Huntsville, Ont., native Selkirk replaced Ruth in right field for Yankees

George Selkirk (Huntsville, Ont.) replaced Babe Ruth in right field for the New York Yankees. Photo: Bill Hine

August 21, 2021

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Huntsville, Ont. – He’s the forgotten baseball hero in this town.

He succeeded Babe Ruth in right field, he successfully pushed for the installation of a warning track at major-league parks, he played on five World Series championship teams and he's a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Who might that be, you ask?

George Selkirk, that's who, a gifted player, who was born in this pretty, touristy town in the Muskokas that draws visitors from around the world.

Now only if more people knew about Selkirk and his connections to this gateway to Algonquin Park.

Peter Haynes, the president of the Muskoka Hornets Baseball Association, which encompasses the sport in Huntsville, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst, is on a mission: to give Selkirk overdue homage in Huntsville to Selkirk.

"I do think it is time he gets some local recognition,'' Haynes said in an interview. "Sometimes I feel like I am the only person in town that actually appreciates his accomplishments. In my mind, the story of George Selkirk has not been told enough.''

Huntsville, Ont., native Peter Haynes, shown coaching here, has been pushing to get George Selkirk more local recognition for several years. Photo supplied.

With the news that pandemic restrictions are being lifted, Haynes will amp up his attempts to convince Huntsville town council and senior executives at Town Hall to consider the funding of the erection of a plaque and renaming its main Huntsville baseball field after Selkirk.

Close to 80 years after Selkirk’s last MLB game and close to 35 years after Selkirk died in 1987, Haynes may soon be successful in his mission. He said he has been given “preliminary’’ support for his initiative. The plan would be to have Diamond F at the McCulley Robertson Recreation Park on William St. named the Selkirk Diamond.

Haynes was successful in getting Selkirk inducted into the Huntsville Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 but he wants more homage paid than that. Selkirk has also been inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame along with the Canadian hall.

“I’ve spent countless hours trying to get George Selkirk some local recognition,’’ Haynes said. “As you may know, Huntsville is a lacrosse and hockey community so it was difficult for them (politicians) to recognize the significance of a person who left town at age 7 as one of their own.

“There are so many layers to this story -- I think my favourite is that Selkirk is credited with inventing the warning track.’’

Selkirk’s father’s name was Bill, although sometimes he went by George. He would go back and forth, switching his name. Bill was born in Huntsville in 1872. He was a true renaissance man. He was the town’s police chief from 1904 to 1908, he doubled as a funeral director, he was a member of the award-winning Huntsville fire brigade, he was a farmer, a carpenter and a stone cutter.

Not only that, as we went to press, further research showed that Bill Selkirk played sandlot baseball in Huntsville and ran the 100-yard dash in a mean 10 seconds. So George had the genes.

In the Nov. 28, 1902 edition of the Huntsville Forester, George Jr.’s father billed himself as “Huntsville’s leading undertaker and embalmer’’ on Main St. and then around the corner on West St. In a newspaper ad, he identified himself as George but he occasionally was William or Bill.

Based on information supplied to the Star by Muskoka Heritage Place in Huntsville, Selkirk was a mortician from about 1897 to 1918, perhaps in unison with his father George. At one point, the funeral home was under the name Selkirk & Mackinnon.

Muskoka Heritage Place has in its possession the account book for ‘George Selkirk, Undertaker’ but the provenance for the book calls him William George and added that he was the “grandfather of George Twinkletoes Selkirk.’’

In a notation in a book called Muskoka Ontario’s Playground, author Ray Love mentioned that Bill experienced medical issues with “embalming fluid’’ as an undertaker and that he travelled to Chicago and Detroit to ‘’consult with doctors’’ to treat his problem. Love also noted that “Bill was said to be the first child born in the ‘’newly settled village’’ of Huntsville.

George Selkirk Jr.’s grandfather George, was the town’s second official municipal bell-ringer, who rang the bell at the Presbyterian Church at 7 a.m., 12 noon, 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. each day. When the town’s first swing bridge was erected in 1902, George Sr. was the bridge turner, who manually opened and closed the bridge to let the steamships through, said Sara White, collections coordinator for Muskoka Heritage Place.

George was married to Elizabeth Hunt, who was born in Ireland and was a cousin of George Hunt, the recognized founder of the town of Huntsville. George Sr., the future Yankee’s grandfather, was born in Scotland like George Hunt and both of them and their families came to Huntsville from Montreal in 1869.

