Wayne Norton, a Canadian Baseball hall of famer and longtime Port Moody resident, passed away last week after a three-year battle with ALS. He was 75 years old.
Norton, a PoMo native, played 1,200 minor league games during the course of his career, stepping up to the plate for the Kansas City Athletics, the Birmingham Barons and the Vancouver Mounties in the 1960s.
More recently, he was an international scout for the Seattle Mariners, where he worked right up until his death.
“Wayne spent over 50 years in professional baseball as a player, coach and scout,” said Mariners vice president of scouting Tom Allison in a statement. “He was responsible for thousands of young players in Canada having the opportunity to grow through the game of baseball, and for hundreds of young players having a chance to play professionally. More than that, he was truly one of the great gentlemen in the game.”
Outpouring of support also came on social media.
Retired Chicago Cubs pitcher Fergie Jenkins called Norton a “Canadian baseball pioneer” while Gareth Morgan, an outfielder in the Mariners organization, said Norton “believed in me when others didn’t and gave a young kid from Toronto a chance to chase his dream.”
As a player, Norton first got the attention of college scouts when his Coquitlam team won the provincial championship in 1957 and again in 1959. He received a scholarship to Whitworth in Spokane, Wash. It wasn’t long before New York Yankees scout Eddy Taylor asked for a meeting and Norton was offered his first professional contract, worth $7,500.
His first stint in the minors was in St. Petersburgh, Fla. but he eventually joined the Kansas City Athletics and attended his first big-league training camp in 1962.
After playing a season and a half with the Birmingham Barons in 1964, Norton decided it was time to move closer to home. He was picked up by the Vancouver Mounties, where as the only local boy on the team, he got the attention of Nat Bailey. In fact, Bailey, the founder of the White Spot restaurant chain, loaned Norton the money to purchase his Port Moody home, where his family still resides.
Despite his achievements as a player, Norton always said his greatest contribution to baseball was through his coaching and scouting.
After his 11-year playing career came to an end, he took a position with the BC Amateur Baseball Association (now known as Baseball BC) and helped standardize training across the country.
He led the junior national team during the 1975 Pan Am Games in Mexico City before launching the National Baseball Institute (NBI), where future MLB players such as Larry Walker, Justin Morneau and Ryan Dempster honed their skills.
Norton called the NBI “the best thing I ever did in baseball,” during an interview with The Tri-City News last spring.
In the 1990s, Norton began scouting for the Baltimore Orioles before moving to the Mariners, where he was responsible for the signing of major leaguers Greg Halman, Alex Liddi, Phillippe Aumon and Michael Saunders.
“Wayne served as both a role model and a mentor for so many young scouts and coaches in both professional and amateur baseball,” said Tom McNamara, the Mariners’ special assistant to the general manager. “When I was hired by the Mariners as scouting director in 2008, it took me exactly one meeting with Wayne to know that I never had to worry about having Canada covered.”
In 2015, Norton was diagnosed with ALS and continued to scout with the help of his wife, Trudy, while dealing with the mobility issues that come with the motor neurone disease.
gmckenna@tricitynews.com
@gmckennaTC
