HBIC Summer Project: The Tyndall Tornado

Our first entry in the 2023 HBIC Summer Project series will be a woman whose three brothers got her into baseball, but it was her hockey prowess that gave her the unique nickname of "The Tyndall Tornado". That's Evelyn "Evie" Wawryshyn to the left as a member of the Fort Wayne Daisies, and she was born in Tyndall, Manitoba on November 11, 1924. She was the daughter of Mae and Ted Wawryshyn and she was the lone girl and the youngest out of the four Wawryshyn children, meaning she often tagged along with the boys whenever they were out playing. That led to her developing some incredible baseball and hockey skills, and those skills would lead to major accolades and accomplishments later in her life as she joined the AAGPBL and played in the Dominion Women's Amateur Hockey Association. Let's meet Evelyn Wawryshyn Moroz!

According to her autobiography given to the AAGPBL website, Eveyln went to a small school in Tyndall during the depression when money was tight and family stuck together, and she found her way into playing baseball "because there weren't enough boys to field two teams so her brother would say 'let Evie play first or short stop'." That led her to learning all about playing the infield as a hardballer, and she would play hockey in the winter where she was a star on the ice as well among all the sports she played.

Her faith and her schooling were vitally important as her parents encouraged her to find her path, and that led her to Winnipeg where she pursued her teaching degree at the Winnipeg Provincial Normal School. She told Mark T. Buss of The Brokenhead River Review, "In 1944, I went out practice teaching. It was war time and naturally the men were going, so they left a big shortage (of instructors). It was at that time that a lot of would be teachers got their start because the opportunity was there. It worked good for those of us that were looking for something to do, and at that time it was basically two careers for women, either teaching or nursing."

Her choice of teaching gave her time off in the summers to return home, but it also presented a new opportunity as her brother, Archie, encouraged her to spend her summers playing ball for one of the fastpitch teams in Winnipeg. Evelyn would evetually find a playing spot with the Canadian Ukrainian Athletic Club (CUAC) Blues as part of the Greater Winnipeg Senior Girls' Fastball league, and she immediately made an impact for her teams as the Blues found a player who had all the tools to be a star in the league. It even prompted a visit from a scout from a brand-new baseball league - the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League - south of the border in the United States!

"I was taking teacher training and playing ball," Wawryshyn told Barbara Huck of The Winnipeg Free Press about the opportunity that was presented to her, "when, one night in 1944, a scout came up to me, right out of the blue, and asked me if I wanted to play pro ball in the States. I was floored."

I'm not certain why the offer would have "floored" Miss Wawryshyn considering that she was the North-Eastern Manitoba Senior Girls' track and field champion in 1940 and her efforts with Blues put her in a class of her own. Her work in that league was some of the best the city had seen to that point as the 5'3" shortstop hit for power, hit for average, drove in runs, turned in incredible defensive plays, and routinely hit the boxscores in the local newspapers for her work at the old Osborne Stadium where the Canada Life Assurance building in Winnipeg now sits across from the Manitoba Legislative Building.

It should be noted that Wawryshyn turned down the offer made to her in 1944 as she was still looking to finish her degree, but that worked out nicely for the CUAC Blues who saw Wawryshyn go on a tear through the league in 1945, helping the Blues win the Provincial Championship while capturing the Koman Trophy as the team's MVP. After obtaining her teaching degree in Flin Flon, Jack Matheson, the same AAGPBL scout who first approached her, tried his luck once again in swaying her to head south to play ball, and this time we'd see Evelyn Wawryshyn sign a contract to join the AAGPBL and suit up for the 1946 Kenosha Comets for $60 per week!

The team would struggle on the field in '46 as they put together a 42-70 record to finish seventh out of eight teams in the AAGPBL. Wawryshyn, though, didn't have the greatest debut as told to Buss.

Luckily for Wawryshyn, she wasn't there for all the losses as the Comets traded her to the Muskegon Lassies midway through the season. However, the Lassies would finish one place higher than Kenosha in sixth-place at 46-66. Undeterred by the struggles of her teams, Wawryshyn would stick with the Lassies to begin the 1947 season as she began to find her rhythm covering second base! Wawryshyn would end the season batting .217 with 18 RBIs while scoring 29 runs in her rookie campaign.

The 1947 AAGPBL saw Muskegon bounce back in a big way as they ended up in first-place with a 69-43 record. Wearing #13, Wawryshyn played second and took an occasional turn in the outfield. One could see the improvements in Wawryshyn's game as well as her hitting improved throughout the season as she got used to side-arm pitching, finishing the campaign with a .237 averge in just 36 games with seven RBIs and a four stolen bases. Despite the success in the regular season, though, the playoffs were a different story as the Racine Belles downed the Lassies three-games-to-one to end the season without any further celebration. To make matters worse, Wawryshyn would be traded to the Springfield Sallies for the 1948 season.

The 1948 season with the Sallies did not go well in the standings for Wawryshyn as they finished tenth out of ten teams with a 41-84 record. However, Wawryshyn, wearing #2, was a force for the Sallies all season long, finishing sixth in batting average at .262 after playing in 118 games while being in the top-ten players for hits (114), stolen bases (66), and total bases (126) while facing overhand pitching for the first time. Those numbers were good enough to earn her the honour of appearing in her first AAGPBL All-Star Game as she was one of the lone bright spots for the Sallies all season long! Incidentally, the Sallies ceased to exist following the 1948 season as Wawryshyn found herself without a home for the first time.

The Fort Wayne Daisies would sign Wawryshyn for the 1949 season, and she'd continue her solid play for the Daisies. They'd finish the season in fifth-place in the eight-team circuit with a 53-57 record, but Wawryshyn would continue her solid approach at the plate where she hit .251 in 109 games with 34 RBIs and 47 runs scored. The AAGPBL championship would propve elusive yet again, but there was no doubt that Wawryshyn was a star in the league at second base for the Daisies, and she would attend her second-straight All-Star Game thanks to her great season.

