Broadcaster Carl Lake remembered as legend of baseball

Carl Lake, an empire and broadcaster, has died of cancer. (CBC)

Carl Lake, a sports journalist and a beloved figure in local baseball in the St. John’s area, has died. 

Lake wasn’t shy about how much he cared about the St. John’s field he presided over as umpire for 53 years.

“St. Pat’s Ball Park here is basically my summer home since 1958,” he told CBC News in September during his final game. “I came down here as a kid … and I haven’t left since.”

Lake died of cancer, Baseball NL confirmed.

He was inducted to the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2006. A stalwart in the province’s baseball scene, he helped train incoming umpires and amplified the game throughout his broadcasting career during the ’70s and ’80s on CBC’s Here & Now as well as with VOCM.

Executive director Ryan Garland, an umpire himself, sometimes shared the turf with Lake. 

“His impact on sport and baseball is matched by few others in the province,” Garland said Wednesday morning. “Fifty-three years is an accomplishment I don’t think anybody will touch.”

Off the field, Lake also made an impact, Garland said.

“Carl was the type of guy who would do just about anything for anybody. Even if he didn’t want to, he’d find a way to make it work.”

If there’s one thing Lake would put above baseball, it was his wife and children, Garland said.

“He was very much a family man,” he said.

“The Newfoundland expression is ‘salt of the earth,’ and he very much was a salt of the earth type of person.”

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