Gallagher: Oshawa legend Lutton deserves Canadian hall nod

Long-time OBA executive Jim Lutton (Oshawa, Ont.) a former Baseball Ontario president, junior coach and Hall of Famer. Photos: Danny Gallagher.

August 1, 2024

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Jim Lutton regaled me with a remarkable trivia item that astounded me.

He told me that four celebrated figures in baseball in Ontario were all born in 1937.

They are Howie Birnie (Leaside), Bernie Soulliere (Windsor), Tim Harkness (Courtice) and Lutton (Oshawa).

Truly amazing.

They are all still alive. When Lutton called Birnie to ask him how he felt on his recent birthday, Birnie said, “Well, it means I’m older than you are.’’ Lutton cracked up.

Lutton, Birnie and Soulliere were tremendous grassroots leaders through their endless work in Ontario’s amateur ranks while Harkness played major-league ball, scouted for the San Diego Padres and managed the Intercounty League’s Toronto Maple Leafs.

Birnie and Soulliere are members of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys so, as I was leaving Lutton’s apartment after an interview, I said, “Jim, we’ll have to work on getting you in the Canadian Hall of Fame.’’

He did not respond but I’m sure he knows that sooner or later, he will get the call.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s elected in 2025. A truly remarkable man, who has volunteered so much of his time to the game in Oshawa on and off the field.

Lutton likes to joke that he was born Sept. 22, 1937 at Toronto Western Hospital but almost immediately, he was delivered to 73 McMillan Drive in Oshawa where his father had rented a house.

That way, he’s been a lifetime Oshawa resident.

“We got out of the hospital and the first stop was in Oshawa, the house was almost in line with the first-base line at Kinsmen Civic Memorial Stadium on a street outside the park,” Lutton told me.

Lutton never played ball growing up -- softball in public school -- but today, he’s a living baseball legend in the city east of Toronto and across the province.

“I became an umpire in both softball and baseball plus basketball in the same year in 1957 at age 20,’’ he said.

Putting the ump’s gear on was only one element of his career. Imagine this: for close to half a century from 1961-2009, he was the head coach of the Oshawa Junior Legionaires. What a fine achievement of longevity. When his team finally won the Ontario championship in 1998 in Brampton, Ontario Baseball Association bigwig Carmen Bush sent him a letter of congratulations.

“I still have the card, it’s one of the best things I got,” Lutton said. “Whenever I would go to Toronto, I would sit and talk with Carmen. I loved listening to so many stories. We won the Ontario elimination tournament four times and we lost in the nationals four times.”

When you enter Lutton’s apartment adjacent to O’Neill Collegiate Institute in north Oshawa near Lakeridge Health Centre, your eyes light up at the sight of umpteen boxes, wall plaques, boxes of unopened baseballs and two desks: all attesting to his career in baseball.

There are newspaper clippings abound and the same goes for photos. His hard work and loyalty to Oshawa baseball are unwavering. 

In 2017, he was asked by the OBA to appear at a hotel in Hamilton for the organization’s hall of fame induction ceremony and who should he run into but his brother Ted and his wife Edna. Stunned, Jim asked them what they were doing there. They said they were attending a wedding upstairs on the seventh floor but when Jim opened the doors to this function, Ted and his wife followed him.

Then Lutton knew something was cooking. Next thing you know, Ted and his wife were walking to where he was seated at a table. Lutton was always attuned to what was going on in Oshawa ball or Ontario so, this news threw him for a loop.

“Nothing gets by me but this one, I had no idea,’’ he said, smiling. “It was the 100th anniversary of the OBA in 2018. That particular one, we were inducting W.J. Smith, the original president and rest of the board of directors. They also put in five of the past presidents, including me.’’

One of the greatest honours Lutton is touched by was the one bestowed upon him in 1986 by Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43, which has sponsored the Legionaires in whole or in part for decades through funds accumulated from 50/50 draws. The Legion folks made him an honorary life member.

“I wasn’t in the military or the police or anything like that so, that was really special,” Lutton said. “That is one of the biggest honours. I’m really proud of this. It’s a big, big thing. After work, I would go to the branch on Simcoe St. South and listen to the guys (veterans) talk.