The Yankee’s son-in-law Bill Hine, who ran Selkirk’s estate from his home in Harrisonville, Pa., said the player’s grandparents, came to Huntsville from Glasgow, Scotland by way of Montreal on a ‘’square wide sailing vessel.’’

White’s research revealed that a news report from the day said Bill Selkirk and his family moved to ‘’settle permanently’’ in Midland, Ontario about August of 1918 when George Jr. was about 10 years old. Tagging along was his older sister Pauline and his younger brother Donald, who was known to many as Bud, Hine said.

White’s meticulous research indicates for the first time that the Selkirks actually spent some time in Midland after leaving Huntsville. Research shows that one reason why Bill moved his family to Midland was because his sister Georgina lived there with her husband Matthew McDonald.

Until now, all reports about George, the baseball player, indicated he moved directly to Rochester, N.Y. from Huntsville about 1915. Not so. Midland was a stopgap.

White said a news report in the Huntsville Forester newspaper showed that Bill was corresponding from Rochester in 1926 at a time when George Jr. was about 18. It appears from that report the Selkirks landed in Rochester in 1926, not in 1915 as has been reported many times.

Until now, the names of Pauline and Donald had also never been published in any media reports involving George Jr. Previous citations had merely said Bill Selkirk moved to Rochester with his “three children.’’ The only child mentioned by name previously was George.

The story goes that Bill Selkirk had ‘’retired’’ in Huntsville when he moved away from Huntsville. It’s possible that the famous floor-mill industry in Rochester provided a work attraction for the Selkirks but the real reason the family moved stemmed from a fire that destroyed the home of one of Bill’s wife’s sisters in Rochester.

Using his skills as a stone cutter and carpenter, Bill reconstructed the house and decided that he and his family would reside in Rochester permanently, rather than return to Midland or Huntsville.

George Selkirk’s surviving son-in-law Bill Hine said in an interview he didn’t know what Bill did for a living in Rochester but Hine’s files said he died in Rochester in 1949 at age 77 when George was 31. When Bill passed away, Bud looked after his mother Margaret, who lived until 1974, leaving 40 acres of land in Chaffey Township in Huntsville equally to Pauline, George and Bill.

“From everything that has been said about Bill is that he was a very hard working guy, who didn’t take much guff,’’ Hine said. “Being a policeman, he was that way like state troopers I know.

“Margaret was old-school European. One day, the boys were in the basement of the house on Eastman Avenue in Rochester, on a shooting range. Some bullets ricochet through the kitchen through the floor and Margaret opened the door to the basement and hollered down the stairs, ‘Boys, that’s enough of that.’ She wasn’t about to dodge bullets. She had to be a disciplinarian.’’

Bud enjoyed a long run as a plant maintenance employee at the famous Kodak photographic-film plant on Eastman Ave. At his behest, the company erected a link to Bud’s house across the street from the manufacturing facility so he could go home for lunch.

Although it’s not known if George Jr. played any baseball in Huntsville or Midland, he did become a catching phenom at both Edison Tech in Rochester and Rochester Technical School and began attracting the attention of scouts. He signed an independent pro contract with Rochester in 1926, the year him and his family apparently arrived in Rochester from Midland.

Selkirk played in the minors for a number of years, including a stop in Toronto in 1932 for a pathetic Toronto Maple Leafs team that finished 54-1/2 games out of first place with a 54-113 record. In 90 games, Selkirk hit .287 with 11 homers for Toronto, which at the time was a double-A farm team of the Detroit Tigers.

Toronto was one of Selkirk’s springboards to the majors with the Yankees along with stops in Jersey City, N.J., Cambridge, Md., Columbus, Ohio, Newark, N.J. and Rochester (in both 1927 and 1933).

“Bud tried out for the major-league team (Yankees) at the same time George did but Bud did not enjoy the same success as George did,’’ Hine said. “Bud would have liked to have been in the major leagues. George told me Bud played in the (independent) minor leagues with two or three teams. They both were forward guys. They had self confidence by the bushel.’’

Bud decided to stick with his job at Kodak. He died Aug. 4, 1982. Pauline eventually moved from Rochester to Philadelphia where she was employed as a girdle fitter at a department store. When her husband Frank Cernovsky died, Pauline moved back to Rochester where she passed away.

In the midst of his minor-league career, George Selkirk took time to get married on June 23, 1931 to Norma Fox, whom he had met in Rochester. Their only child, Betty, was born in 1933.

