Notary Greg Litwin Comes from Great Genes

Iam the son of a professional baseball player—My Mother!

Evelyn Moroz, known as Evie Wawryshyn, was a tenacious 2nd bagger. She was inducted into the Cooperstown National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, and the Brandon Baseball Hall of Fame.

The film A League of Their Own depicts the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of which my mother was a part. Around the house, she used to sing that film’s theme song.

In Chicago, Mother married Johnnie and had 2 children— my sister Linda and myself. Tragically, when I was only 10 days old, my father died. Mother was faced with some very hard decisions. Granny drove from Manitoba to Chicago to take us back to her home in the town of Tyndall—population 300— where I was raised for the first 6 years of my life.

Granny and my grandfather had a big old house—a boarding house, a confectionary/small general store, and a “chip stand.”

The boarding house saw many people of different nationalities speaking a variety of languages, predominantly Ukrainian, Czech, Polish, and German. I found it fascinating. I believe it taught me tolerance and understanding of others.

As the son of a professional athlete, I was on skates at 2, hockey stick in hand. At 4, I had a baseball batting machine that fired plastic balls to assist my batting skills. I remember practice-pitching with my mother as backcatcher, “Come on, you can do better than that. Put a little pepper on that ball!” she would say.

Over the years I was involved in all recreational and school sports and love them to this day, especially the competition. Mother taught me to respect each sport, to play fair, and while losing is never fun, to always congratulate the winner. That taught me about teamwork. To work as part of a team to reach your goal is very rewarding.

The “chip stand” was great. Mother and Granny cooked hotdogs and hamburgers and made the best fries and milkshakes. The juke box was always playing. I remember pushing the potatoes through a machine with holes; when they came out the other side, they were “fries”—Holy cow!

Mother and Granny were very musical. Mother could play any song “by ear” that she heard on the radio. One of them was always on the piano, with everyone singing; I helped by pushing the pedals. My love of music was no doubt inspired by those two very important women in my life.

Growing up in the country, there were many trees to climb and lime kiln areas for playing—Tyndall is

“Come on, you can do better than that. Put a little pepper on that ball!”