An amateur baseball legacy

From broken windows to the sandlots while sending people to the majors

By Scott Langdon

Canadian baseball Network

There is a 10-foot extension atop a chain link fence that protects a house on a hill overlooking a ball field in Etobicoke in west end Toronto. It was known by neighbourhood kids in the 1960s as “the fence that Smyth built.”

Almost 60 years later, the post-World War II bungalow on the hill has been replaced by a modern “monster” home, but that extended, weather-beaten fence on the edge of Lambton-Kingsway Park still stands. It represents a beginning of the amateur ball legacy of Etobicoke’s own Bob Smyth.

Smyth, in his teens, would corral younger kids to throw him batting practice during lazy, summer days on the dry and dusty field below the house. The windows were his target.

After picking up a few baseballs from his living room carpet, the angry homeowner demanded the then - City of Etobicoke parks department erect the extension.

Smyth would chortle about his power. His “shots” were probably no more than 250 feet (some would jokingly tell him that was the extent of his reach at even an older age) but they seemed mammoth at the time.

Mischief aside, that ball field, those hot, summer days and pick-up games until dinner time helped Smyth form a love of the sport. Years later as a coach he would guide a handful of local players, including the Cincinnati Reds’ Joey Votto, to pro ball, while others played college ball in the U.S. Many among the almost 3,000 players who played for his Etobicoke Indians and Rangers midget, juvenile, junior and senior teams at Connorvale Park in south Etobicoke over ensuing years would enter careers ranging from business to teaching and even heart surgery.

Smyth himself has a soft heart, especially for his players and coaches, although some might argue that hiding it at times was one of his honed skills, especially a few umpires, some parents and assorted amateur baseball administrators.

“Tenacious, stubborn, unrelenting are only positive qualities if they lead to something that is for the benefit of others,” said Naeem Siddiq, an executive with the Ontario Principals’ Council who played and coached for Smyth for 12 years. “These qualities allowed Bob to go to city hall and demand they build the dream that became Connorvale. That park was home to so many people. Players learned to play baseball, coaches learned to coach, and fans were happy to be at a field that made you think you were in Iowa.

“Bob coached every kid as an individual,” Siddiq said, “he taught the coaches like me which details mattered most, all while he rode the tractor keeping Connorvale in pristine condition. There are people who look at empty spaces and say what others should do. They wonder why others don’t get things done. Bob was different. Somehow, he got it done.”

John Fulton knows how Smyth got things done. Retired from a management career in the City of Etobicoke Parks and Recreation Department, Fulton, 74, said, “Bob was really interested in upper level baseball for kids in Etobicoke in the early 1980s.”

“The idea was to do something together for a better level of ball. Connorvale became a City of Etobicoke and baseball community partnership. We owned and built it and turned it over to Bob to run and maintain in a manner the city could not do. He maintained that diamond beautifully.

“Parks Commissioner Tom Riley was big on community partnerships.” Fulton added. “Bob, as I recall, was not a big fan of bureaucracy so it worked out well. Connorvale Park as we know it would not have happened without Bob Smyth. He was an excellent guy for Etobicoke. He moved us forward. He is an Etobicoke baseball pioneer, in my view.”

Smyth, 74 and now living in Ladysmith, recalls how Connorvale, ranked as one of the top amateur fields in Canada when he maintained it, came into being.

“Our senior team was playing in the Niagara league where they have beautiful ballparks. The team was playing at a park that was too small. I told Tom Riley we needed something like Niagara. He showed me designs the City had in place for a ballpark on the site in south Etobicoke. We agreed I would put our team there if the City built it.

“I visited the site when it was being laid out. Stakes were in place. The layout was too small. I moved the stakes back,” he said with a chuckle. “Not a lot of people know that.”

While owned and constructed by Etobicoke, some people claim that Connorvale is “the park that Smyth built.” Given his involvement with the Etobicoke Indians and Rangers for more than two decades it would be understandable that people think Smyth started the program. Not so.

Two senior players, Rick Osborne and John Cottrell, started the Indians in the late 1970s so graduating players from a junior team they coached could continue to play. They named the team the Indians after the Jr. B hockey team that played at Central Arena in Etobicoke featuring goaltender Ken Dryden, a top amateur ballplayer himself.

“Rick and I played for the new Indians senior team in that first season. We asked Bob to coach during the first off season,” Cottrell explained. “Later, he coached the juvenile team at Queensway Park and eventually took over the Indians’ program when playing out of Connorvale.”

