A graduate of Moscrop Secondary, Michelle Roche excelled on the baseball mound in an elite boys’ loop, the British Columbia Junior Premier Baseball League has seen many players move on to play at universities and colleges across the continent, and even a few reach the major leagues.

In 2022, playing for the Whalley Chiefs, Roche had a stellar 2.73 earned run average in 53 & 2/3 innings over 12 appearances in the BCJPBL. Roche had a won-loss record of 8-2 with 36 strikeouts and only eight walks. She was also invited by MLB to an elite U19 women’s camp in Orlando.

Douglas Strohan:
Sport – Baseball.
School – Byrne Creek

Dan Taylor has been commissioner of the Lower Mainland Baseball Association ever since the adult recreational baseball league was formed in 1994. Under his leadership, the LMBA has evolved into the largest adult baseball league in Canada with 32 teams in 14 municipalities.

Today the league has players ranging in age from 19 to over 70. Taylor managed the B.C. Capitals, which won the Canadian 50-plus title at the Canadian National Oldtimers Baseball Federation championships in 2008 and 2010.

He was the tournament chair of the 2010 championship held in Burnaby and New Westminster which attracted 24 teams from across Canada.

John Berry is a long-time baseball and soccer administrator who is active in promoting accessibility of sports fields for Burnaby youth and who has worked on various field committees and played a large administration role in his two chosen sports.

They include volunteer roles with Westburn Youth Soccer Club and Burnaby District Youth Soccer Association and in baseball with Baseball Canada, Baseball BC, Burnaby Adult Baseball, BC Junior Baseball, Burnaby Bees Baseball and Burnaby Central Minor Baseball Association. He`s also the area representative on the BC Baseball Umpires Association.

Played a key role in a group who developed a presentation to Burnaby City Council in the lead up to the development of the Burnaby Lake West fields.

Richard Smith served the then South Burnaby Men’s Club for 23 years. (Currently, South Burnaby Metro Club)

The 1949 Burnaby South grad played senior men’s fastball and rugby, before turning his hand to coaching that lasted well into the 1980s. Smith joined the SBMC in 1969 where he chaired boys’ baseball in 1972 before entering a long involvement in the community, including two six-year terms on the Burnaby Parks commission.

He was chair and general contractor of the volunteer-driven committee that brought outdoor lighting to Bonsor Park in 1974. He also brought in the first electronic timing equipment in Canada for the 1971 and ’73 Canada Games.

Smith represented the Parks Board on a committee that also started floodlight projects at Wesburn, Norburn and East Burnaby parks.

Osvaldo ‘Ossie’ Chavarria went from winning the best utility player for the AAA Pacific Coast League Vancouver Mounties to umpiring the bronze-medal match at the Barcelona Olympics. The longtime Burnaby resident played minor ball from 1959 into the ’70s before taking up coaching at the minor and national team levels.

Chavarria started umpiring in 1979 and continued to find time behind the plate in the NAIA league, at national-level championships and in the Summer Games. Chavarria umpired internationally at the Olympics, world championships, Pan Am Games and Intercontinental Cup.

A resident of Burnaby for more than 50 years, John Haar, is the only athlete in UBC history to be offered professional contracts in three different sports… baseball, soccer and football.

He turned down offers from BC Lions and Dallas Cowboys and Canada`s National soccer team to sign professional contracts with San Francisco Giants (1964) and New York Yankees (1966) and played in both their minor league systems for four years.

He was Canada`s national baseball team coach and manager for a number of years and in 1986 when the National Baseball Institute was formed, he became head coach and manager. Eight players from the NBI went on to major league careers and 30 players signed professional contracts.

He has twice been inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and in 1992 was named World Coach of the Year in International Baseball.

Hank Grenda is an accomplished all-round athlete in football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer and hockey who took his talent to coaching as well at the high school and college level. He played and starred on Burnaby championship teams in soccer, baseball and football, the latter his best known sport.

As the quarterback for Burnaby Central Secondary he led them to league championships in 1964 and 1965 and as a result drew attention from scouts from American Universities and BC Lions, a team he played for in 1969 as backup quarterback and punter, the first Burnaby athlete signed by the Lions.

He also enjoyed a career with Washington State University from 1965-1969 as quarterback, punter and field goal kicker. He passed away in 2006.

Dave Chavarria was an outstanding high school athlete in track, soccer and basketball, where in 1991 he was selected the school’s outstanding Athlete of the Year, it was baseball where he was to make his name.

A member of the Canada West under 17 championship team and for two years the Under 18 squad, he was a member of the Canadian national junior team that finished fourth in the World championships in Cuba in 1990, as a high school student, and was signed by the Texas Rangers the following year.

He was traded by Texas to San Francisco and Seattle and then back to Texas where during an 11-year career he played at all levels including one major league exhibition start. He was the Rangers’ pitching coach from 2002 to 2006 and for the past two years has been the coach of the Bakersfield, California, Class A team.

Jim Swelander was a fresh-faced teenager right out of high school when he first began building sports teams forming the Burnaby Dartmen Soccer Club to play in the Hastings East Senior Men’s Soccer League.

The Dartmen went on to win the league championship that first year, 1973, which put them into the B.C. Senior Soccer League where they rose from becoming Division 7 champs in their first year to to eventually Division 1 in 1987.

During their first season at that level they competed in the league cup playdowns beating many Premier Division teams en route to capturing the Imperial Cup crown. That earned them promotion to the top loop. They were the only club in league history to go from Division 7 to the Premier League.

Along the way, Swelander turned the Dartmen into a multi-sport club to include baseball and hockey so they could compete throughout the year. He not only founded those teams but he coached and managed many of the baseball squads since that sport was another big passion of his. Dartmen club teams went on to win numerous championships at various levels and tournaments before leaving the club in 1994. But because of Jim Swelander, the Dartmen carried on.