“Norma had not had much of a life before George,’’ Hine said. “Her family, they were egg producers in a small town in between Rochester and Syracuse. Norma’s family lived a life of poverty. She aspired to use George as a means of living reasonably well.’’

George Selkirk made his MLB debut on August 12, 1934. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

As Ruth was winding down his Cooperstown-calibre career, Selkirk, a left-handed hitter, was gaining notoriety while languishing in the minors. Selkirk made his major-league debut Aug. 12, 1934 at a relatively old 26 when outfielder Earle Combs suffered a concussion after he slammed into an outfield wall.

In his first MLB game Aug. 12, 1934, Selkirk was placed in right field, Ruth was in left and Ben Chapman patrolled centre. It had been announced months earlier this the 1934 season was going to be Ruth’s last and it was the Yankees’ last game in Boston. But that wasn’t quite true. Ruth did play a final season for Boston in 1935.

“I’ll never forget that day,’’ Selkirk said years later in an interview with Rochester sports writer Ralph Hyman about his debut game. “Forty-six thousand people jammed the park to see Ruth play his final game. Special bleachers were set up in the outfield.

“After the fifth inning, the Babe retired from the game. Everyone stood up and applauded. Even the players took their hats off and applauded the great Ruth. It was the most emotional sight I witnessed until the day Lou Gehrig played his last.’’

Selkirk collected 176 at-bats during his Yankees apprenticeship year, batting .313 with five homers and 38 RBI.

After Ruth was released in 1935 and he signed with the Boston Red Sox, Selkirk became a regular in right field and much to the consternation of Ruth and his supporters, wore the Bambino’s No. 3.

“In his first game at Yankee Stadium with the Yankees, George was greeted with boos,’’ Hine said. “They retire numbers like that today but I think an organization like the Yankees was different in the 1930s.’’

Selkirk told reporters in an interview in the 1930s that he “was just cocky enough’’ to say wearing Ruth’s number wouldn’t make him a “nervous’’ person.

“I got his job and it took a long time for people to forgive me,’’ Selkirk said. “Instead of just being another outfielder, one who was no (Tris) Speaker or (Earle) Combs in the outfield, I was expected to make the fans forget one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Ruth.

“Did I worry? Well, I tried not to. Ruth, you know, always had been my baseball hero. But never had I thought I would be taking his place.’’

Fighting big-league pitching while staring down Ruth’s legend, Selkirk enjoyed a tremendous season in 1935, including an eight-RBI game on Aug. 10. He finished with a .312 average with 11 homers and 94 RBI.

It was midway through the 1935 season that Selkirk brought up the matter of the warning track idea. He told reporters that a “six-foot cinder warning track’’ should be installed at MLB parks to give players the heads-up about the oncoming outfield fence. Some 14 years later, MLB got around to implementing his idea.

In 1936, Selkirk was also exemplary with a .308 average, 18 homers and 107 RBI. Selkirk’s numbers in 1937 and 1938 slipped due to injuries but he rebounded in 1939 with 21 homers, 101 ribbies and a .306 BA.

On May 27 and May 28, 1939, Selkirk fashioned some kind of history. On May 27, he homered twice off of Bob Joyce of the Philadelphia Athletics in the second game of a doubleheader and then on the 28th, he homered twice again off of Joyce, who was pitching in relief. Boy, that was some feat and trivia item.

“His nickname was Twinkletoes,’’ Hine said. “The reason for that is that his feet hurt and so he ran up (he also walked) on his toes. His daughter Betty loved him very much. She was a kid and she used to walk on his back when he’d come home from a day at Yankee Stadium. She would walk on his back on the bed at George’s insistence to make him feel better so he could loosen up the muscles.

“Him and Betty were tight. They loved one another. George and Bud really worshipped their sister. She was a kind hearted soul. She had an IQ of 160 and George and Norma contributed to that.’’

Selkirk had the distinct privilege of rooming on the road with ironman Lou Gehrig. Drawing on the wrestling skills he honed in Rochester, Selkirk was a strong brute but was known to lose most of the playful skirmishes he had with the Popeye-strong Gehrig, matches that usually took place in clubhouses or hotel rooms they shared on the road.

“Lou was stronger. I’m just getting this from George but he normally lost the rassling matches. Lou was winning most of the matches even though George was well configured and he was a man that kept in shape,’’ Hine said. “He didn't put on pounds. I never saw George looking like a businessman. He always looked like he was an athlete. They rassled -- and rassled in a hotel room because hotels in those days didn't have much to offer in the way of a workout room.’’

