Then, you do not have to imagine any of this because it all happened. Mr. Hockey could have just as easily made a career as a baseball player or as a golfer. Howe was excellent at all three sports. He would hit baseballs out of Tiger Stadium while taking batting practice with the Detroit Tigers. This really happened in the spring of 1951. Howe was a solid hitter, playing first base for the Saskatoon 55s in the Northern Saskatchewan Baseball League. However, his baseball career was short. The Detroit Red Wings were concerned about the risk of injury to their star player so they asked him to stop playing.
Howe was also a champion golfer. In the Saskatchewan resort town of Waskesiu, an amateur tournament named the Lobstick exists even to this day. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Howe had a summer job working on the course doing maintenance and groundskeeping. When he was not working, he was out playing with his best buddy, the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Johnny Bower who owned and operated a popular burger joint in Waskesiu.
While playing on the course, Howe twice drove the 320-yard first hole hitting over the famous Lobstick evergreen that is in the middle of the first fairway, to what is giving the course and tournament its name. In 1954, Gordie Howe, who was a participant in the tournament, won the Lobstick Open.
Two-sport stars are not that rare in the Red Wings history since Andrew Copp was a big recruited high school quarterback, Tom Filmore played in the U.S. Open and Jim Riley was the only person to play in both the NHL and MLB. But a three-sport star is quite rare in the opposite. Yet again, Mr. Hockey is standing out in the crowd at this chapter.
