This past spring, I took on a whirlwind university course that crammed four months of work into just two. Between long hours of reading, writing, and juggling everyday life, I often felt like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, glued to my computer in a dark room, clinging to my assignments as if they were “precious.” Somehow, amid the chaos, something wonderful happened: I made an incredible connection with Maureen Ulrich.
She is part of the famous Mahaffy family, who played on the Sceptre teams in the 1940s and 50s, her father, Earl, and cousin George. Maureen is a retired school teacher turned well-known Saskatchewan author who has also written two plays about baseball – Diamond Girls and Lords of Sceptre.
Diamond Girls is the story of three Saskatchewan women’s experiences playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League between 1943 and 1954 -Arleene Noga, Mary Baker, and Daisy Junor. Maureen just returned from British Columbia, where the Deep Cove Stage Society is featuring the play. It’s running for a few more days if you are in the area and want to check it out:
Lords of Sceptre follows four years of the Sceptre baseball team, focusing on stories shared by her cousin George. It weaves their struggles to beat their Delisle rivals, with them becoming the team to beat when they won the Western Canadian Championship against the Indian Head Rockets. This play toured in Saskatchewan in 2018 to receptive crowds across the province.
Maureen and I shared our love of the 1940s and 1950s baseball for over an hour on the phone last month. Then we had the opportunity to meet each other at the screening of Golden Opportunities, the CBC documentary about the Indian Head Rockets. It was nominated for a Gold Sheaf Award at the Yorkton Film Festival. You can watch it on YouTube here:
Maureen graciously lent me some of her most precious family photos and documents to aid my research. In this beautiful bunch was a large team photo of Sceptre from 1946 or 47 and two negatives.
The negatives looked like they were team photos, but which teams and which years? I knew I had to solve the mystery, so I asked Maureen if I could have the negatives scanned to see if we could figure out their identity. She heartily said yes, and off they went. Along with the negatives, I also had the large photo scanned to preserve it.
After almost a month, the results came in, and they were photos of the Sceptre teams in 1950 and 1951. Jay-Dell Mah has copies of these from the Sandhills Museum on his website attheplate.com:
https://attheplate.com/wcbl/1951_1g2.html
https://attheplate.com/wcbl/1950_1g5.html
Most striking is the image of Chet Brewer, who played for a brief stint on Sceptre before Indian Head wooed him over for the reported sum of $800 to play for The Rockets in 1950. Maureen’s cousin George said there were no lingering feelings about the transaction: “It was just business.”
What ended up being the most interesting tidbit was the scanned photo of the 46/47 team. With Maureen’s blessing, I shared the image with Jay-Dell and came back with an exciting finding.
On his website, there is a photo of the Sceptre team from 1946. In this team photo, the players are wearing their jackets, and the one of Maureen’s is the same but with one difference, as Jay-Dell points out:
“Same players, in the same positions, with the same tree behind them. Almost as if they just took off their caps and jackets and re-took the photo. Although, some look a little older in the one on my page than this new one. Fascinating.”
In an upcoming blog, my conversation with Maureen continues about her experience being involved with the Bonnie Baker Heritage Minute, which was recently filmed in Ogema:
Thanks for reading!
(Photos used with permission by Maureen Ulrich and Jay-Dell Mah)
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