As Hine continued his story, he told of how Selkirk would tell him the anecdote of how Gehrig began his fall to the disease that eventually took his life. It was something subtle in one of those hotel room wrestling battles that apparently took place at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit.

“One day, Lou all of a sudden went limp. George didn’t want to hurt him. The guy cared for him,’’ Hine said.

So Selkirk backed off, surprised.

“What’s wrong, Lou?’’ Selkirk asked.

“I don’t know,’’ Gehrig replied.

“Lou professed innocence,’’ Hine said. “He just didn’t know. That was the start (decline of his health). It’s a good story. It was a sensitivity that something was wrong. It was an unusual thing to have happened. That was before the Lou Gehrig Day at the ballpark (July 4, 1939).’’

The day Gehrig went limp against Selkirk may have been the day, May 2, 1939, when Gehrig went up to manager Joe McCarthy at the Book-Cadillac cigar shop to tell him he was breaking his consecutive-games streak of 2,130.

Gehrig never played another game. He died June 2, 1941. On that day, at the Book-Cadillac’s location in Cleveland, Selkirk, McCarthy and the remainder of the Yankees were advised that Gehrig had passed away. A disbelieving Selkirk tore the slip of paper showing him his hotel room in pieces.

Not long before Gehrig died, Selkirk and teammate Bill Dickey paid Gehrig a visit.

Selkirk also played with the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing and played under McCarthy. In that kind of company, who wouldn’t feel enchanted and enriched by such a glorious life in the Big Apple?

“George enjoyed the notoriety and the fancy cars. He lived a good life. Norma always kind of knocked down George’s ego,’’ Hine said, chuckling. “They may not have had the money celebrities have these days but they were celebrities nonetheless.’’

Realizing his duty to his second country, Selkirk enlisted in the U.S. Navy for the Second World War from 1943 to 1945 and earned the rank of Ensign as an aerial gunner while coaching naval recruits in shooting. Upon returning from the war, he gave up the game as a player after he was released by the Yankees prior to spring training in 1946 and after he had a brief stint in the minors in Newark.

Selkirk’s impressive MLB resumé included six All-Star selections and five seasons of batting over .300. He was arguably one of Canada’s finest baseball players in the first half of the 20th century.

Selkirk then became a manager in the minor leagues for more than 10 years. While managing in Binghamton, N.Y., in 1949, his pupils included future Yankees greats Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. Ford was about 20 and took a liking to the manager’s daughter, Betty, who was a mere 16.

“Betty -- this was a gal that was an athlete herself. She was very good at water ballet (synchronized swimming),’’ Hine said. “She would have been happier if she were a boy. She ran batting practice. She often threw batting practice and Whitey hit the ball. They went on two dates but it didn’t take. Betty decided, ‘I don’t want to be married to a baseball player.’ ‘’

While Selkirk was managing in Toledo, Ohio in 1953, Betty got married to Hine. After saying no to Whitey Ford, Betty said yes to Hine, who had met Betty through a roommate of hers at the University of Rochester Sailing Club. Selkirk had made all the wedding arrangements, including acquiring the hotel ballroom.

Hine, who came in from naval duty on a submarine for the wedding, and Betty would be married for 27 years until she died of lung cancer at 48 in 1982.

In his managerial stint with Kansas City, Selkirk was much loved by the fans, who purchased a “brand-new’’ four-door Dodge car for him. When the season was over, Selkirk drove the car home to Rochester. One day, Betty took the car to show it to a girlfriend.

“She smashed it up. She didn’t set the emergency brake,’’ Hine said. “Loving his daughter, his only child, George just brushed it off, saying, ‘I will fix it up.’ ‘’

While in Toledo, Selkirk received a complimentary Jeep from Toledo Jeep and so in the off-season, he drove it home to Rochester. Hine told the funny story of how Selkirk hitched up a manure spreader behind the Jeep to spread manure on a rental property. Sometimes, the manure would end up in his face if he pulled a 180-degree circle.

After he gave up managing, Selkirk took off his uniform and moved up to the executive suite as director of player personnel with the Kansas City Athletics, a position he held from 1957 to 1959. From 1960 to 1962, he was the field coordinator of player development for the Baltimore Orioles.

When the old Washington Senators were relocated to Minneapolis and became the Twins in time for the 1961 season, Washington was granted an expansion franchise that began play, also in 1961. ***

George Selkirk became the general manager of the Washington Senators in November 1962. Photo: Bill Hine

By the fall of 1962 following the Senators first two seasons, Selkirk was appointed GM, a post he held from Nov. 21, 1962 until he was dismissed prior to spring training in 1969 on Jan. 28 by new owner Bob Short.

