Edmonton's Giant Baseball bat;Which was Erected and Stands in the Wrong Location to begin with,is no Longer the Largest in Canada

A business in Saskatoon, Sask. has built a BAT that now TRUMPS the one located in Edmonton.

Saskatchewan now holds the record for largest BAT.

Edmonton’s giant baseball bat, standing 14.9 metres tall on the corner of 97th Street and 118th Avenue, is no longer the largest bat in Canada.

The new bat, which will be unveiled outside the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame in Battleford, weighs one tonne and is 15.2 metres long.

 However this is not a bad thing for Edmonton. The corner of 97^th street and Alberta (theAvenue-118^th Avenue);one and a half block from the house in which I was raised and which I passed every day on the way to and from school, never was known for baseball. Hockey; yes Leonard Lundy (player in the national hockey league) was born and raised in a house on the corner of Alberta Avenue and 95A Street. His mother also owned two apartment houses in the area; one on 95A Street, next to the family home, and one on the south side of the Avenue, half way between 95^th and 95A Streets. The  Davies family, same that invented and manufactured the mini-race cars, opened , made a sucess of, the origin Speed Way Park; lived 1/2 block north on the east side of 97th Street. Many players from the old Edmonton "Flyers" hockey teams lived in the Alberta Avenue, Hag (HA Grey School), Fairview, Spruce Avenue School conjoined communities.

Mark Messier is of course, from St. Albert; one of Alberta's most beautiful communities and is known as The Botanical Arts City.

“It’s a big fun project,” Markusa said. “We really enjoy doing it. A lot of our customers and people that come in are like, ‘what are you doing? Building a bat? That’s weird, but that’s cool.”

Corner 97^th Street, Alberta Avenue= Mile 0 (zero) Gate Way to the True North/Roy Borealis Land. 

[Mercy Flight of 1929, Wop” May a pilot (who was visiting family in Calgary) Home DECEMBER 28, 2015 ADMIN: Bert Logan, a Hudson’s Bay employee, and his wife were well respected in the communities of Little Red River and Fort Vermilion. They had been transferred from Fort Simpson, North West Territories to Little Red River, Alberta with the Hudson’s Bay Company. After returning from a holiday in Quebec, Mr. Logan was unpacking a trunk of clothing to distribute to the settlement when he became very ill. Mrs. Logan was a nursing sister of the Gray Nuns, and recognized the illness as diphtheria.

She asked William Grey and his son Bobby to go up river to Fort Vermilion for Dr. Harold Hamman. The father and son immediately set off on the river highway, but first had to test the ice, as it was the first trip they had made on the river that winter. The doctor travelled by dog team back to Little Red River with Mr. Grey, and upon seeing Bert Logan, confirmed that he had diphtheria. Little could be done for Mr. Logan, as he had now been sick for seven days, and was experiencing extreme difficulty breathing; however, Dr. Hamman knew the urgency of getting serum for inoculating the other people at the post. Dr. Hamman requested that William and Bobby Gray return to Fort Vermilion to request that Gus Clark have a message taken to the telegraph office in Peace River where a message could be sent to the Edmonton Department of’ Health. Gus selected Joe (Dollar) LaFleur and Joe’s son-in-law William Lambert to make the trip, as they were very experienced river men.

LaFleur and Lambert left Fort Vermilion on December 18 for Peace River with Lambert’s dog team and sleigh. They also loaded Joe’s dog team and toboggan with staple provisions such as Bannock, potatoes, Bacon, tea, sugar, coffee, and Beef. They brought wild duck feather robes and a few bear hides to put under themselves on the ground at night. To keep warm, a long fur parka topped their heavy clothes. Up-river from Fort Vermilion, the river was glare ice, and to the dismay of the two men, Joe LaFleur fell through the ice. They had to return to Fort Vermilion, and weren’t able to leave for Peace River until three days later. The trip was very cold and slow as temperatures dipped to -50 degrees Celcius. It took the two men four days to get to the settlement of Carcajou on the river, and another four days to travel by land to Peace River. The trip was about 280 miles, and they arrived in Peace River on New Years Day. The two men delivered their message, and were immediately placed in the hospital in Peace River to recover from the flu.

