Jimmy Rattlesnake

Jimmy Rattlesnake (courtesy Wetaskiwin & County Sports Hall of Fame)

 

His pitches offered enough venom to rattle the most seasoned of hitters. And he did it all with a grin that was as warm in welcoming opponents to the batter’s box as it was in sending them back to the dugout after another futile at-bat.

Jimmy Dummy Rattlesnake – an exceptional left-handed pitcher in the 1930s and 1940s – was born in the Indigenous community of Ermineskin Cree Nation, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Edmonton, Alberta, on an unknown date 1909, the son of Peter Dummy Rattlesnake and Marguerite Moignon Rattlesnake.

He played a lot of different sports growing up, including soccer and curling, but it was baseball that matched his skill set and his interest.

Jimmy’s father was a sportsman in his own right, having developed a fondness for riding and training horses.1 The elder Rattlesnake was also a relative of Chief Robert Smallboy, an Order of Canada recipient who founded the Smallboy Camp near Jasper in the late 1960s in an effort to live off the land and commune with nature.

Chief Smallboy was a farmer who had a love of sport, especially baseball and hockey. When the day’s work was done, he would often practice pitching in the evening. Jimmy Rattlesnake learned about baseball in school and Chief Smallboy encouraged him to pursue his love of the game.

“The Chief told him to keep at it ‘cause maybe he could beat the white boys at their own game,” recalled Dorothy Rowan Smallboy, the daughter-in-law of Chief Smallboy.2

Rattlesnake did keep at it, much to the detriment of the hands of his classmates and catching partners. Chief Smallboy’s son, Joe, was one of the victims of Rattlesnake’s friendly fire. He started out behind the plate and when the pitches got too hard to handle, Joe moved to first base. When he discovered that Rattlesnake could still sling the ball with authority to first base, Smallboy decided to field balls in the outfield instead, a development that amused Rattlesnake immensely. Smallboy carried a crooked finger with him for the rest of his life as a souvenir of his baseball days with Rattlesnake.

Rattlesnake’s cousin, Louis P. Crier, suffered a broken finger during his battery sessions with the southpaw.

“I was wearin‘ a catcher‘s mitt, big mitt and the ball was comin‘ straight at me and I was gonna catch it. Then that ball went a different way, hit my finger right on the top. Jimmy come runnin‘ from the mound and he just pulled my finger. … He put it in place,” said Crier.3

Laurel Harney, another catcher tasked with taming the “Smilin’ Rattler,” first met the pitcher in 1931 when the hurler was a 22-year-old poised for baseball breakout.

“A bag of bones he was, but out on that diamond it wasn’t his bones that seemed to rattle,” recounted Harney, who played with Rattlesnake on the Stockyard Bulls in Edmonton under manager Webb King.

“Jimmy fascinated the heck out of those baseball people. They wondered where he learned to throw like he did. I wasn’t so much fascinated as worried what his next pitch was going to do. Not that I ever had to try to hit it. Always played on his side.”

Harney described a “sawdust ball,” which was Rattlesnake’s signature pitch.

“It made hitters antsy. You’d swear it was never gonna get to the plate. Then, just as a hitter was swingin‘, the ball would do something crazy, tail or drop, and he‘d miss by a country mile. Batters all felt Rattlesnake was dangerous; he made mortals out of heroes. But catchers used to feel like they was stickin‘ their hand in a sack full of rattlers.”4

Jimmy made headlines in his first start for the Royals of the Edmonton Senior Amateur Baseball League in 1932. Rattlesnake – who was often referred to as “Chief” in newspaper reports – struck out 10 batters while allowing seven hits and three walks in an 8-4 complete-game win at Diamond Park.

“Despite his youth and playing before a big crowd for the first time, the Chief worked like a veteran on the mound. He possesses nigh-perfect poise, fields his position well, and, more important still, showed an effective curve ball, combined with some ‘fast’ to make him extremely effective,” wrote reporter Bill Lewis in the Edmonton Bulletin.5

Rattlesnake looked even better during an early July victory over the Oilers. In that 5-3 triumph for the Royals, he struck out 11 and gave up just six hits. It was a matchup that “was keenly enjoyed by the thousands of rabid fans who taxed the seating capacity of the stands to the limit,” according to the Edmonton Bulletin.6

Word soon got out about Rattlesnake’s abilities, making him a ballpark draw for sports fans in Alberta.

