Gibbons: Westbrooke one of several multisport starts in old Halton County Baseball League

Don Westbrooke (Creemore, Ont.) was not only a star pitcher in the Halton County Baseball League, but he also scored three goals in a game against legendary Russian goaltender Vladislav Tretiak. Photo supplied.

August 25, 2026

By Denis Gibbons

Canadian Baseball Network

Jim Riley, a native of Bayfield, N.B., is the only athlete who played professional baseball and hockey at the highest level.

Riley played four games for the St. Louis Browns in 1921 and two more for the Washington Senators in 1923. He was 0-for-14 at the plate, but managed to score one run after getting a walk.

On the hockey side, he appeared in a total of nine NHL games for the Chicago Blackhawks and the old Detroit Cougars in the 1926-27 season. He failed to score a goal but earned two assists.

Sixty years ago, the old Halton County Baseball League had its own hockey hero. Don Westbrooke, a native of Creemore, Ont., played for the Georgetown Giants in the late 1960s. Then in January of 1974, he became the first North American-born hockey player to score a hat trick on the legendary Vladislav Tretiak, goaltender for the Soviet Union.

Earlier in his hockey career, he had played for infamous coach Eddie Shore with the Springfield Kings of the AHL and alongside Don Cherry as a member of the Rochester Americans.

When the Soviet national team was on a tour of the old Western Pro Hockey League, Westbrooke was playing for the Seattle Totems. In a shocking upset, Seattle defeated the World champions 8-4 mainly on the strength of his three goals.

Bobby Hull matched his feat, beating Tretiak three times in a 5-5 tie with the Big Red Machine in the Soviet-WHA series at Vancouver in September of the same year.

In the publication ‘The Village Nine,’ a collection of newspaper clippings, the late manager Len Andrews has preserved the history of the powerhouse teams from the village of Campbellville that won an even dozen OBA championships in the 1950s and 1960s.

Jack Roberts (left) with his Campbellville manager Len Andrews and Corunna manager Jerry Little in 1966. Photo supplied.

One of Campbellville’s pitchers Jack Roberts, who died a few years ago, matched Johnny Van der Meer of the 1938 Cincinnati Reds by throwing back-to-back no-hitters, one week apart, in an OBA series against Corunna. The following year he was named the league’s most valuable player.

However, in the summer of 1966 Georgetown, a sixth-place team, upset the villagers three times out of four and Westbrooke went the distance in two of the wins, one of them a one-hit, 1-0 shutout.

The following year Westbrooke pitched a five-hit shutout and struck out 11 to beat the Milton Red Sox 3-0. He died in February of 2016.

In July 1984, Westbrooke joined his goaltending father Reg as an enshrined member of the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame. Reg once owned the Creemore Star newspaper.

Also in 1967, the Halton County League all-stars stunned the Guelph CJOYs of the Intercounty Senior League 5-4 in the annual All-Star Game at Waterdown.

The Halton League had two OBA champions that season – Dundas in Intermediate A and Campbellville in Intermediate C. Burlington finished as runner-up to Simcoe in the Intermediate A Major category.

The league was full of athletes who shone in other sports. Murray Hall and Dennis Mendyk of the Oakville Oaks played for the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Argonauts, respectively. Waterdown catcher Alex Lockington was the punter for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

In those days, the league president was Judge James Black, who was a provincial court judge and had been a player with Oakville back in the 1930s and 1940s. The league’s popular umpire-in-chief Mike Timmis was the brother of Brian Timmis, who won three Grey Cup championships with the old Hamilton Tigers circa 1930 and is a member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Several watering holes in the Halton circuit became like a home away from home after the games. Among them were the historic American House in Waterdown, which was established in 1824, Coronation Tavern in Burlington, Collins Hotel in Dundas and the Jolly Miller in Hogg’s Hollow in Toronto, which dates back to the 1860s. It was not too far from Talbot Park, where the Leaside Maple Leafs played.

Those were the days when amateur baseball brought a lot of joy to both players and fans.