Athlete.
Born at Tyndall on 11 November 1924, daughter of Mae Beatrice Wawryshyn (c1902-1978) and Theodore George “Ted” Wawryshyn (c1898-1976), as a child she excelled in all sports especially hockey and baseball.
She attended the Manitoba Normal School to become a teacher and, while teaching in Flin Flon and playing baseball for the Canadian Ukrainian Athletic Club Blues, she was scouted to play in the All American Girls Baseball League. She played professional baseball with the Kenosha Comets (1946), Muskegon Lassies (1946-1947), Springfield Sallies (1948), and Fort Wayne Daisies (1949-1951), being a league all star and having an all-time 13th ranked batting average.
Dubbed “The Tyndall Tornado” for her hockey prowess, she was the top scorer with the Varsity Doodlebugs and led a Winnipeg all-star team to the Lady Bessborough trophy as Canadian champion in 1950.
She retired from baseball after the 1951 season and married John Litwin at Chicago, Illinois. Shortly after the birth of their second child, he died of a heart attack and she moved back to Tyndall where she operated a food concession on the side of her parents’ general store. In 1960, she married school principal Henry Andrew Moroz and they had four more children.
In recognition of her sporting achievements, she was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1988), Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame (1992), Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame, Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame (2004), and Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame.
She died on 3 February 2022.
Obituary [Theodore George Wawryshyn], Winnipeg Free Press, 7 September 1976, page 46.
Obituary [Mae Beatrice Wawryshyn], Winnipeg Free Press, 13 November 1978, page 47.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 9 February 2022.
“Irresistible, inspiring Tyndall Turnado” by Geoff Kirbyson, Winnipeg Free Press, 5 March 2022.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 2 February 2024
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