“One day, a lady working at the bar said, I see you all the time. I never see you at the bar. Why do you come here?”

Lutton’s comeback: “I never had a drink in my life.”

On the occasion of Oshawa Legion minor ball’s 75th anniversary, a ceremony was held at Kinsmen Stadium and the folks from Branch 43 were invited to attend. Branch 43 received a uniform top with No. 43 on the back. They thought it was really cool to be commemorated like that.

Among other accolades, Lutton was made a life member or inductee of Baseball Oshawa, the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame, the OBA (he was president in 1970-71), the Eastern Ontario Baseball Association and the American Baseball Coaches Association, the latter of which stunned him in 2019. He regularly attended ABCA meetings in the U.S. with Sam Dempster (Whitby), who coached Durham College Lords and whose roots trace back to Kingston.

“I didn’t know about this, I got my card in the mail and it said I was paid up until Dec. 31, 2099. I phoned them and I asked ‘What’s going on?’ They started laughing,’’ Lutton said. “They said, ‘Don’t you know you automatically become a life member after 35 years?’ These are all exceptional things. I really take them seriously.’’

When Lutton coached the juniors, all he asked from his players was hard work and showing up on time. If a player booted a ball, he wouldn’t say anything. If a mental mistake was made, then that is when he would kindly take the player aside.

When he flashed signals from the third-base box to the batter, he expected the players to do what he wanted them to do.

In the mid-1960s at a tournament in Niagara Falls, one player was asked to bunt runners over from first and second. The player decided not to. Instead, he hit a three-run homer. Lutton wasn’t impressed. When that player rounded third, Lutton turned his back on him.

On the bench, after the inning was over, the player knew he was on the outs with his coach so he asked Lutton, “What do you want me to do?”

Lutton replied, “What do you think? I want you to sit as far away from me as possible.”

Lutton replaced him with another player, stunning the rest of the team and the opposition. It was a matter of principle. Lutton was in charge and he wanted his players to know who was running the show.

Several years ago, Lutton was attending a game at Kinsmen Park and was sitting with arms and legs folded when he was approached by a woman who asked him which player was his on the field. He said, “They’re all mine.’’ The woman came back to apologize for asking the question because she found out that Lutton didn’t have any children. He’s a lifetime bachelor.

Lutton is proud that many of the players he coached have turned to coaching. At a midget tournament this summer in Oshawa, some of those coaches showed up and he was in attendance. He didn’t know they were coming.

In unison, they said to him, “Do you remember me?’’ Lutton was tickled to see this happening. He’s very much aware of the good times his teams enjoyed, something that makes him “damn proud.’’ He made a note of mentioning Ted Stone, his long-time pitching coach.

During the first pandemic year of 2020, Lutton still held his umpire’s card of certification so he told the people at Baseball Oshawa if they were short of officials, he would step in and help.

He said he wanted to work a game to indicate he was working in the next decade. At the end of the fifth inning, he got the shock of his life. Teams from Sudbury and Oshawa were lined up on the sidelines of the field. Lutton tried to hide behind second base, wondering what was happening.

The young lady handling the public-address announcing proceeded to tell everyone on hand that Lutton was participating in his eighth decade of umpiring, breaking the hockey-playing record of seven decades held by his idol, Gordie Howe, who played for his favorite team, the Detroit Red Wings.

A kid from Sudbury went up to Lutton and asked “You can’t be that old.”

Lutton replied that with mathematics, figures can sometimes lie. 

“Oh, my God. When I got home, the phone started ringing. I got calls from Windsor, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, London -- they’re all asking me the same question,” Lutton said. “I received 138 emails from all across Canada. It was one helluva pat on the back. That was more impressive than the eight decades.’’

As a great token of appreciation, Oshawa minor ball named Jim Lutton Legion Field after him at Lakeview Park down by the waterfront. Lutton agreed to the move on the condition the Legion be mentioned in the name of the field because the Legion had helped build the facility.

Referencing Lutton’s long-time work, Canadian ball scribe Bob Elliott joked one time that Lutton supervised the construction of the walls of Kinsmen Stadium. They first met in 1967.

As someone who was involved in OBA playdowns in the 1970s and 1980s and organized numerous events, I know that what Lutton did was time consuming but it was all enjoyable. Lutton umpired at the 1983 Canadian nationals in Sudbury, a tournament I helped organize and in which I played for the host Shamrocks.

