trying to get ejected and Joe realizes it. Finally Joe says, ‘John if I have to stay and watch this ... so do you. I am not kicking you out.’”

Michael Carnegie, played 10 seasons for John from bantam to senior: “He had the ability to keep people grounded, no one person was bigger than the team. I owe that personality attribute to John. He built character, pride and the belief that the team was a family. You play with your family and you fight for your family. If you played for John’s team, you were a part of his family. That was a very rare perspective back then. John was a very unique individual with a knack for polarizing at times. One thing for sure, he loved his players. He was a good man with a great heart. And we are all going to miss him dearly.”

Jim Poutsoungas played for John: “He was loyal. He had your back in any situation whether you broke the law or broke a baseball rule. Through (coach) Bob Sinclair he got me a summer job at Seaway Midwest, where Bob worked.”

Greg Miner, spent many years on the other side of the diamond, playing only one weekend for John: “He was not a pure student of the game, but he was a real student of people and kids. He might have missed a thing or two, but he got the best out of his players. He was honest as the day is long.”

Arman Sidu spent six years playing for John at Bloor which laid the foundation for him to play for the Junior National Team at the 2002 worlds in Sherbrooke, flew in from Chicago: “I’m from another generation but I’m saying the same things as these other gentlemen. John was honest and loyal. He kept kids that were maybe not as talented as some, but he knew how important baseball was to them and their families. He’d call 8 AM practices.”

Ron Szczepanowski played 15 years for John and then moved on to be a respected coach with the Mississauga Majors: “One time I was pitching ... it was big game and I was a bit nervous and in a tough spot. John comes out and says, ‘You think you got it bad, wait until your my age and you see your VISA bill. There weren’t any big games to him, they were all the same. John was a salt of the earth guy. What you saw is what you got. He was open and honest. He never thought he was better than anyone. If you couldn’t get along with John, you probably couldn’t get along with anyone. He was definitely a player’s manager”

* * *

Mike (The General) Gauthier never played for John but he knew him as John would often stop by Connorvale around 4:30 with his German Shepherd, Chico, and a coffee for Etobicoke manager Steve (Whitey) Brietner. It was John who gave Steve the nickname “Whitey” when he pitched for him. Said Gauthier: “John was a great guy with a big heart. I’m glad to have known him.”

Gauthier remembers John sitting on the bench at an Etobicoke game and someone asked John if there was a problem with teams pitching inside and hitting his guys. John said, “Why should I worry? I’ve got Junior Phillips on the bench, nobody was going to intentionally hit our guys.” As Gauthier said of Phillips “Junior threw gas.”

Bill (Bounce) Thompson, an Etobicoke veteran remembers “John or ‘Squiggy’ as we called him,” (nicknamed from the character on Laverne and Shirley) managing the York seniors from his seat in a lawn chair at the field entrance to the dugout.

* * *

Carnegie recalled the year York’s field was torn down as the team prepared to move across Eglinton from the southwest corner to the northeast. So they were homeless.

“We used other teams’ parks for home games and had The Shrine at Leaside on the odd weekend for a home park,” Carnegie said.

With John having already had three players sign -- Cardinale, Philips and Zwolinski -- and John being unhappy with the “ham sandwich” they’d signed for, according to Carnegie, John had developed a feeling for the two Toronto area amateur scouts at the time Bob Prentice (Toronto Blue Jays) and Ron Roncetti (New York Mets).

“John knew that these two gentleman would be at Talbot bird dogging and he absolutely refused to let me pitch there thinking or knowing, they would be there,” said Carnegie. “I never felt cheated. Sure it would have been great to maybe be able to tell everyone that I was being scouted or to maybe even sign, but John wouldn’t let that happen.

“He told me that I was going to school. Regardless of whom we were playing, who showed, or whose turn it was to start, I did not pitch an inning at Talbot on the weekends. John must have been connected to a higher being.”

Carnegie wound up with a scholarship to Miami University (Ohio), a couple summers with the National team and was part of Canada’s first Olympic team at Los Angeles in 1984. A self-described handful as a kid, Carnegie clarified “not in a bad way, but very much a character without an off switch.

* * *

Jim Poutsoungas remembers a trip to Windsor. They had played early and then he and teammate John Breeze drove their old “woodie” to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull to watch a Cleveland Indians-Tigers doubleheader.

“We park the car and a kid says, ‘Hey Mister, give me a dollar and we’ll watch your car,’ we’re late, so we ignored him,” said Poutsoungas. After the game they returned to their vehicle to find the back window smashed. The York bats, balls, catcher’s gear and helmets were all gone.

They saw a policeman who had other things going on rather than solving Detroit’s major bat crime wave. Then, they headed to the police department and told the desk sergeant “how they were with a ball team from Canada and their equipment was stolen.” In the middle of listing it, Breeze asked the policeman, “Aren’t you going to write this down?”

“No, all that equipment is on some playground right now, we don’t have time to look for it.”

So, they nervously headed back to Windsor. What would John say? How angry would John be over the fact they had zero equipment for the next day?

They went to John’s room, gave him the news and he had one question:

“Are you guys OK? Don’t worry about it,” Hurd said. It happened that night while Poutsoungas and Breeze were in Michigan, East York was eliminated.

