The
above picture is of a minor league baseball player named Andy Palau.
He is posing for the photo in the Canadian Pacific Recreation Grounds ballpark
in Smiths Falls Ontario on a  Saturday
morning in August 1937. He was one of two catchers on the Smiths
Falls Beavers, a farm team of the New York Yankees and a one-year entry
in the Class C Canadian-American League.
The home dugout, part of the 2200 seat grandstand, and the wooden fence
surrounding the ballpark are clearly visible. The bat rack is lying
on the ground in front of the dugout. Two wooden entrance gates can
be seen in the background. The gazebo shaped structure in the background
is the clubhouse for the local lawn bowling club. The row of trees
in the distance lines Elmsley Street. Several team members are going
about their business as Andy strikes his pose in the on-deck circle for
one of his teammates with a camera. It is a snapshot of of the sport
of professional baseball that disappeared a long time ago - when thousands
of young men all over North America were given a chance to pursue a career
as a professional athlete in hundreds of communities of widely varying
sizes.
The Smiths Falls Beavers were owned by the Canadian Pacific Recreation Association. The club had been formed in April 1919, with "membership... open to C.P.R. employees only, but members will be allowed to bring their friends.... Twelve acres of land have been leased - the McGillvary farm, facing St. Francis General Hospital. There will be recreation grounds and men are already engaged leveling the land. The ground will be laid out to provide a bowling green, lawn tennis courts, also football and baseball grounds. These will be summer sports, and from time to time, short trips over the C.P.R. on holidays and week-ends will be arranged" The covered grandstand was erected in 1934. Much of the wooden material used in the construction of the stands was recycled from railway boxcars.
Andy
Palau, as a young professional baseball player
Baseball
had been popular for many years in Smiths Falls, with teams in the Lanark
League and the Eastern Ontario League in the 1920's. Following the
collapse of another league in the area, a new baseball league was formed
in 1931, covering a wide area in Eastern Ontario. It was named the
St. Lawrence League, with teams from Renfrew, Cardinal, Prescott, Smiths
Falls, Brockville, Perth, Cornwall, Carleton Place as well as Ottawa.
in Smiths Falls, ON in 1937 The Recreation Club sponsored the Smiths Falls entry in the St. Lawrence League under the name "Railroaders". The team won the Eastern Ontario Amateur Baseball Association (E.O.B.A.) Championship in 1931 and again in 1934. The Smiths Falls Railroaders attracted very large crowds for many games. On Wednesday May 24 1933, a holiday crowd of two thousand fans came to the Recreation Grounds to see the opening game of the St. Lawrence League season against the Perth Crescents. In 1937, the Smiths Falls Beavers competed in the second season of the Canadian-American League with the Ogdensburg Colts, the Oswego Netherlands, the Rome Colonels, the Gloversville Glovers, the Brockville Pirates, the Ottawa Braves and the Perth-Cornwall |
Bisons. The manager
of the team was Johnny Haddock. From May to September 1937,
twenty nine players wore the Beavers uniform for part or all of the 106
game schedule. The players included Pete Angelovich, Joe Brostek,
Mattie Christopher, Ernie Downer, Charlie Harig, Dick Henry, Art Horsington,
Pat Hoysradt, George Klivak, Walter
Lanfranconi, Eddie Martin, Joe Mooney, Johnny Orpheus, Andy Palau,
Xavier
Rescigno, and Al Smith.
Chuck
Harig and Andy Palau on the Ferry across the St. Lawrence
River between Prescott, ON & Ogdensburg, NY
With the
introduction of professional baseball in 1937, the Recreation Club
worked to provide the best facilities possible. In the opinion of
Francis Regan of the Rome NY Sentinel, the diamond in Smiths Falls was
"one of the finest baseball parks in minor league baseball ..... There is a grass infield, smooth and fast, and a fine outfield. A short left field fence is the only drawback but at that the distance is 270 feet. Centre is 410 feet and right field 400 feet. There are pennants with the names of each of the eight teams in the league flying at different points from the roof of the grandstand. There is a scoreboard in center field, a board with the names, numbers and positions of visiting players in left field."What happened to Andy Palau? He played professional baseball for two more seasons. In 1938 he roomed with Phil Rizzuto in Norfolk Virginia in the Piedmont League. At the end of the season in 1939 Andy Palau, a graduate of Fordham University in New York City, where he had been the star quarterback on the football team and the captain of the baseball team, agreed to teach Mathematics, Physics and Physical Education and coach football and baseball at St. Cecilia High School inEnglewood, New Jersey. He hired his best friend and former teammate at Fordham to coach the line on the football team. His friend's name was Vince Lombardi. "Handy Andy" as he was known at Fordham has recently contributed to the excellent biography When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss. 
In 1971 Andy Palau was selected as the greatest all time athlete in his home town of Bristol, Connecticut. Five years later he was inducted into Fordham University's Hall of Fame. In 1975 he retired from a career in education that included twenty years as a high school Principal and moved to Florida. He is presently enjoying his retirement in Vero Beach. He is a wonderful man.
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