Name any sport and there’s a strong likelihood Keith Savage excelled at it.
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But beyond his natural sporting ability was a bloke who didn’t mind a tipple and being surrounded by good people.
“He was a good character, he loved a drink and made many, many friends around the place with his sporting ability,” mate Gordon Browne said.
Savage sadly passed away last Sunday at the age of 89.
His mates can’t help but talk about his prowess in the sporting arena because that’s where they shared a large amount of time together.
“In all sporting history – he has a fantastic record.”
Bob Speirs – who knew Savage all his life – echoed Browne’s thoughts on Savage’s sporting ability.
“He was champion guy, a nice fella and good at most sports,” Speirs said.
“He was a wonderful ping pong player, good at Aussie rules, he won the old Barellan League’s best and fairest, was a good tennis player, as well.
“It didn’t matter what sport he played, really [he excelled].”
The highest of his sport achievements lay in the game of cricket.
Amazingly, the most incredible record he holds is a joint one.
“He was one of the holders of the highest runs scored in an innings with a gentleman who came from Gapsted in Victoria,” Browne explained.
That other gentleman was Tom Patton who played for Buffalo River in the Gapsted competition.
And the amount of runs they both compiled?
“They’ve both scored 408 runs in one innings,” Browne said.
“In country cricket in Australia, he [Savage] holds that record.”
A quick look at his other statistics – kindly provided to The Area News by Joe Cudmore – paints an incredible picture.
He played the game for 17 seasons in Griffith and amassed 6850 runs in the Saturday competition at an average of 72.07 and 5292 runs in the Sunday competition at an average of 53.20.
He was well equipped on the representative cricket scene as well.
He represented NSW Country and while playing for various representative teams he scored a tick over 4000 runs at an average of 45.00.
All in all he smashed 35 hundreds, four double hundreds and, of course, the quadruple hundred.
However, it wasn’t just on the field he made a difference.
Browne said Savage was also one of the instigators in starting the Junior Cricket team up which is now the Exies Diggers – was testament to the man he was.