Just A Gal From Glidden: A new team, an old photo, and a little winter hope

By Kate Winquist

On Friday morning, Saskatchewan wasn’t just cold — we were winning cold. Eight of the top ten coldest places in Canada were right here, including Saskatoon and North Battleford.

Thankfully, I have an indoor job. I could work from home — write this column, edit articles, and scroll aimlessly through Facebook — all while wrapped up in flannel jammies. But honestly? I prefer the office. I get more done with fewer distractions, and I keep telling myself this cold snap can’t last forever.

Maybe that’s why my mind keeps drifting to baseball.

Not the kind you’re watching on TV, but the kind that lives closer to home — summer evenings, lawn chairs, sun still hanging in the sky, and the sound of a ball popping into a glove.

And that’s exactly what’s coming back to Kerrobert.

Kerrobert is getting a brand new senior team this season: the Kerrobert Red Dogs.

By the sounds of it, the community is already rallying behind them in a big way — sponsorship from Red Dog Solutions, upgrades at the fairgrounds, and even a new pitcher’s mound. It’s a brand-new team, but it feels like something familiar too… the kind of news that makes winter feel a little shorter.

It also brought back a flood of memories.

I played for the Glidden Gamblers ladies fastball team back in the day. I was only 15 — the youngest on the roster — playing alongside the likes of Diane Fizell and Nadine Paslawski. Norm Arthur and Richard Dillman coached us, and I can still picture the practices, the laughs, and the tournaments.

One memory still makes me laugh. We were at a tournament in Richmound, and the team decided to “pit-in” at the Richmound Hotel afterward. Now, if you’ve ever been 15 years old standing outside a hotel while everyone else is inside having the time of their lives… you’ll understand my situation. I didn’t exactly pass for bar age. I was stuck outside until my sister and her boyfriend at the time drove down and rescued me.

I always figured my love of ball — and whatever talent I had — came from my Dad. He played for Glidden back in the ’50s, and his nickname was Spring. I can still picture a photo of him in uniform alongside his buddy Mel Follensbee.

I never really thought of my Mom as an athlete. I knew she played sports growing up, but she didn’t talk about it much.

So imagine my surprise earlier this month when I was scrolling through the Historic Saskatchewan page looking for an old photo of Kindersley… and I stumbled across a girls’ ball team photo from 1949 — the McCord Midgets and the Mankota Meteors.

And there, smack dab in the middle of the front row, was my mom.

I recognized her instantly — mostly because my sister Carrie could be her twin. I just stared at the screen thinking, How have we never seen this before? The photo was part of the Everett Baker collection, taken in Ferland, Saskatchewan, on June 17, 1949. Mom would have been just two months shy of her 13th birthday.

The craziest part? None of us — not me, not my siblings — had ever seen that photo. It felt like it had been tucked away for decades, waiting quietly until the right moment to appear.

And it showed up now — right in the middle of a Saskatchewan winter, when everything feels frozen and endless.

There was my Mom, frozen in time in a ball photo from 1949. A reminder of who she was. A reminder that our stories never really disappear — they surface again when we need them most.

So yes, it’s bitterly cold.

But the Red Dogs are coming, summer’s still on the calendar, and a surprise photo of my Mom — 13 years old in 1949 — reminded me that spring always returns.

Sometimes it shows up exactly when you need it.