As is the custom for Washington’s major-league team, the U.S. president of the day is invited to throw out the first pitch. So on April 8, 1963, John. F. Kennedy threw out the first pitch. It turned out to be the last time he did such a favour because he was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963.

“I was present because of George when JFK threw out his last ball to start the baseball season,’’ Hine said. “There was a luncheon for JFK in the Senators’ lunch room. I sat 10 rows behind the president during the game. It was pretty special when you’re the lieutenant. I also got an annual pass for all grounds in Major League Baseball from George, the same as the ones they give the Washington manager.’’

When he was let go by the Senators, Selkirk returned to the Yankees as a scout for another 15 years, “sizing up prospects,’’ as Hine put it. At the same time, Selkirk decided to move to Pompano Beach, Fla. from Rochester with his wife permanently and played golf. He was quite familiar with Pompano Beach because the Senators held spring training there for many years.

Selkirk was an astute golfer and Hine cracked that his score was the same as the age when he died: 79.

“George tried to teach me how to play golf but I said no,’’ Hine said.

During his reign as Senators GM, esteemed Washington Post beat writer Bob Addie wrote a favourable piece,.

“It was a kudo for George,’’ Hine said of Addie’s “biography’’ of Selkirk. “George was thrown out of a job and Addie said, ‘Here’s a round of applause’ and what George tried to do (with the Senators).’’

Addie’s last sentence in his column went like this: “How about a big hand for George Selkirk?’’ Hine said Selkirk didn’t have much use for Short, the way he was treated.

Player salaries back in Selkirk’s day were small and he earned at the most $18,000 a season so in order to save up money for later in his life with Norma, he heeded the advice of Senators co-owner and team president James M. Johnston, an investment banker, when he was the team’s GM.

“Mr. Johnston -- he was a stockbroker -- got a hold of George,’’ Hine was saying. “He said, ‘George, you’ve got to be saving money for your retirement. You don’t have a formal plan.’ It was really Johnston telling George what to buy in stocks.

“That was Johnston’s business. George bought a rest-home stock and other stocks. If it weren’t for Mr. Johnston, George probably would have died penniless. He listened to Mr. Johnson. It’s a good thing he had done that. He put money into stocks that got money he did have when he died.

“Mr. Johnston encouraged him not to spend money on cars and things like that,’’ Hine said. “I think George lived for 10 or 15 more years (financially) because of Mr. Johnston’s advice. Probably Mr. Johnston saved his retirement so that he could be rational.

“George would not have saved as much as he did if Mr. Johnston hadn't suggested to him that he invest it. He paid cash for the Florida condo that he bought. George got the idea that he would have to have money for him and Norma to survive. She required medical attention in the condo.

“George gave his money away like crazy to people in the condo. He made custom sized furniture for people in the condo. That was the nature of the guy. I loved him.

“They (condo friends) imagined he had a lot of money but he didn't have a lot of money. George was a guy that picked up the cheque (tab) at parties. He did that a lot. He was a profligate spender. He spent it wildly.

“When I got the stock portfolio when George died, he had about $375,000 in stocks.’’

Pretty darn-good money and his estate was worth close to $500,000, thanks in part to Johnston. Hine said Selkirk bequeathed that tidy sum of almost half a million dollars to him.

When Bud died, he left his estate of $200,000 to Hine’s two daughters, Conni and Barbara, who received $100,000 each. The daughters, in turn, bought houses with their share of the loot. Bud had saved up some money from his gunsmith operations along with Kodak money he saved.

George’s estate would have been far-far superior had thieves not barged into his Fort Lauderdale condo in the 1960s and stole his five World Series rings and other memorabilia during the time when he and Norma were snowbirds going back and forth from Rochester. The robbers and memorabilia were never found.

“A lot of the baseball stuff disappeared,’’ Hine said. “One time, George and Norma and I went to the Haileah Park Race Track in Florida and when we came home, the World Series rings were gone. Somebody busted into the condo. They would cry.’’

When Selkirk asked Hine to be the administrative manager for him and his wife in 1985, when they were looking at the end of their lives, he brought along his new wife, a fine lady he met after Betty died. Selkirk and his wife Norma recommended to him after Betty died that it was too early not to have a wife.

“The Selkirks had told me to get married,’’ Hine said.