* * *

Skill development: A high-quality playing surface was fundamental to what Fulton refers to as “upper level baseball” for Etobicoke players. So was skill development, an ability Smyth learned from Nick Rico, another Etobicoke resident one of the few Toronto natives to play pro ball in the early 1950s.

Rico signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1949 starting out at class-D Bradford and class-D Lexington in the Phils system. He moved to the Cincinnati Reds organization, making stops at class-D Lawton, class-C Magic Valley and class-C Ogden, plus class-D Hamilton in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. He also played at class-A Bristol, class-D Gastonia and class-D Mooresville.

Rico, who died in 2015, grew up playing on City of Toronto sandlots under the tutelage of Carmen Bush, who most baseball people call “the Godfather of Baseball in Toronto.” He was secretary/treasurer and registrar of the Toronto Baseball Association for more than a half century. Bush, a long-time Etobicoke resident, passed in 2001. He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

Bush introduced Rico to Smyth when the latter was in his early teens. His baseball education under Rico accelerated when Smyth coached his first team, the Kingsway Cardinals midgets, at the age of 19 while still playing for junior powerhouse Primo Macaroni in the Western City League at Christie Pits in downtown Toronto.

It was Rico who slapped the nickname Nifty Ned on Smyth. Today, he is known as simply Nifty to many baseball people.

“I was still being guided by Carmen when I started coaching,” Smyth recalled during a recent phone interview. “Nick began teaching me fundamentals and how to coach them. Nick was the best baseball person I ever saw. He taught me pretty much everything I know about the game.”

Smyth began passing along the Rico knowledge to coaches such as Siddiq and others as well as many Indians and Rangers players over the years. Rico, too, became a regular at Connorvale Park following his retirement.

At the time of Rico’s death, former Indians infielder Ken Forshee told for the Toronto Sun, “In my first year at Connorvale playing midget, we had a workout on an extremely hot Saturday afternoon. I figured in this heat I would take a few groundballs with Nick and then get to go hit. Was I ever wrong!

“For the next two hours, Nick hit me ground ball after ground ball, finding something wrong with each one I took. Nick must have been in his early to mid-60s at the time. I thought to myself ‘How long can this possibly go on?’ After what seemed like the millionth ground ball that day, I physically could not take another one and lied down in centre field.

“I could hear Nick telling me to come back for more and he and Bob laughing that Nick had outlasted me.”

Steve Breitner, another Etobicoke native who was signed by the Detroit Tigers, guided two of the Connorvale-based seniors to national championship play. Smyth’s Indians juniors, featuring players from all five leagues in the Etobicoke Baseball Association at the time, lost in the final of the 1986 national championships. There were league and tournament wins as well.

A total of 10 Etobicoke players, including the Cincinnati Reds’ Votto, the National League MVP in 2010, went on to play pro ball. The others are C George Kottaras (who caught for the Milwaukee Brewers, Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Royals, Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays); RHP Sean Hill (Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, San Diego Padres, Blue Jays); C Greg O’Halloran (Florida Marlins}; as well as minor leaguers: INF Warren Sawkiw (Detroit Tigers and the Jays); C John Suomi (Oakland A’s); C Denny Berni (Red Sox); OF Alex Borgo (Philadelphia Phillies); C Jeff Cullen (California Angels) and RHP Mike O’Halloran (Blue Jays), brother of Greg.

Three more – Cec Kozloski, Steve Breitner and Brad Evaschuck – played for the Etobicoke Indians senior team over the years and many players played in U.S. college programs all because skill development mattered at Connorvale.

“What Bob did for players such as Votto and Sean Hill shows how he recognized talent and work ethic,” said Howie Birnie, life member, current secretary-treasurer and co-registrar of the TBA. Birnie is also the long-time president of the Leaside Association and is enshrined in the Ontario Baseball Hall of Fame.

* * *

Influences: “My Dad, Stan, coached me as a child and he used to remind me that If I was going to coach kids, it was about the kids, not me,” Smyth said.

That was a philosophy reinforced by Bush’s influence on Smyth over the years.

“Carmen over the years taught me the basics of what I tried to implement. I am sure I fell short at times. Nobody did it like Carmen,” Smyth was recalling over the telephone when a sudden silence was followed by the hum of a dead phone line.

“Sorry, I can get emotional when I think about Carmen and Nick,” he said when the conversation resumed. “Carmen taught me three things. Always think of the other guy. Winning is not worth it if you cheat. Have the courage of your convictions and don’t get involved in something unless you have the courage to defend them.”