Meanwhile, the Greys rested for a few days at Fort Vermilion, and gathered some supplies and mail for the their trip back home to Little Red River on December 24, 1928. They spent the first night at Clement Paul’s sawmill, and to their horror the next morning a Chinook had blown up, melting all the snow on the river, turning it into a gigantic sheet of ice. Their horses were not shod and could not manage at all. William Grey went back to Fort Vermilion to get some horse-shoes, and on the evening of Christmas Dey the horses were shod at Clements. Early in the morning of the 26th, William and Bobby Grey once again headed for home. On the trail, they met Francis Bourassa and his team struggling on the ice; his horses were not shod either. With Mr. Bourassa were Dr. Hamman, Mrs. Logan, and her now deceased husband Bert Logan who had passed away on December 22, 1928.

A Farewell of Hope.

Bourassa had tied gunny sacks to the feet of his horses, but it was still a poor substitute to shoes for the horses. They were having extreme difficulty standing on the glare ice. Dr. Hamman, Mrs. Logan and the body were transferred to the Gray’s sleigh, and they headed back to Fort Vermilion with the load. Someone traveling by dog team ahead of the Grays alerted Fort Vermilion of the arrival of the party, and approximately ten miles from Fort Vermilion they were met by the R.C.M.P. and told not to enter the village with the body. Bobby Gray stated, “This was the only time I ever saw Dr. Hamman lose his cool.” They then proceeded to the Anglican Cemetery, just east of the settlement, where they left the body.

Mayor Bury, Dr. Bow, Vic Horner, and Wop May transfer the antitoxin serum to the airplane.

When Dr. Malcolm Bow, Deputy Minister of Health, received the telegraph he immediately contacted “Wop” May a pilot (who was visiting family in Calgary). Dr. Bow said, “Wop replied. We’ll go tomorrow”. Wop called Vic Homer in Edmonton and asked him to get their aircraft ready. The aeroplane was an Avro “Avian” biplane, on wheels – hardly appropriate for flying into Northern Alberta in mid-winter.

On the morning of January 2, 1929 they were ready to go. It was -20°F (-28°C) with a wind, low ceiling and ice fog. The aircraft was moved into position, the pilots dressed in heavy coats, pants and felt boots, received the serum from Dr. Bow and Mayor Bury, boarded the plane and at 12:45 pm headed north.

Edmonton Airport, they followed the Edmonton, Dunvegan & British Columbia Railway tracks North to Smith, then along the South shore of Lesser Slave Lake to the village of McLennan – flying at less than 500 feet, due to the snow and headwinds. Along the way they had to stop somewhere as the package of serum in the baggage compartment (wrapped with a charcoal heater in a blanket) caught fire – they had to land the aircraft, throw away the blanket & charcoal heater and put the serum in their pockets, armpits and groin area to keep it warm. At 3:55 pm they landed on Kimiwan Lake at McLennan for the night as it was getting dark. The flight time was just over 3 hours – a distance of 267 miles. They stayed the night.

At Peace River

At 9:40 am on the morning of January 3, 1929 they departed McLennan and following the railway line arrived in Peace River just after 10:30 am – a distance of 50 miles. They landed on the ice of the Peace River and taxied to the area along the river where the paddlewheel steamers were docked. They refuelled the aircraft here.

At 11:45 am they left they flew under the railway bridge before heading north on the last leg of the flight to Fort Vermilion arriving about 3:00 pm – a flight of 250 miles. The weather cleared as they left Peace River. The citizens of Fort Vermilion had cleared a landing place on the Peace River and plane was met by the R.C.M.P. – about 30 minutes later Dr. Harold Hamman arrived from Little Red River and photos were taken. A dance happened to be scheduled for that evening, so as everyone entered the dance hall, they were required by the R.C.M.P. to receive an injection of the serum.]

Saskatoon Baseball Bat

Progressive Yard Works are building a 50-foot, 2,500-pound baseball bat for Sask. Baseball Hall of Fame. (Peter Mills/CBC)

The Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame paid around $40,000 for the bat, while Edmonton’s cost $80,000.

The Big Bat(The statue has been a controversial one in Edmonton.) was put up along 118th Avenue in the late 1990s in an attempt to spruce up the street, which has long tried to overcome its reputation as an area plagued by crime, drugs and prostitution.

But in 2010, people who lived in the area wanted the improvements along the so-called Avenue of Champions removed, as it conflicted with their attempts to rebrand the area as a centre for artists.

Some Edmontonians  some long time area residents such as myself, really truly, honest, feel very indifferent about the need for Edmonton to have ever swung a “Big Bat” OTHER THAN AT John Ducey Park (John Ducey Park was a 6,500 seat baseball stadium in the North Saskatchewan River Valley, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Originally built in 1935, it was torn down after sixty years of use in 1995); and Saskatchewan’s new one.~~Al(Alex-Alexander) D.Girvan.