Baseball Summer : The Story of the 1937 Smiths Falls Beavers

by Douglas W. Phillips

This is the story of a minor league baseball team in a small town in Eastern Ontario a long time ago. In 1937, the Smiths Falls Beavers competed in the second season of the Class C Canadian-American League. The players included Pete Angelovich, Matt Christopher, Dick Henry, Henry Hoysradt, Art Horsington, Bill Homan, Charlie Harig, George Klivak, Ernie Downer, Walter Lanfranconi, Joe Mooney, Eddie Martin, Joe Mooney, Johnny Orpheus, Andy Palau, Xavier Rescigno, Art Upper and Al Smith. This is also the story of an industrious, progressive town with a large, stable employment base in manufacturing and transportation. If the Depression was not yet a distant memory, the worst period was a few years in the past. In 1937 men were working; the stores on the main street were open for business, hotels and boarding houses were full. It was the year professional baseball came to town. Includes photos and statistics.

228 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2008

About the author

Doug Phillips is a sinner, saved by grace. God was pleased to place him in the home of Howard and Peggy Phillips, two outstanding parents who loved him and poured their lives into him. His father personally discipled Doug for much of his life, taking Doug with him around the country, such that Doug had traveled with his family through 49 of the 50 states by the time he was 18. His father — a former candidate for President of the United States who served as Acting Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity under Richard Nixon — faithfully read both Old and New Testament to him at the dinner table, taught him constitutional law, public policy, and communicated to Doug a remarkable passion for history. They listened together to more than 2,000 audiocassettes on history, books, and theology.

As a young man, Doug was also discipled by Robert Gifford, a great preacher of the Word and pastor of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, who communicated to Doug a passion for Christian apologetics and the sovereignty of God. Because of his father’s work as a statesman, Doug had the opportunity to spend time with, and learn from, many of the great Christian leaders of the last 30 years. It was during this time, however, that Doug came to realize that the greatest witness a man could offer for Jesus Christ was not what he knew, but how he lived his life as a father and a husband. It was at this time that God began to build a vision in Doug’s life for seeing the restoration of biblical manhood, godly femininity, and the Christian home.

While running a Christian newspaper in college, Doug met Beall, a young woman who ran a ministry to unwed mothers called “Alternatives to Abortion” (interestingly enough, Beall herself had been adopted). Five years later, on “the happiest day of my life — except for every day after that,” Doug and Beall were married. Doug attended law school for the purpose of developing skills that would help him defend home educators and Christian parents from State tyranny. He graduated from George Mason School of Law, where he studied under judges Robert Bork and Doug Ginsberg. He served for six years at the Home School Legal Defense Association in multiple capacities including staff attorney and Director of the National Center for Home Education.