Who Will Play for Victoria?

SPORTS SLANTS
By SID THOMAS
[Victoria Colonist, Sept. 21, 1945]
Judging by the mad scramble for berths in the Western International Baseball League, there is every indication that plenty of diamond material will be available when the Class “B” professional league resumes next Summer after being idle since 1942.
Most pleasing to many Victorians is the fact that W.T. Straith, M.L.A., and Laurel Harney, this city’s baseball ambassadors, were able to sell the directors of the W.I.B.L. on admitting Victoria to the league.
The success enjoyed by the two Victorians who attended the meeting assures hundreds of Victorians the opportunity of seeing professional baseball right in their own backyard. In an “on the street poll” conducted by this department yesterday, we found a very favourable response to the move, with all of those questioned delighted with the proposal.
To the old-timers, of course, professional baseball in Victoria is not new. They recall very vividly the fixtures here in the old Northwest League, and the fact that Victoria sent a number of fine ball players up to the “big time.” Now, almost a quarter of a century later, with the return of the professional baseball pastime, it will be, to a large extent, a new crowd of fans who will follow the sport here.
Victoria is a good baseball town. That has been proven in the past. And with the professional diamond pastime and the added novelty of a lighted ball park Victorians will eagerly away the arrival of the Summer of 1946 and this city’s entry in the Western International Baseball League.