Two coaches made lasting impressions

My special baseball legion story will be a memory check for my 88-year-old brain.

In 1937-38 I played for the Cannon Park Legion team with all city parks sponsored teams. We played against Audubon, Underhill, Libby, Hillyard, Mission, and others. Our coaches were standout football players from Gonzaga. Yes, I said football players. (I’m sorry they dropped football as they were such good players.)

Our first coach was Ray (Davis or Murphy?). He was a 6-foot-4, 250-pound tight end and a really good coach and friend. We won most of our games. Our second-year coach was a lineman who was 6-2 and about 250 pounds. His name was Mike Todoravich and he stood like the Rock of Gibraltar. We won all of our games that year and won the city championship.

We decided to celebrate by wrestling Mike to the ground to de-pants him. Surely 6 or 8 of us 120-pounders could overpower him and accomplish our goal.

We grabbed his arms, legs, shoulders, neck, and body but “the rock” never left his feet. He threw us off like flies and bounced us around like a football, but never hurt us. It only took us half an hour to give up our mission. What fun we had.

This began my career in baseball. I played two years at North Central High School, one year for Spokane Jr. College, one year with Hecla Miners, and several years in semi-pros.