The lanky hurler returned to the Edmonton Royals the following summer “popular as ever” and “much improved,” as the Bulletin put it.7 In addition to pitching for the Royals, Rattlesnake also suited up in a number of games with the Wetaskiwin club, for whom he made some brilliant appearances as a reliever and a starting pitcher. On two occasions – a 15-4 trouncing of Bawlf in June and a July exhibition against his usual teammates with the Royals – he struck out 12 batters in front of large crowds.

“He’d show up anywhere and everybody seemed to get a thrill out of it, just knowin’ he could appear outta the woodwork,” said Harney.8

“Rattlesnake roamed all over Alberta and Saskatchewan. He pitched over at Wetaskiwin, he pitched down at Lacombe, at Neilburg, you name it, he was probably there. Tournaments used to be the big thing in this country. You’d go from one money-tournament to another. I’d run into him here, I’d see him there. Sometimes, a team’d try to keep him a secret until the lineups were called, sort of like a secret weapon in reserve.”9

The “Rattler” had continued success in 1934, which ended up being a true showcase season for the lefty, who was also a capable hitter.

He tossed a no-hitter against Fredricksheim in leading Wetaskiwin to a 9-0 Central Alberta Baseball League victory on July 9, collecting seven K’s and walking just two.

At an exhibition tournament in Camrose at the end of that month, Rattlesnake logged a pair of complete-game wins to ensure that Wetaskiwin collected the first-place prize money.

Provincial playoffs put Wetaskiwin on a collision course with the Shastas, who claimed the Edmonton championship.

“Not a great deal was expected from the country boys in this series to determine the northern Alberta senior baseball champions,” wrote the Edmonton Journal. “It was expected, and probably with some justification, that the Shastas, one of the most powerful clubs ever organized in this city, would go on to a crushing victory.”10

Rattlesnake, of course, had other ideas. He pitched masterfully in the opening tilt of the best-of-five series, throwing a four-hitter and striking out seven during Wetaskiwin’s 7-4 victory at Renfrew Park.

The Shastas evened the series at one win apiece in front of 5,000 onlookers in Edmonton, and even though Rattlesnake was not on the mound for the second game, he was still making plays.

“Probably the best catch of the day was made by Chief Jimmy Rattlesnake, who was playing in left field,” said the Journal. “The Chief had a bad leg – he was injured in Friday’s game – but no one would have guessed it the way he tore after a hard-hit fly ball by Ike Davis. The Chief ran over 50 feet before he pulled it down. It was a marvelous catch.”11

Game three of the series took both teams to Wetaskiwin for a low-scoring and controversial result. Rattlesnake found himself on the mound yet again, and pitched eight frames of three-hit baseball. Both teams, and a full house of fans, were denied a ninth inning of play when the game was called due to darkness.

“It was one of the finest ball games witnessed in this central Alberta city in years, but the game, closely fought all the way, and witnessed by a record crowd, almost broke up in a riot,” reported the Edmonton Journal.

Wetaskiwin scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning to claim a narrow 2-1 victory.

“When the umpire made his announcement, there were immediate protests from the Shastas management, along with spectators, who milled about the baseball grounds, demanding an explanation,” said the Journal.

When the dust settled, Rattlesnake had “figured prominently in the home team’s triumph.”

In addition to striking out eight batters and limiting the offense of the Shastas to three singles, he went 2-for-3 at the plate and stole a pair of bases.

“Nonchalantly and with clock-like regularity Chief Jimmy Rattlesnake mowed them down,” the Journal said.12

The paper’s sports editor, George Mackintosh, described a pitcher who was clearly in the zone.

“As the game had progressed, there was no evidence of the Shastas suddenly coming to life and collecting any worthwhile hits off Chief Jimmy Rattlesnake,” observed Mackintosh.13

The Shastas bounced back with a 6-1 win in Game Four to send the series to a winner-take-all confrontation that pressed the “smoke-ball artist” back into action.

The third time was a charm for the Shastas, who finally broke through against Rattlesnake. Both teams allowed eight hits and one earned run in the 5-2 loss for Wetaskiwin that featured a handful of errors on both sides, five double plays for the Shastas, and some uncharacteristically wild pitching by Rattlesnake. More than 6,000 fans filed into Renfrew Park to take in the game.

Despite the series defeat, Rattlesnake had emerged as a star on Alberta’s baseball scene.