Wawryshyn would play the 1950 season with the Daisies, and she absolutely tore the cover off the ball over the summer. In 104 games, Wawryshyn established career highs in batting average (.311), hits (124), doubles (13), and runs scored (71). She also stole 65 bases and drove in 50 runs, and she launched her only AAGPBL homerun that season - she was absolutely on fire at the plate! Her work at the dish helped the Daisies go 62-43, finishing in third-place and just five games back of first-place Rockford. Rockford down the Daisies in the AAGPBL Final to win the championship for the second-straight season, but Wawryshyn would get the opportunity to start at second base in the 1950 AAGPBL All-Star Game for the first time in her career!

The 1951 AAGPBL season saw the Daisies play to a 68-35 record as they went 34-17 in the first half of the season followed by a 34-18 second half of the season. It was a very successful season as the Daisies finished in third-place and second-place in the two halves of the season, but they'd fall in the playoffs to the only team that finished ahead of them in both halves in the South Bend Blue Sox. Wawryshyn had another good season as she hit .277 with 54 RBIs, 50 stolen bases, and 60 runs scored while establishing a career-high in walks (48) and a career-low in strikeouts (18) over the 104 games she played. Was Evelyn Wawryshyn getting better with age?

That answer is "undefined" as 1951 is the last season that Wawryshyn played baseball in the AAGPBL which is a shame because the Fort Wayne Daisies won the final three years of AAGPBL play, finishing first-overall in the league standings in each year. Playoff success still eluded them, but Wawryshyn was off on a new adventure at the age of 26 as she left the league and married to John Litwin in Chicago, Illinois. The couple had two children together before John passed away shortly after the birth of their second child from a heart attack.

With no baseball to play following the banning of women from professional baseball by Major League Baseball, Wawryshyn returned to Tyndall where she ran a small hamburger stand off the side of her parents' general store where folks could buy things like hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries. In 1960, Wawryshyn married school principal Henry Andrew Moroz and they had four more children. They would move to Winnipeg where Wawryshyn raised their six kids while working for the City of Winnipeg's Parks and Recreation Department.

On The Ice

I did mention that each of the women profiled here also played hockey, and Miss Wawrychyn was no stranger to the ice. She regularly led all scorers for the Winnipeg Doodlebugs, a senior women's team that played all over the map, but she more famously was part of a high-scoring line for the Winnipeg-based all-stars that captured the 1950 Lady Bessborough Trophy as champions of the Dominion Women's Amateur Hockey Association! That team might have been one of the best in Canadian history, and they won the championship without starting goaltender Ruth Middleton who left prior to the championship series in mid-April for the American Glamour Softball League's training camp!

The Winnipeg team that captured the trophy - pictured above - downed Moose Jaw 5-2 in Game Two to win the best-of-three series that crowned the Western Canadian champion, and Wawryshyn was key in the victory as she had a pair of goals while setting up the other three goals for her linemates. The Port Arthur Bombers was the Ontario team that stood in their championship path, and Winnipeg absolutely hammered them in Game One by a 7-2 score that saw Wawryshyn notch two goals and one assist in the total-goals, two-game final. Game Two's boxscore and recap somehow aren't in any newspaper archives to which I have access, but since Winnipeg ended up with the trophy it would be fair to say that the five-goal deficit is one that Port Arthur never overcame!

In 1947, she was crowned as "Miss Hockey" before the start of the Tyndall Ice Carnival in her hometown as per a story from The Springfield Leader on March 18, 1947. That's a lofty title too!

The Accolades

As stated above, Wawryshyn was a three-time AAGPBL all-star, but she also earned an honourable mention under the Player of the Year category for her 1948 season. At the end of her six seasons in the AAGLPBL, Wawryshyn played in 544 games where she hit for a .266 average - 13th-best all-time in the AAGPBL - in 1943 plate appearances. She recorded 517 hits that included 37 doubles, 16 triples, and one homerun while striking out just 175 times. She drew 177 walks, she stole 273 bases, she scored 275 runs, and she drove in another 193 runs.

Her play on the diamond earned her honours as part of the AAGPBL addition to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988, and she was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 1992, Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame, Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame, and Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame as a player. In the Great Canadian Book of Lists, she is listed as one of the five greatest Canadian born female baseball players.

If anyone asks, she also had a few superstitious quirks as told by her daughter Sheryl Wagner to Geoff Kirbyson of the Winnipeg Free Press on March 5, 2022. As per Wagner, her mom "always put her left shoe on first" and, when in a hitting slump during her playing days, "she'd eat tomato soup or scrambled eggs". Who would have thought that tomato soup or scrambled eggs would be slump busters?

Evelyn "Evie" Wawryshyn Moroz was always proud of her accomplishments, and talking about the days of riding in dusty buses for a doubleheader the next day would bring a twinkle to her eye. She unfortunately passed away on February 3, 2022 at the age of 97, but even that moment added to her legacy as she was the last of more than a dozen Manitoba-born women who played in the AAGPBL to have passed away. She is survived by six children, 11 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

From her days turning double plays and hitting homers to her high-scoring times winning championships on the ice, Evelyn Wawryshyn Moroz is a name that all Manitobans should know a little better after everything she accomplished in her life. I can think of no one better to kick off the 2023 HBIC Summer Project than The Tyndall Tornado, Evelyn Wawryshyn Moroz, with a resumé like the one above. Yes, it's more of a baseball resumé, but she's also a hockey champion and no one can take that away from her.

Rest in peace, Evelyn. Your incredible legacy in sports makes you a legend, even if those honours came long after you had retired.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!