Lutton recounted how during one of the games at the Sudbury event he was the home-plate ump and the garage door of his pants had split, although he had several other long pants on underneath. He sought help from both teams, asking people if they had safety pins so he could complete the game. Somebody from the Quebec side came to the plate with two, huge safety pins. He laughed.

Lutton umpired 11 years of Equitable Oldtimers games as well as Pearson Cup games (when the Toronto Blue Jays hosted the Montreal Expos) at both Exhibition Stadium and the SkyDome, contests that often ran the gamut of much fun. In one Equitable game, Lutton was on the plate and a pitch came in as a strike but there was no call. Catcher Joe Torre stood up and turned around and asked Lutton, “Are you not going to make the call?’’ Lutton answered, “I was looking at myself on the scoreboard.’’

And while coaching and umpiring he kept one eye on the play and one eye on outstanding players wearing an extra hat as he scouted for the Expos for nine years.

On his 70th birthday, arranged by Ted and his wife, there was a gathering in the downstairs recreation room in his apartment building. There were 40 people in attendance and again, this was something he didn’t know about. A man with bagpipes showed. Lutton asked him to play ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’

Off the field, Lutton was a GM man. He worked for General Motrs for 32 years in “cost accounting.’’ He started in October of 1963 at what was known as the North Plant in the main office in Cliff Mills at William St. and Ritson Ave. where a behemoth Costco is located now. He later worked at the GM facility on Park Road South.

He retired at age 55 shortly after GM appointed a new plant manager at the Tech plant. Cost accounting was split into two plants. One day, this plant manager called Lutton and three others together. They all happened to be sitting around Lutton’s desk. The administrator said, ‘Guys, you have enough seniority that you are entitled to retire. Would anybody be ready to go?’

“I opened up the drawer and pulled a piece of paper out,’’ Lutton said. “They gave us a good deal to go. The next day, the plant manager saw me going down to the payroll office in the middle of the plant.

“He said, ‘Jim, can I ask you a question? I see that you signed the papers yesterday to retire. You’re too damn young. What made you go like that?’ I said, ‘I can’t swim.’ He asked, ‘What do you mean?’ I replied, ‘I’m not going down with this sinking ship.’ He laughed. He had never heard that.’’

* * *

As the OBA’s historian in recent years, Lutton has been working on several pet projects that mean so much to him. He’s like a detective and reporter all mixed into one. He’s compiling a list, complete with photos and hometowns and years served of all the people who worked for the EOBA and OBA in an executive capacity or as a board member.

I looked at his computer screen many times to witness the outstanding work he’s doing. When he was younger, he said he couldn’t spell computer, let alone use one.

Now, he’s an expert.

I marvel at his astute use of spreadsheets where a person’s name, phone number and extra data is listed. One of his numerous binders features light-blue boxes created by him on the computer. When he gets photos, he sizes them up, tweaks them and reduces them to size in the shape of something resembling a baseball card. So remarkable.

Inside each box is a photo of the person he’s honouring. Across from his computer is a stack of Excel handbooks, in case he needs help on his computer. He knows Excel inside out, noting he learned the basics during his time at GM.

Truly amazing for a man who is 86 going on 87. Bare in mind he’s going all out to honour people involved with the OBA since its formation more than 105 years ago in 1918. So far, he has 554 names on the EOBA gridsheets, 524 on the OBA folks.

Phenomenal.

When Lutton goes to the dentist, one of the assistants always asks about the project. She can’t believe the number of photos he has acquired.

A portion of this work is already on the EOBA website and the OBA project will soon appear on the Baseball Ontario website.

In another example of his exemplary work, he’s inputting information about those who performed in the pro ranks. The M1 category of his research is for major-league players who were born in Canada. M2 is for minor-league players. M3 goes to coaches or executives. M4 is slotted for umpires in both the major leagues and minor leagues. M5 is open for those who played during the war years in the All-American Girls Professional League.

“This work has kept me busy since the pandemic started,” Lutton said. “If I didn’t have this work to do during the pandemic, it would have drove me crazy.’’

_ Danny Gallagher’s new book about the Expos is called Explosion.