He matched up against his playoff rivals again in early September for an exhibition game to benefit a hospitalized Shastas player, this time donning an Edmonton Royals uniform. Rattlesnake returned to form with a nine-strikeout performance that saw him permit just four hits and one earned run in a hard-luck 2-1 loss. At bat, he went 2-for-4 with a triple and drove in the Royals’ only run.

“If ever a man tried to win a ball game, Jimmy was that person,” the Journal observed.14

Rattlesnake that year got an opportunity to show what he could do against some of the best baseball players. When a contingent of stars announced plans to play a series of barnstorming games across Canada in October, Rattlesnake was chosen to represent the locals at Renfrew Park. In preparation, he strengthened his arm by throwing hay bundles into a threshing machine back home and playing catch regularly.

Rattlesnake started the first of two games against the American League squad on October 11 in Edmonton.15

“The starting pitcher of the Edmonton ball club had enjoyed considerable success. He had nice control and was throwing everything he had at the big leaguers. But it just could not last,” wrote Edmonton Journal reporter Ken McConnell of the performance, which was umpired at home plate by future Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer John Ducey.16

The pro batters struck for eight hits, including a home run by future Hall of Famer Heinie Manush, en route to a 9-2 victory. It was a better result than the rematch, which saw the All-Stars cruise to a 20-2 win.17

Rattlesnake returned to Alberta’s senior circuit with Wetaskiwin for the 1935 season and when playoffs rolled around, he met up against some familiar faces on the Shasta-Royals roster. He let his bat do the talking in eliminating Edmonton from the postseason, going 3-for-4 with a homer to center field.

“Rattlesnake was instrumental in the scoring of four Wetaskiwin runs and that’s not a bad day’s work,” noted McConnell of the 5-0 win in the Journal.18

Rattlesnake was denied a provincial title due to a dispute that arose when Wetaskiwin squared off against the Ponoka Panthers. The Panthers filed a protest over Wetaskiwin’s use of outfielder Harry Levinson, who up until that point had played for the Shasta-Royals.

During the best-of-seven series, Rattlesnake tossed a complete-game 4-0 victory to put his team within one win of the title, but the Alberta Baseball Association awarded the championship to Ponoka and disqualified Wetaskiwin when Levinson was deemed an ineligible player.

Newspapers across Canada published articles reporting that Rattlesnake would join Seattle of the Pacific Coast League in 1936. There were also reports that Rattlesnake played pro baseball in New York at some point.19

Crier ran into Rattlesnake in 1936 when the two boarded a train for Saskatchewan from Wetaskiwin.

“He was tellin’ me got called up in (the) States, I forget where, anyway it was down the States,” said Crier. “I remember when I got back he was already home from Saskatoon. From there he went for a trial in the big league.”20

The induction page for Rattlesnake on the Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame website describes a pitcher who was scouted by a New York team and invited to spring training. After playing a few games, he “didn’t like the big city of New York” and returned home.

“For Jimmy Rattlesnake to go to New York for a tryout and make the team was quite an accomplishment. It is said that Jimmy was one of the first Canadian baseball players to turn professional in the U.S.A. and certainly he was the first Aboriginal baseball player from Canada to do so,” reads the online account.21

In a story about Rattlesnake’s Wetaskiwin induction for the Alberta Sweetgrass newspaper, reporter Sam Laskaris wrote that the New York team was the Yankees.

“Though club officials were allegedly interested in having him on their roster, the belief is he didn’t like New York City and returned home,” Laskaris wrote.22

In the book Game Plan: A Social History of Sport in Alberta, author Karen L. Wall wrote of “a brief interlude with the New York Yankees in the 1930s.”23

Lawrence Rattlesnake, Jimmy’s eldest son, was also told by his father about the baseball opportunity in the United States.

“If I can remember right, he told me Brooklyn. He said he made the team but only pitched a few innings before he got in shit with the manager and came back to Canada. He never mentioned it again,” Lawrence said.24

Yet another account of Rattlesnake’s American adventure came from a player who was mentored by the pitcher.

Ralph Vold, who pitched in the minor leagues in the 1950s, was enthralled by Rattlesnake’s curveball. As a teenager, Vold trekked from Ponoka to Ermineskin Cree Nation, where Rattlesnake taught him a number of different ways to grip the baseball.

After he played professionally for several seasons in the United States, Vold ran into Rattlesnake again and the two chatted about baseball south of the border.

“I think he’d kinda been followin’ my career in the States. He asked me how it was down there and I told him it was tough bein’ a Canadian ballplayer, the odds of catchin’ on with a major league team were so slim,” recalled Vold.

