Remembering Hugh Gustafson

Hugh Gustafson was one of the finest all-around athletes to come out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. A three-sport star, he played professional baseball and hockey during the 1930s and 1940s and may just have had a shot at the big leagues if it hadn’t been for four years of military service.

Hugh E. Gustafson was born on February 8, 1915 in Hibbing, Minnesota, but was raised by his parents 300 miles to the northwest in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Gustafson was a star athlete as a youth, playing baseball and hockey, as well as earning a reputation as a “great ball carrier and a fine kicker” with the Deer Lodge Juniors football team. He played alongside Jeff Nicklin on the Deer Lodge team in 1933. Nicklin later played football with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and, as a lieutenant-colonel with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, was killed in action while leading his men in an airborne landing east of the Rhine on March 24, 1945.

In 1934, Bruno Haas, manager of the Winnipeg Maroons of the Class D Northern League, was keeping a close eye on the young left-handed first baseman who was creating quite a favorable impression with the Uneedas team of the Winnipeg League. It was hoped Gustafson would get a trial the following spring but when Haas was replaced by Wes Griffin, he found himself still playing amateur ball in 1935. But after leading the Elmwood Cubs to the local championships that year, the 20-year-old was given a trial by his hometown Maroons and signed during the spring of 1936.

In 124 games, Gustafson batted .265 with six home runs and proved one of the ablest defensive first basemen in the league.

Gustafson was witness to a tragic event during his rookie season. George Tkach, an infielder with the Superior Blues suffered a fatal beaning while playing the Maroons late in the season. Ironically, Gustafson would be witness to another fatal beaning when teammate Linus “Skeeter” Ebnet was struck by a pitch while playing the Grand Forks Chiefs in July 1938.

In 1937, Gustafson batted .300 with the Maroons and raised his average to .323 with nine homeruns in 1938, three of them coming consecutively in a game against Superior on May 18. In 1939, his fourth year with the team, he batted an exceptional .367 with 11 home runs and 106 RBIs, and was voted the Northern League's Most Valuable Player, receiving the Linus Ebnet Trophy. Furthermore, his .993 fielding average among first basemen remained a Northern League record until 1952.

In 1940, the 25-year-old moved up to the Madison Blues of the Class B Three-I League where he continued to hit well, batting .308 in 123 games. Gustafson began the 1941 season with the Milwaukee Brewers of the Class AA American Association – just one level below the major leagues - but after hitting just .118 in 14 games he rejoined Madison where he batted .264 for the year.

Gustafson wasn't only playing professional baseball during these years. In 1936, he joined the Philadelphia Ramblers (a New York Rangers farm club) of the International-American Hockey League as the team's center and remained with them through 1939-1940 season. The following year he signed with Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League and was with the Providence Reds of the same league in 1941-1942.

After six seasons of professional baseball and hockey, Gustafson entered military service at Fort Sheridan, Illinois on January 21, 1942. He was sent to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, with the Army Air Force, where there were six bowling alleys, four basketball courts and all the athletic equipment you could wish for. "We even had a swimming pool and a nine-hole golf course at this post," he wrote in a letter to the Winnipeg Free Press in May 1942. Later that year he joined the 409th Bomb Squadron, 93rd Bomb Group at Fort Myers, Florida. Gustafson traveled with the 93rd Bomb Group to North Africa and then England where he regularly played baseball for the 93rd Bomb Group’s Ted's Traveling Circus ball team (named for the group’s commander Colonel Ted Timberlake).

"Gus is a staff sergeant in the medical unit at the base [Hardwick, Norfolk]," Lieutenant Ken Herbster, USAAF physical training instructor, told the Wisconsin State Journal on March 6, 1944, "and as such had plenty of time off for baseball. He was the best fielding first baseman in the ETO."

In August 1943 he was selected to play with the Eighth Air Force All-Stars – a team of professionals who were led by former Senators' pitcher Montie Weaver. Before a crowd of 25,000 at Wembley Stadium, London, the Eighth Air Force defeated a hand-selected team of Army professionals, 1-0, thanks to semi-pro hurler Bill Brech's outstanding no-hitter. Gustafson scored the game's only run. The team then toured military bases throughout Britain playing a total of 29 exhibition games. Gustafson played 26 games on the tour and batted .408 with three homeruns.

In July 1945, Staff-Sergeant Gustafson returned home to Winnipeg on leave - it was his first time home in four years. Later that month he reported back to Camp Grant, Illinois and was discharged shortly afterwards.

Hugh Gustafson did not return to professional baseball after the war but continued to play professional hockey with the Washington Lions of the Eastern Hockey League (1945-1946), before becoming player-coach with the Hibbing Saints of the semi-pro Northern Hockey League. He did, however, still play baseball with the Brandon Greys, Elmwood Giants and the Winnipegs of the Manitoba Senior League.

“He was a tremendous athlete when he was young,” recalled Alex Turk, local politician, sports promoter and manager of the Giants. “and he still did a great job for me at first base with the Giants . . . and that was 1951 or ’52.”

Turk also described Gustafson as “a man's man . . . a regular fellow. He never worried about himself, it seemed, but he was always sympathetic for someone who was down and out.”

In the 1960s Gustafson served as president of the Lake Winnipeg Intermediate Hockey League.

Hugh Gustafson, who worked for the Department of Welfare for the Province of Manitoba and was posthumously inducted in the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, passed away in Winnipeg on January 4, 1977, aged 61.