Not long before he died Jan. 19, 1987 and after he had been released temporarily from hospital by a cancer specialist, Selkirk decided to head to a racetrack in Fort Lauderdale to check out the horses. It was announced over the public-address system that Selkirk was in attendance and curious people came down to see him.

“There was a big fuss over George being in the clubhouse,’’ Hine said. “He had gotten a table at the finish line. Whitey Ford was in the bar and heard the announcement that George was there. In earlier vogue (1949), Whitey had eyes for Betty. Whitey came down to the table and kept looking at my new wife.’’

Puzzled, Ford said to himself, “That ain’t Betty.’’ Ford asked Selkirk where Betty was and Selkirk had to tell Ford – not in Hine’s presence – that his daughter had died a few years earlier in 1982.

Selkirk died Jan. 19, 1987 at AMI North Ridge Medical Centre in Fort Lauderale after suffering from cancer for many years. Hine said Selkirk’s wife handled the funeral arrangements and that she didn’t advise of him of any funeral services or any funeral-home death notice.

“George did enough running to the emergency room,’’ Hine said.

Hine softly told the story of what George and his brother Donald would do early each morning shortly after they got out of bed, a pattern that ran for decades.

“He and Bud used to start the morning with a glass of whiskey. They’d tipple one at breakfast,’’ Hine said. “He and Bud used booze quite freely. Where does cancer come from? I guess from drinking too much.’’

Hine would get more elaborate: “scotches and waters. Distilled spirits.’’ Selkirk preferred scotch mostly because he was of Scottish heritage. Norma died the following September. She, too, was a heavy drinker and smoker. Hine looked after her funeral arrangements, conducting the service with a pastor in a community room of the the condo where she lived.

The reference to Scotland prompted Hine to volunteer a story out of the blue about Selkirk believing that a distance relative was the Selkirk character mentioned in Daniel Defoe’s mega-hit novel Robinson Crusoe from 1719.

“There’s a true report of George Alexander Selkirk in the colonial times when whaling ships were in existence and he was a seaman,’’ Hine was saying. “He got marooned on an island. George maintained he was a member of that family. He could have been. The Defoe story sounds like it was lifted. Defoe probably had excess to the historical Selkirk. The Selkirks came from Hadrian’s Wall in Wales and were along the coast.’’

Not long before he died, Selkirk had been convinced by Hine that he and Norma should be buried, not in Florida, but in the mountains of Harrisonville, Pa. where Hine lives and where Betty was buried in Siloam United Methodist Church Cemetery.

“I used to fly monthly to Fort Lauderdale or Tampa and take a rental car to the other coast for those bills at the end of their lives,’’ Hine said. “After George and Norma talked about it, he was so taken with the pictures of this very rustic church cemetery that they decided they wanted to be buried next to Betty.

“They saw some photographs. I gave them a panoramic view of the area around Betty’s grave. The population here is 43, yes, 43. There’s a trout stream across the road. I was the administrator for all three: Betty, George and Norma. I put up all the headstones, vertical stones, and the dates of their births and their deaths and what they did. I did it with my money from George’s estate.

“I put on the stone that George played for the Yankees. People ought to know that. That was my doing, my thing, because these people in the country wouldn’t know George from the deal that grazes on our ground. They wouldn't pay attention. They would say, ‘Who are these people?’ I put on Norma’s (side of the stone) that she was a registered nurse. She was an in-charge nurse on a ship.

“When I buried his ashes, I got chewed out by Lefty Gomez and Gil Hodges that I didn’t invite him. It was just family.’’ ***

George Selkirk (left) with Phil Marchildon at their induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in Toronto in 1983. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

Selkirk was present at his Canadian hall induction Aug. 3, 1983 in the Queen Elizabeth Building dining room on the second level of the CNE grounds in Toronto. It so happened to be the hall’s first induction event.

“George actually sat at our table so we had the evening to talk,’’ recalled baseball historian Clay Marston. “He was wearing a Yankees World Series ring. He was most grateful to be so fondly remembered by many of those near his age who attended. He was impressed by the whole idea of being one of the first to be named to the hall of fame.’’

With Hine the only surviving relative of Selkirk – by marriage – he’s excited about the prospects of an event to honour Huntsville’s forgotten baseball legend.

“I would love to be at any ceremony in Huntsville. I would love very much to be there,’’ Hine said. “I’m old enough to recognize the significance of those things.’’

Danny Gallagher’s new book about the Montreal Expos is called Never Forgotten.