“He said, ‘I always thought so too.’ He said he’d been out drinkin’ when he was down there, he showed up late for practice and the manager sent him home. He regretted it, said he would like to have stayed a while longer. Told me in the hot weather down there the beer just tasted so good. I played in the minors from Georgia to Texas to California and I never come across his name. But I don’t doubt he crossed the line. I come along a lot later.”25

Regardless of the circumstances that brought him back to Canada, Rattlesnake ultimately returned to action with Wetaskiwin in 1936. He faced Ponoka in early June of that year and whiffed 12 Panthers while yielding only four hits in a 3-1 loss.

He once again proved to be a reliable and consistent player, both on the mound and with a bat.

Rattlesnake was a dependable presence on Western Canadian mounds through the 1940s, often opting to stay close to home in the Central Alberta Baseball League and play for Wetaskiwin, Ponoka, or Red Deer.

He also pitched for the Dodgers in the Edmonton Senior Baseball League, where thousands of fans would gather at Renfrew Park to watch him befuddle batters.

In the summer of 1942, Rattlesnake traveled west to suit up for the Victoria Machinery Depot Shipbuilders, a team he played for briefly in the regular season.

“I convinced our team to bring Rattlesnake out,” said his catcher friend Harney. “I said he’d win big for us and he did. Got him a job in the shipyard and put him to work fannin’ long-ball hitters. But workin’ in the shipyard, it drove him crazy, just insane with the noise from the rivet guns.”

“One night my wife and I found him walkin’ down the street alone in Victoria. ‘I gotta go home, Harney,’ he said, and I said, ‘Why? We don’t want to lose you.’ He said, ‘I’m too lonesome. … I have to go.’”

Rattlesnake did return for postseason action, however. His arrival coaxed large crowds to Athletic Park, and the 6-foot-2 hurler helped VMD capture the city championship.

“He won two big games for us in relief. Came in in a tricky situation and retired the side. After that, Jimmy went home. … It was baseball brought us together. After those days were over, our paths just never crossed,” said Harney.26

There was no doubt that Rattlesnake was an elite pitcher in his day, one who was sought after across Canada and capable of filling up the stands of the diamonds he played on.

When his time on big-city mounds came to an end, Rattlesnake returned to the Ermineskin Cree Nation reserve.

It was a difficult life, according to Dorothy Rowan Smallboy.

“Jimmy kept everything to himself,” she said. “All his frustrations. He put everything into his ball game when he pitched, but even that wasn’t enough for him in the end. All the hard work he had to do, we all had to do, just to stay alive. And when he couldn’t pitch, then what? I remember hearin’ him talkin’ to my husband and Chief Smallboy once. He said, ‘It’s hard tryin’ to be a white man ’cause their ways are so different.’ He told them about the time he was tryin’ to hold a fork like a white man. He kept droppin’ it and he said, ‘I could feel my face goin’ red. They were nice,’ he said, ‘they tried not to see what I was doin’ wrong.’ That’s what I remember Jimmy talkin’ about, the funny things he did, the little mistakes he said he made out in the white world. He used to joke he didn’t even know how to operate a toilet when he first went away from here.”27

One of Rattlesnake’s wives, Isabelle Morin Rattlesnake, recalled turbulent years with her well-known husband. Tuberculosis ravaged Indigenous communities and claimed the lives of several Rattlesnake relatives. But that wasn’t the only challenge of life on the reserve.

“It was really tough for me with 10 kids,” she said. “Jimmy was a good guy when he wasn’t drinkin’. He was good to us, a good worker and when the kids were sick he was really watchin’ them at night. But most of the time he was away workin’, all he did around here was sell the grain and see to the cattle once in a while. I had to raise the kids by myself.”28

Isabelle, who died in 1993, said her husband’s skill as a pitcher never translated to hunting, which was essential to surviving frigid Canadian winters.

“Jimmy sure had better aim with a baseball than a gun,” she said.

“We used to laugh about that, Jimmy and me – what a hunter he turned out to be.” 29

Jimmy’s oldest child, Sylvia Rattlesnake, shared memories of a hard-working father who cared deeply for his family.

“All I knew him as was my father and a loving grandfather to my first son. You know he’d come running whenever that baby cried and he’d be out chopping wood at 4 in the morning to keep the house warm for the baby,” said Sylvia. 30

Lawrence was only 20 years old when his father died on April 17, 1972, at Maskwacis, Alberta.

