Wiseton player-coach headed to Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame

By Ian MacKay

WISETON – A player and coach from Wiseton is to be inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame in August.

Barry Martin played centre field and occasionally pitched for the Wiseton 49ers, starting when he was about 17 and in Grade 12. The induction banquet is set for Battleford on Aug. 15.

"In baseball, like any other thing, it's a team game – it's not an individual award," Martin said.

Martin served as a player-coach for many of his approximately 21 years in senior baseball, then played in the twilite and master's divisions. He has coached the Elrose Aces senior baseball team since 2017, starting by helping when they went to a provincial tournament in Langenburg.

"I played ball 'til I was 55 or so," Martin said, adding he also coached his son's teams while they were growing up.

He suggested a game at first base for the Aces about five years ago might have helped clinch his selection. His nominator mentioned he had played for Elrose in a game at Outlook when only eight players showed up. It happened when his hips were bothering him. He has since had both replaced a year apart.

"I didn't know what was wrong with my hips," he said. "I had terrible mobility," so it was "a little embarrassing" because they prevented him from turning to go backwards.

"I ended up getting a walk and I grounded out in two at-bats in the game," he said. "The umpire actually was good enough" to allow someone else to run for him after he told the Outlook team that he could not run.

Martin played on teams that won four provincial twilite (35 and older) championships and two in the masters division for players 40 and older. He went to the Canadian twilite championships in 2007 and four Western Canadian twilite championships, playing with Kindersley in two of those years.

Manager Earl Berard "needed some players" and added Martin and three others from the Wiseton area to join the team in 2008 and maybe 2009, he said.

He started playing around the age of eight, joined the senior Wiseton 49ers when he was about 17 and, about five years later, became their player-coach. He remained in that position for about 21 years, until 1999.

"I was left-handed, so I was restricted" in terms of positions on the field, he said. "I always said the only reason I got to pitch was because I was the coach," Martin said, laughing.

He also played with the Dinsmore KGs twice at provincials in the early 1990s.

"We were provincial runners-up in senior baseball those two years," he said.

"In twilite baseball, we won 35 and over in 1994 and 1996 and the masters division (40 and over) in '96 and '99," he said. The 49ers also won the Coteau Hills league championship in 1997, he recalled.

Wiseton players made up the majority of the twilite squads, with a couple of others from Elrose and Macrorie.

"It was basically a combination . . . but they called them the Dinsmore teams," he said.

He began coaching the Aces when his son Daniel, who was playing for them, "came home one night and said, 'We need a coach,'" he said. "So they talked me into coaching," Martin said, noting he had helped coach them at provincials a year earlier.