Baseball links survive; Memories of player transcend time, space.

Byline: Bill Fortier

COLUMN: SOUTH COUNTY NOTEBOOK

This week's topic is, for the most part, baseball.

And why not?

Red Sox pitchers and catchers have reported to Fort Myers and yes, this column is already sick of Daisuke Matsuzaka, also known as the $103 Million Man.

But baseball is a sure sign of spring, and with it the promise of summer, when you can sit on the deck and listen to the BoSox.

But there are more signs of spring.

Take yesterday, for example, when the temperature skyrocketed into the mid-40s. It felt like it was 60, when you take the last frigid month into account, and especially when you compare it to Monday morning, when it was 3 above zero with a wind that had to be gusting to about 50 mph. Don't know about you, but yours truly thought Monday morning was the coldest day all winter.

But by early afternoon Monday, it actually felt nice out and there was a hint of warmth in the car, even though the temperature was only in the mid-teens. An old weather axiom states the faster cold comes in, the faster it leaves, and the first two days of this week prove that.

Of course, anybody looking out the window early this morning may have seen some snowflakes, and what's this talk about a couple inches of snow tomorrow?

Yes, it is still February, although meteorological spring starts on March 1, and every New Englander knows spring really starts sometime around Memorial Day.

Got a feeling it's going to start earlier this year, however.

Which brings us to 76-year-old Sturbridge resident Edward Voloka, who was brought up on Canal Street in Southbridge.

Seems that he was cleaning out the Southbridge home of his 88-year-old sister, Frances Cieri, who he said is now in a nursing home, when he came across a picture of the 1947 Southbridge American Legion Post 31 baseball team. It looks like the photograph was taken at the old American Optical Co. baseball field.

Ed, a southpaw hurler, and his twin brother, Edmond, who now lives in Lady Lake, Fla., close to where the deadly tornadoes recently struck, were batterymates on the team that was managed by Zero Gauthier, who was the subject of one of the best photographs ever taken by the late, great Joe Capillo. Joe Cap caught an exhausted Zero, dressed as Santa Claus, sitting and drinking a cup of coffee during what appeared to be a well-deserved break.

The 1947 picture of the team also includes a very young Don Marino before he became Mingo Marino.

Edward and Edmond never made it to the show, as they call it, but Edward did make it to the old Bancroft Hotel in Boston in 1947 for an American Legion scholarship banquet. Former Southbridge resident and baseball player Jack Moriarty, who later became a cameraman for CBS, also attended that banquet.

Among those featured at the banquet were Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

I thought that might have been a rare occurrence and two good friends in the sports department said last night that it was indeed a rarity.

Ted Williams, of course, was famous for never wearing a tie and showing up fashionably late for just about everything except a baseball game he was playing in. Sure enough, Ed said he showed up late, sans tie. Also in keeping with the Teddy Ballgame of that day, he didn't speak.

Babe Ruth, however, loved to talk and he did for about 15 minutes.

"One of the things I remembered him saying was that a kid was never too young to start playing baseball," Ed said.

Babe Ruth died the following year of throat cancer and 17-year old Ed Voloka had never heard of cancer, but he knew something was amiss.

"He had this really, weak raspy voice," Ed recalled of The Babe.

The master of ceremonies of the banquet was former Red Sox and Boston Braves announcer Jim Britt, who later went on to perhaps more fame - some would say infamy - as the host of the "Candlepins for Cash" television show on Channel 5.

Here's a trivia question that just popped into my head.

Jim Britt preceded two of the most famous sports voices in Boston announcing history. Who are they?

The answers are Curt Gowdy for the Red Sox and Don Gillis on "Candlepins for Cash."

Edward Voloka in 1950 was the last manager of the Polish Tigers baseball team. The Polish Tigers were part of a semi-pro league that played teams in Worcester and elsewhere in Central Massachusetts. Notre Dame Church in Southbridge and the Favreau Chefs, named after the former establishment on Central Street in town, also fielded teams.

The Polish Tigers played their games at the old Alumni Field on West Street in Southbridge, near where the West Street Elementary School is today.

"That was a real nice ballpark," Mr. Voloka said earlier this week, sitting in the kitchen of his home on Park Street.

He spent 20 years in the Navy, on more than a half-dozen submarines, and he rose to the rank of chief fire control technician. His duties included firing torpedos. After retiring, he came back to town and opened the Southbridge Bicycle Shop on Hamilton Street.

Now the picture he found at his sister's house is about to be displayed along with about 20 other photographs on a wall of Jimmy's Barbershop at 14 Hamilton St.

Actually, you have to take owner Gordon Menard's word that it's called Jimmy's Barbershop because it doesn't sport a sign letting people know that it is, in fact, Jimmy's Barbershop. Some old-timers in town know it as Chickalof's barbershop, because that was Jimmy's last name

"Everybody knows it as Jimmy's Barbershop," Gordon said. "It's in the phone book."

And so it is.

Mr. Menard said he's known Ed Voloka for about 25 years and said he would welcome the 1947 picture.

"I might already have it there, though" he said last night.

And just for the record, the team included the following: the Voloka brothers, Zero Gauthier, Don Marino, Red Demers, Ferdinand Leduc, Ron Houle, Wilbur Leduc, Tarkie Materas, George L'Heaure, R. Matte, Biddie Jalbert, assistant coach Victor Rochon, Conrad Farland, Turk Murat, Pablo Perikili, Ernie Duquette, Phil Caron and batboy Andre Perikili. Not all are shown in the photograph.

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: This photographed copy of a picture from the season of 1947 shows some of the members of the Southbridge American Legion Post 31 baseball team.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/DAN GOULD