“I was with him until he died, right to the last minute,” stated Lawrence.

“He’d been drinkin’ all night, and when I woke up he was downstairs. I didn’t really know what he was doin’. My wife and I left to get some groceries … by the time we got to the house he was on the front step vomiting. He said, ‘Take me to the hospital, son, I didn’t mean to drink it, it was a mistake.’”

Added Lawrence: “We tried to hurry. Then there was no point hurryin’. His heart stopped for the last time, he was lying in my arms. My dad, he’d drank gasoline antifreeze. He used to have a hidin’ place for his booze downstairs and he must have been pretty well drunk and he grabbed the wrong bottle. … He had one downfall, that was it.”

His passing was devastating to the Rattlesnake family and the community, but the circumstances of his death did not dominate the memories of him.

“I like to remember my late Uncle Jim as he was, as a gentle person and as an athlete. There are so many stories about him, like about him eating x-number of pancakes before a game. That number keeps getting bigger as the years go by. My Uncle Jim would like those stories; he was a humorous person. I can still see him smiling,” said Lester Fraynn.31

After Rattlesnake’s death, several efforts were made to honor him. Ron Hayter, a past president of the Alberta Baseball Association, pushed to have Rattlesnake added to the group’s honor roll. That happened in December of 1974.32

In 1985 Baseball Canada created the Jimmy Rattlesnake Memorial Award, which honored Canadian players of outstanding ability and sportsmanship. Major-league players who went on to have their nameplates added to that award include Stubby Clapp, Ryan Radmanovich, Rob Ducey, Pierre-Luc LaForest, Shawn Hill, and Scott Thorman. More recently, that award has been given to outstanding members of the Canadian women’s national squad who display leadership qualities and team spirit.

A building was named after Rattlesnake – the Ermineskin Cree Nation’s Jim Rattlesnake Building in Maskwacis – in 1987 and a chapter of the book To Run With Longboat by Brenda Zeman focused on Rattlesnake’s story.

Rattlesnake was inducted into the Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame in 2011, an event that was attended by several of his children and relatives.

“On behalf of the Rattlesnake family, it’s a great honor to be here representing our father’s legendary life and to reflect on his acknowledgments and awards,” said Jimmy’s daughter, Phyllis Rattlesnake, at the induction. “Our father was a kind and humble man filled with laughter. Being the down-to-earth person he was, he spoke very little of his professional baseball career.

“Jimmy Rattlesnake, who was fondly known as the Smilin’ Rattler, will always be remembered as a man of outstanding athletic ability combined with great sportsmanship. We lost our father in 1972 when we were all still very young, but as adults, my brothers and sisters, we all still run into elderly people who speak very highly of him.”33

Phyllis also discussed her father on Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast.

“Jimmy loved baseball. He respected the people he played with and against,” she told show host Joe McFarland. “My dad was one of the first Canadian and aboriginal Cree athletes to achieve success through his natural athletic ability as a southpaw baseball pitcher.”34

Rattlesnake also left a legacy of emerging baseball players, who were inspired by what he achieved.

Vold idolized him, as did Harold Northcott, a longtime Team Canada baseball player and coach who was a boy when his father took him to games to watch the Rattler pitch.

Northcott’s father, who played with Rattlesnake, considered him the best lefty pitcher he’d ever seen and encouraged young Harold to emulate the techniques of the slender southpaw. One of Rattlesnake’s skills the elder Northcott was thoroughly impressed with was his pickoff move to first base.

The decision to add Rattlesnake to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021 was made by a six-person committee of baseball experts, who started with more than 100 possible candidates before reducing that number to 29. Of those selections, 17 were voted in, including Rattlesnake.

Baseball historian William Humber told Alberta Dugout Stories that Rattlesnake was a logical choice for the honor.

“There’s enough factual commentary, later backed up by my own review of Edmonton and other newspapers, to confirm Rattlesnake’s talent, ballplaying prominence and the demand for his services. One has to, of course, read through the lines in the depiction of his prowess, which is often surrounded by the murky and outright racist categorizations of the day. His significant place in baseball in Western Canada between the wars, and then beyond this period seemed undeniable,” wrote Humber in an email to the author.

