1954 WIL Season On-line

The first half of the soap opera that was the 1954 Western International League season can now be re-lived on the 1954 site (conveniently in the link tree to your right).

The second half is in draft form but I won’t be adding to the site until I can access some additional material and, right now, my source is down for repairs. I don’t know for how long.

Len Tran’s son Mark sent me this yellowed clipping from the Vancouver Sun. For at least one season, and maybe two, Jack DeLong composed a bunch of these rhymes about Capilanos players; if the microfilms at the local library weren’t so chewed up and were readable, I would have posted a bunch of them for ‘52.. The game in question was July 11, 1952 (click on the doggerel to enlarge). Lansdowne, by the way, was a race track of the day; my grandmother used to go there and said it was the best of the three local tracks. The site is now a large mall which bears its name.

1954 was the last year of professional baseball for both the popular Trans.

There are people stopping by this site after doing a web search on a specific player. Within the last week, some searches were done on Bob Moniz, Danny Holden and Virgil Giovannoni, among others. If you’re doing a search, please drop me a note and say hello, especially if you’re a former player or the offspring of one.

The Vancouver contingent of the Northwest SABR Chapter will be meeting on Saturday the 23rd at Capilano Stadium (now Nat Bailey Stadium) from 1-3pm. I’m hoping a few of the former Western International League players will be able to come again.