“John phoned Alfie Payne and he let us use East York’s equipment the next day,” Poutsoungas said. “We always got along with East York.

“But that was John. Most coaches would have been upset about the equipment -- John was worried about us.”

* * *

And of course there were stories ...

_ Like the tournament in Kingston where Henry Bertossi was hitting balls into the trees at the Cricket Field. A Montreal Expos scout approached and asked if they could talk. Bertossi replied: “Sorry, I’m going to be a lawyer.” And he is.

_ Then, there was the year York played a team from New York state. It had two players at every position for its “in-and-out,” pre-game outfield/infield practice which lasted longer than half an hour. Coach John Blair went to home plate gave his lineup card to the umpires and the opposing coach. As he started to walk away, the New York coach asked, “Don’t you want our lineup?” Blair responded as John would have “naw, it’s OK ... we have all your bubble gum cards.” York won via a mercy.

_ East York’s Greg (Chopper) Miner remembered playing at Leaside and hitting after Buck Reed hit a ball to centre field (the small diamond at Talbot Park). Said Miner: “You knew Bucky had to hit it far to make it all around the bases.” Reed had homered off Leaside legend Steve (Whitey) Breitner. Into the box after Reed stepped Minr, a call up, who was promptly plunked in the ribs. Fisticuffs ensued and then again when East York took the field as shortstop Bob Nelson veered away from running to his position to charge into the Leaside dugout.

_ Then there was the 9 a.m. game in Niagara Falls in 95-degree weather. Etobicoke coach Bobby Smyth was driving and plate ump Joe Sawchuk was in the front, with his mask still under his arm. Mets scout Ron Roncetti was in the back seat with Greg Miner. Smyth came out of the beer with a full cart of 24s. Roncetti was shocked. Then, out game Sawchuk -- mask still under his arm -- with another full cart. They drove to the hotel with the trunk full and cases on their laps.

_ John’s rule on the road was two players would sleep to a room. But trying to save money Marvel or Marcello Deluca, Al Cook, Ralph Salvino and Poutsoungas took the mattresses off their beds and put them on the floor. John heard about it and barged into the room. “You can’t play with a bad back from sleeping on the floor if you are short of money .... here,” and fired a wad of cash at them. Two players left getting another room and they eventually paid John back.

_ Poutsoungas raved about lefty Zwolinski, the veteran scribe with the Toronto Star: “There wasn’t a guy around in those days who had better command of his fastball. He’s the only guy I’d put on a mask to catch in the bullpen. Some nights I felt like going back to the dugout to put on the chest protector and shin guards. He threw that hard.”

* * *

Years ago, the weekend after Labour Day COBA would stage the Cannon Cup in Oakville for midget-aged players. The same weekend the Dick Willis Memorial bantam all-star tournament at Greg Cranker Field in Mississauga.

The legendary Alfie Payne and John ran one team. Alfie had gone to the washroom and John had decided he had seen enough from his starter.

Out he went in his street clothes. I did not see Alfie but was told he hopped the chain-link fence to intervene when he heard the umpire chewing out John for being in street clothes.

Standing behind the backstop I could hear Alfie saying as he pointed at the ump saying: “This man has done more for baseball than you, your father and your grandfather ... combined.”

John was not ejected. Alfie, I and Greg Cranker adjourned to Mulligan’s the Friendly Meeting and Eating place to go over game film.

* * *

One fall I helped Ron Szczepanowski with his team before going away for the World Series. In the bullpen were a case of weighted balls. The pitcher wanted to use them and I said “hold on a second ... let me go with Shep,” who was throwing batting practice.

I come around the screen and there is a dog chasing balls down the left field line. “John,” I said, since I’d never seen a dog on the ball field, “do you realize you have a dog in the outfield?”

John answered “yes, he’s our best outfielder.”

It was an all-star team and those who knew John, knew his dog Chico and how to behave. A newcomer from another club took out his water bottle, had a swig and left it on the bench as he returned to the field.

Szczepanowski said the dog was so smart he knocked the water bottle onto the dirt and unscrewed the cap to drink all the water.

When I was with Mississauga North, John would sit usually about five feet away from where I’d stand as a reliever warmed up.

“Well,” he’d say looking up from his paper, “if it isn’t Mississauga’s Al Widmar. Are you going to mess up this kid as bad as you fouled up the starter.”

I recall one day saying, “John, our starter, Michael Kim, pitched three scoreless, I thought he pitched well. “Ahh John, one walk, one infield hit ...” I’d reply. “He can do better,” John would snap.

* * *

In 1977 the Labatt Senior League was formed and Paul Markle, the Blue Jays marketing executive addressed the league meeting to state: each team “would get a case of Labatt Blue after each game.” Hey times were different.

Said Jim Poutsoungas: “You should have seen John’s face ... it was like a kid being taken to Toys R Us for the first time.” There was silence and he said “don’t worry boys all the coaches will leave three or four beers for the players.”

* * *

John, 76, passed away at Trillium Health Partners Mississauga Hospital on April 17. Deepest sympathies are extended to Mary his wife for 57 years, son Patrick and wife Sandra as well as grandchildren Gabriela and Daniel. For those who wish, donations may be made to The Lung Association.

John is still making an impact. One of John’s former players said he had not had a cigarette since John’s passing.