“In the case of Rattlesnake, I was struck by the comments of two notable eyewitnesses to his career. One was Ron Hayter, later inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for his baseball leadership in Alberta. In 1972, he argued forcefully for Rattlesnake’s recognition in some form by baseball authorities in Alberta shortly after Rattlesnake’s death. The other was Jim Coleman, the noted sportswriter, who at the time of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s founding in the early 1980s argued for Rattlesnake’s induction.”35

Born and raised in Alberta, Canada, IAN WILSON got his first glimpse of professional baseball from the Medicine Hat Blue Jays of the Pioneer League in the 1980s. The odd road trip to Calgary opened his world to the Cannons and the Pacific Coast League. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism & Communications from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan and returned to Alberta, where he worked as a reporter and editor at the Calgary Sun newspaper for a decade. Through the years, a love of baseball remained constant. Despite any failings of players or those involved in the game, Ian considers it the perfect sport and one that is above reproach. It requires no clock, just the best that Mother Nature has to offer and willing competitors. These basic ingredients unlock the poetry that W.P. Kinsella revealed to the world — a reminder of all that once was good and can be again. Ian is the co-founder of and a frequent contributor to Alberta Dugout Stories and Saskatchewan Dugout Stories. He is also the media coordinator for the summer collegiate Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL).

 

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com, baseball.ca, https://baseballhalloffame.ca/hall-of-famer/jimmy-rattlesnake/, and a number of publications.

See also Wilson, Ian. “The Smilin’ Rattler,” Alberta Dugout Stories, November 16, 2021.

 

NOTES

1 Brenda Zeman, To Run With Longboat (Edmonton: GMS2 Ventures Inc., 1988), 28. According to a disclaimer in the book: “This book is a collaboration between a number of people, including those who lived the events described and the author and editor who maintained a limited freedom to interpret and invent where necessary. As such, the work has its roots in oral history, but ultimately it should be read as docufiction.”

2 Zeman, 28.

3 Zeman, 31.

4 Zeman, 23.

5 Bill Lewis, “Chief Rattlesnake Pitches Royals to Senior League Win,” Edmonton Bulletin, June 13, 1932: 12.

6 “Royals Improve Playoff Chances in Senior Circuit,” Edmonton Bulletin, July 4, 1932: 10.

7 Lewis, “Pats and Pans,” Edmonton Bulletin, June 5, 1933: 14

8 Zeman, 23.

9 Zeman, 23.

10 “Wetaskiwin Earns Decisive 7-4 Victory Over Shastas,” Edmonton Journal, August 25, 1934: 12.

11 “Shastas Tie Up Senior Baseball Championship Series,” Edmonton Journal, August 27, 1934: 8.

12 “Near-Riot Occurs as Wetaskiwin Defeats Shastas 2-1,” Edmonton Journal, August 29, 1934: 10.

13 George Mackintosh, “Sporting Periscope,” Edmonton Journal, August 29, 1934: 10.

14 “Shastas Win Bitterly-Fought Benefit Ball Game 2-1,” Edmonton Journal, September 10, 1934: 11.

15 The AL all-stars included Heinie Manush, Luke Sewell, Roger Cramer, and Pinky Higgins. Jimmie Foxx was supposed to play but he had been hit in the head by a pitch in Winnipeg and sat out.

16 For more on Ducey, see Brant Ducey, The Rajah of Renfrew: The Life and Times of John E. Ducey, Edmonton’s “Mr. Baseball” (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1999).

17 Ken McConnell, “Major League Battery to Play for Edmonton Senior Club,” Edmonton Journal, October 12, 1934: 10.

18 Ken McConnell, “Wetaskiwin Advances Into Finals for Provincial Baseball Title,” Edmonton Journal, August 31, 1935: 14.

19 No official records of Rattlesnake playing professionally in the United States could be verified, but the topic was discussed by his relatives, and it was referenced in newspaper reports, as well as his Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame biography

20 Zeman, 32.

21 Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame. Wetaskiwinsportsfame.com

22 Sam Laskaris, “Humble Pitcher Gets Third Hall of Fame Induction,” Alberta Sweetgrass, March 10, 2011.

23 Karen L. Wall, Game Plan: A Social History of Sport in Alberta (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2012), 214.

24 Zeman, 38.

25 Zeman, 34.

26 Zeman, 24-25.

27 Zeman, 29.

28 Zeman, 37.

29 Zeman, 37.

30 Zeman, 30.

31 Zeman, 38-39.

32 “ABA Honors Taylor,” Edmonton Journal, December 5, 1974: 69.

33 Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame.

34 Episode 157: Celebrating Jimmy Rattlesnake, Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast, November 19, 2021.

35 William Humber, email correspondence with author, November 3, 2021.