YORKTON - Al Greshuk can himself a Hall of Famer.
Greshuk was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame over the weekend in Battleford.
"It's an honour for me because that's the game I really loved."
"I started playing when I was about ten years old," he said. "My brother was a phys-ed teacher. He showed me how to catch the ball. I would go to town, and I would stop at the train station and the train operator, and he'd like to play catch and showed me how to use a catcher's mitt. What happened is he (train operator) got me a team."
After that, Greshuk's baseball career started at age 12. He started catching for the Hubbard Hurricanes. Three years at 15, he became a pitcher and started pitching in senior baseball.
His first show of talent came at Hubbard Sports Day. There he pitched 19 innings striking out 34.
In 1963, at 20 years of age, Greshuk moved to Prince Albert, where he worked at a shoe store. He started playing for the Prince Albert Junior Lions. There he would pitch a one-hitter against Saskatoon Junior Acmes to win the Northern Saskatchewan Junior
Playoffs, qualifying for the Provincial playoffs.
Later, he was transferred from his job to Alberta, where Greshuck would add many more highlights to his baseball career.
While playing for the Calgary Cascades of the Alberta Major Baseball League, [AMBL} when he struck out Lyle Moffat, who was a two-sport athlete and later played 276 games in the WHA and 97 games in the NHL, he also struck out Bill Fennessey. The latter had competed for Willie Mays position in the Major Baseball League. He also struck out another great baseball player of the time, Bobby Taylor.
After playing in Alberta for many years, Greshuk said he decided to put his family first.
"The wife and I sat down, and she said that she didn't want me playing baseball anymore," he said. "We got three children, and it's too hard. I agreed with her, my arm is probably at least a third gone already, and I miss calling the card when I was 17.
Greshuk then moved to Yorkton from Calgary in 1975, played with Hudson Bay for over ten years, and continued to play Twilite baseball for 50 years, with Spy Hill, when they played in the 1996 World Twilite Tournament in Phoenix.
In 2000, he was instrumental in organizing a Junior baseball team in Yorkton. As well, he organized the Yorkton Cardinals of the Western Major Baseball League {WMBL}.
Greshuk said that he wanted to help out because he loved baseball and wanted to see it continue.
He would provide uniforms and jackets for the junior team and the WMBL Cardinals for 12 years.
He said that his loved of baseball started because there wasn't much to do on the family farm.
"When I was a kid, I played catch with my dog and a rubber ball and bouncing it against the barn that we had," he said. "That's how it started. I was the youngest in the family, and I'd be in the only one at home, and there wasn't much for entertainment those days, and it's something I'd love/
Greshuk added he is grateful for being able to play baseball and enjoy the game for 40 years, and to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is just another honour and highlight of his time in the sport.
