What more could you ask for when you have one of the best baseball parks in all of Saskatchewan to use as your stomping grounds, none other than Ross Wells Park?
For Tollefson and his cadre of friends, it was all he needed. And he would use that opportunity to the fullest, crafting himself into one of the best baseball players in Moose Jaw history and helping the legendary Moose Jaw Regals become one of the best senior teams in Canada.
To hear the stories, Tollefson was an incredible competitor and a key cog in all that success. And that helped make him a shoe-in when the Moose Jaw and District Sports Hall of Fame chose their five inductees for 2019.
Tollefson was joined by powerlifter Wayne Cormier, high school sports builder Roy Thiessen, referee and league organizer Bill Johnston and the Terry McGeary senior men’s curling team in being enshrined on the MJDSHF Wall of Fame on the second floor concourse of Mosaic Place during the recent induction banquet.
“It doesn’t get much better than having your hometown remember you like this, holy smokes. It’s pretty overwhelming, actually,” Tollefson said prior to the event. “There are too many moments, but my memories are about the people I played with and just how lucky I was to be in Moose Jaw, because I got to compete against and with the very best players in western Canada and sometimes the best in Canada. That’s what I’m most proud of.”
Tollefson – who now makes his home on Vancouver Island but makes regular journeys back home to Moose Jaw to visit family and friends – was born in Weyburn and moved to the Friendly City in 1952. He grew up playing baseball and hockey in the now-Clark Gillies Recreation Area, with the majority of his summer spent on the fields of Ross Wells.
His career with the Regals began in 1962 as a catcher with the junior team. He was called up to the senior Regals as a replacement for the first game of the season, kicking off a 13-year career with the squad.
Tollefson was a ballplayer through and through. Described as an excellent catcher who possessed a strong throwing arm and exceptional power at the plate, his ability on the diamond was almost overshadowed by the level of competitiveness he brought to the game.
“I was there to help my teammates win and everybody knows that, I knew that and my teammates knew it too.” Tollefsen said. “That was the most important thing. Whatever it took, that’s what we did. You have to be willing to compete and that was never a problem for me.”
With him as one of their leaders on and off the field, the Regals would go on an epic tear through the 1960s and 70s.
Seven Southern League championships. Three titles out of the prestigious Lacombe tournament. Perennial success regardless of where they played.
And to say they drew plenty of attention would be a bit of an understatement.
“We played in tournaments at 10 o’clock in the morning, we’d have 5,000 people in the stands. And then we’d go out and win,” Tollefson said with a laugh. “That was the best part of it!
“Moose Jaw always had good baseball teams, and you can talk about how good you were in your own town and stuff like that, but the Moose Jaw Regals played all the best teams from Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., California, the northern States, and we won way more than that other word. It was incredible.”
Tollefson played on teams that represented Saskatchewan on three occasions at the national senior baseball championship and in 1967 played for the Canadian National team.
And it can all be traced back to those days as a youngster just hanging out at jewel of the prairie just outside his front door.
“I walked out of my house any day of the year and the whole world was in front of me,” Tollefson said. “It was free, the Kinsmen, the Elks, the Rotary provided these leagues for us to play in and I took advantage of all of them… I’d spend the whole day at Ross Wells Park in the summer time, there were always games being played and it was always a lot of fun.”
Tollefson would become a teacher at 20 years old and would spend his whole career in Moose Jaw, eventually retiring as the principal of Peacock Collegiate.
Tollefson also spent plenty of time educating on the ball diamond as player/coach through the late 70s and beyond, also serving as a clinician with the Sask Baseball development program for several years.
In 2013, Larry Tollefson was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame.
