Thursday, August 31, 2017
I Kept them in Stitches
“I
Kept Them in Stitches”
Ken
Carson with Larry Millson
Ken Carson
keeps pretty busy these days as the president of the Class-A Advanced
Florida State League of Baseball. That position is a long way from
his early days pushing a broom as a rink rat in The Barrie Arena, on
Dunlop Street in Barrie. He was born in 1941, and experienced many of
the adventures that I have known, and perhaps you as well.
He was
around the rink when the Barrie Flyers reigned supreme in Junior
Hockey. But he was also there for the professional wrestling, noting
in the book that Yukon Eric once chased him out of the ring! The rink
was home to roller skating in the summer, and he tightened skates. He
sold programs, and worked his way up the ladder to become the Flyers'
stick boy. During those years, he worked for “Hap” Emms, not
always an easy task.
Carson moved
with the Flyers to Niagara Falls when he was still in high school.
From there, he moved on to train the Rochester Americans, the Toronto
Maple Leafs' AHL farm team. They trained in Peterborough, and Carson
worked with Bob Haggert and Tommy Nayler. He moved on to Pittsburgh
to work for the Penguins in 1967, hired by 'Red” Sullivan.
In 1976, he
took the trainer's job with the Toronto Blue Jays. Spring training
for the first year in 1977 was held in Dunedin. Incidentally, the
minimum salary for a player was $ 19 000, and the total payroll for
the team was $ 750 000.
A couple of
years later, a young lad who was studying athletic training at
Sheridan College, joined the crew. Mike Knuude had played a little
Junior hockey with the Brampton Warriors and the Dixie Beehives
before becoming more interested in the game behind the scenes. He
signed on with the Jays, went to training camp, and was assigned to
Medicine Hat his first year.
The
following year, 1981, he was in the dugout at Exhibition Stadium with
the parent club. He worked with many of the early Jays: Buck
Martinez, Ernie Whitt, Jesse Barfield, George Bell, and Dave Stieb,
to name a few.
There were
many young players arriving from “The Islands”, when baseball was
becoming more international. Knuude remembers that they learned
English quickly. He also remembered that the team collected their
passports at the beginning of the season, kept track of them for
travel purposes, and returned them to the players afterthey
had handed in their uniforms and equipment, for obvious reasons.
Just
before the start of the 1982 hockey season, Knuude was working with
Ken Carson when he got a call from “Doc” Vaughan at Exhibition
Stadium. Vaughan and Coach Larry Mavety wanted to hire Knuude to go
to Belleville as the trainer for the Bulls. Knuude thought it was a
good fit for him personally at the time, and he moved on. Nowadays,
you will find Mike prowling the showroom as a sales guy for Peter
Smith, in North Belleville.
In
1987, Ken Carson took over as Director of Florida operations for the
Jays, eventually becoming the president of the Florida State League.
He also keeps busy with seven children, 15 grandchildren, and six
great grandchildren.
Carson'
book will be on the shelves of the Wellington Library in a week or
so. I promised Mike Knuude a read before I turn it in to the library.
A fine read, by Larry Millson.
James
Hurst
August
21, 2017.
# posted by James Hurst @ 1:57 PM 
