Bryan Gowen is charged by Estevan Minor Baseball with playing over 40 years of fastpitch and twiliters baseball, helping raise the money to install lighting at Cossette Field, keeping Estevan's over-35 baseball team alive when it seemed to be on life support, and sponsoring minor baseball for 15 years through his Bordertown auto dealership.He'll plead guilty to most of the above, but he says with a laugh that he should appeal the verdict.Estevan Minor Baseball will formally honour Gowen for his contributions to the sport at the opening ceremonies of the Saskatchewan Twilite Baseball Maxi Tournament (35-and-over provincials), scheduled for July 9-11 in Estevan."I think sometimes they've got the wrong guy, you know?" Gowen said Thursday. "I said to Lindsay [Clark, tournament co-chair] when he came here what's your criteria for picking somebody? I said I don't know what I did to deserve an award or recognition."Gowen played fastpitch with the Estevan Flyers from 1958-74 before hanging up the glove for what he thought was for good.Then when Al Fleischhacker started looking to put together a 35-and-over baseball team in Estevan, Gowen found himself talked into playing."I said I haven't played ball in a number of years, and he said well none of us have really, and we're having our first practice on May 4," Gowen recalled with a laugh.The newly-formed Estevan Oilers won the Twilite division's six-team Mini Tournament in 1981, and were invited to the Maxi tournament two weeks later when Wood River dropped out."You couldn't get into the Maxi tournament," said Gowen. "It was like a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey ticket. You had to have the place willed to you pretty well. We got lucky that year."Over the years the Oilers won the B, C, and D-side finals of the Maxi, which at the time was restricted to 16 teams. The Oilers also played in one championship game, losing 7-2 to Assiniboia.Gowen still recalls vividly the 1996 Masters (40-and-over) tournament in Arcola when the Oilers wanted to build a fire at their campsite but had no wood. They drove around town until they found a large stack at a local resident's house.The young boy outside was hesitant to give up any of his father's wood but changed his mind when he was offered $10 for his trouble.A campout during a 1980s Maxi tournament in Fillmore included a full-size organ and a number of guitars.And the final inning of the Oilers' 1981 Mini championship game against Moose Jaw remains as clear to Gowen as the day it happened.Estevan was down one run going into the top half of the last inning and scored two to take the lead. The story picks up with one out in the bottom half of the inning, a Moose Jaw runner on second."Moose Jaw's batter hit a pop fly out to centre field. Frankie John was playing there and he was way back, and he was running in but the guy on second saw Frankie wasn't going to be able to get to the ball, so he took off," said Gowen, a smile working its way across his face."Bev Hickie's playing left field and Bev comes screeching across, grabs the ball in front of Frankie John, and threw it to second which got us the double play for the tournament win."Gowen played for the Oilers until 2005 when he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. He was given his 25-year award by the team when he returned to help coach in 2006.Today Gowen, initially given two to five years to live, struggles to use his extremities much, if at all. He has no trouble speaking and can still feed himself but is mostly confined to a scooter or wheelchair to get around.But in spite of his protests over his forthcoming award, Gowen says he has no plans to be anywhere other than the ball diamond when the Maxi tournament makes its Estevan debut.If you ask Gowen, that moment is the one that's long overdue.