Smyth began to expand the number of teams in different age groups at Connorvale Park to complement the Etobicoke Baseball Association’s efforts in the mid 1980s. He had lots of help from people such as John Ferracutti. head of the famous Ferracutti clan, Greg Hosko, Bobby Hunter, Naeem Siddiq, Steve Breitner, Mike Roche, George Begley and Wayne Stannah, among others.

“Kids in their teens and early 20s need a place to go to occupy their time. I felt like we were giving kids a chance to continue playing and I could pass on what I was learning from Nick,” he explained. “Our players had to be from Etobicoke … kids who wanted to work hard, learn the game and play. I would tell them not to cheat themselves if they were not working hard. Winning mattered to the players more than it did me. It was not paramount in my mind. The idea was to get as many kids playing as possible,” he said.

Bob Hunter, who played and coached with Smyth for many years in west end Toronto recalls “there were times when a kid couldn’t afford the registration fee to play.”

“Or maybe he needed a new glove or pair of shoes and didn’t have the money,” said Hunter. “Bobby would get the money somehow so the kid could play or get the new equipment he needed. That was not unusual.”

Eventually Smyth would organize games for his teams in Kentucky, Illinois and Pennsylvania during the summer. One trip to Kentucky resulted in an indoor, year-round practice facility in Etobicoke in the early 2000s.

“One of the coaches of a team we played, a former pro player, showed me their indoor training facility and told me it really helped the players improve,” Smyth recalled. “The City of Etobicoke offered me rental space in a warehouse not far from Connorvale and I equipped it. We had an indoor facility using the same government/community model that gave us Connorvale.”

That facility today is operated by Pro Teach, a company run by Denny Berni, the former pro player who caught for Smyth at Connorvale. Pro Teach has operated an academy there for five years in conjunction with schools in the Toronto District School Board.

Two of the best words to describe Smyth’s amateur legacy are consistency and opportunity – consistency from Bush to Rico to Smyth, passed along to numerous coaches and a few thousand players over more than a half century of Etobicoke baseball, and opportunity to work hard, to win and to lose, to be a good teammate, to line the base paths and rake the red clay infield and, yes, to play baseball.

And he did it all with a sometimes crusty exterior most of his players would chuckle at. They knew from the many hours he spent not just coaching but grooming the field, administering schedules and other matters and swapping stories, some of them even true, that it poorly masked a soft spot for them and for baseball.

“I always really liked Bob,” said Michael Langdon, who played and coached for Smyth for a decade. “There probably hasn’t been a player who ever played for him who wasn’t furious with him about something at some point. But some of my best memories and stories in life involve Bob. Same for my friends.”

* * *

Etobicoke’s Lambton-Kingsway Park: Smyth’s success at developing players and his growing network of baseball relationships resulted in him being a part-time scout for the Seattle Mariners when former Blue Jays’ executive, Pat Gillick, was the American League team’s general manager. He later helped Walt Burrows of the Major League Scouting Bureau in British Columbia.

“I was never a full-time scout,” Smyth said. “But it was another good baseball experience.”

Baseball experiences Smyth has aplenty.

He played for the Dodgers as a nine-year-old at Lambton-Kingsway Park and when he graduated to peewee and bantam in the Kingsway still umpiring in the younger league for five years. His midget team was the Runnymede Lions and then it was on to five years with Primo Macaroni in the Western City League. Smyth also played senior ball for Orillia Majors in the York Simcoe League and the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Intercounty League.

He coached his first team at the age of 19 with friend Norm Cadorin while still playing and was involved in the sport in Etobicoke until he moved to western Canada at the age of 60. Cadorin would spend many years umpiring in Brampton and the Central Ontario Baseball Association.

“Baseball is a peaceful pastime,” Smyth said, “being with younger people keeps you young. It was fun watching them improve. There is nothing better than being around young people.”

This probably explains why Lambton-Kingsway Park, the old shale pit, in west end Toronto is Smyth’s all-time, favorite place to play ball.

“We grew up as kids playing baseball in that park all spring and summer and hockey in the winter. Lambton-Kingsway Park is sacred ground to me. That’s my park.”

If anyone forgets the kids in that park had fun in many ways for many years, there is a reminder … an old, extended weather-beaten chain link fence still protecting a house on the hill overlooking the ball field for almost 60 years.

* * *

Writer Scott Langdon’s left arm fell off at the age of 11 or 12 in the early 1960s from incessantly throwing batting practice meatballs so Bob Smyth could accidentally run into one or two and crash them through the windows of a post-World War 11 bungalow overlooking the ball field at Lambton-Kingsway Park. He later played for the first team Smyth coached.