Baseball in Canada

Adapted from the British game of rounders — and by extension, cricket — the game of base ball or "townball" became popular in the early 19th century in Southwestern Ontario (then Canada West or Upper Canada), New York and New England.[2]

The first documented evidence of a base ball game in Canada comes from a letter published in Sporting Life magazine in 1886,[3] a letter by Dr. Adam E. Ford of Denver, Colorado, formerly of St. Marys, Ontario and Beachville, Ontario, about a game 48 years earlier in Beachville on June 4, 1838 — Militia Muster Day. Many Canadians, including the staff of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Marys, Ontario, claim that this was the first documented game of modern baseball, although there appears to be no evidence that the rules used in this game were codified and adopted in other regions.

Originally, the rules of the game were informal in nature and often modified to reflect regional preferences.

In Ontario, a variant of baseball known as "The Canadian Game" was most prevalent. It featured five bases, bats that resembled those used in cricket or rounders and eleven players per team. All eleven players went to bat each inning, which would not end until they were all retired.

The American variant of baseball had nine players a side instead of eleven, and four bases instead of five. Southwestern Ontario was the first region in Canada to adopt this version of the game, doing so in 1860.[1] The so-called "Canadian Game" soon fell out of favour.

The London Tecumsehs of London, Ontario were charter members of the International Association and won its first championship in 1877, beating the Pittsburgh Alleghenies.

Rather than competing nationally in an east-west fashion, local baseball clubs would instead compete with their American neighbours to the south. This meant that teams from the Maritimes played teams from New England, teams from Quebec played against teams from New York and teams from British Columbia competed with those from Washington.[1]

The first Canadian to appear in a Major League game was Bill Phillips, who played for Cleveland. In his first game on May 1, 1879, the Saint John, New Brunswick native went hitless, although managed to get three hits the next game. In his second season, in 1880, he became the first Canadian to hit a home run in the Majors.[1]

By the 1880s black Canadians were barred from playing in white professional leagues, but Emancipation Day black vs white matches provided an opportunity for black teams to shine, such as when the Northern Stars trounced a white team in Edmonton.[4]

Delormier Stadium in Montreal was home to the Montreal Royals of the International League from 1928 to 1960.

By 1913, there were 24 minor league baseball teams in Canada, a number which has been unequalled since.[1]

Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run on Canadian soil on September 5, 1914 at the former Hanlan's Point Stadium on Centre Island in Toronto. Ruth was playing for the Providence Grays against the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team of the International League.[5] In 1985, the City of Toronto erected a small plaque to denote the location, but it is difficult to locate, given the parklike setting and remote nature of the Toronto Islands.

In 1946, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey assigned new-signing Jackie Robinson to the Montreal Royals of the International League, Brooklyn's Triple-A farm team. Robinson would famously go on to break Major League Baseball's colour barrier the following year in 1947, but during his season in Montreal Robinson led the Royals to the Governors' Cup, the IL championship, and became a beloved figure in the city. In Ken Burns' documentary film Baseball, the narrator quotes Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier: "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind."

Following Robinson's breaching of the colour barrier, in the 1950s many other players from the declining Negro leagues travelled north to ply their trade in Canada, including Hall of Famers Leon Day, Satchel Paige and Willie Wells, who like many other African-American players competed in the Mandak League.[6][7]

In 1957, former Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Glen Gorbous, a native of Drumheller, Alberta set the current world record for longest throw of a baseball at 445 feet, 10 inches (135.89m) in Omaha, Nebraska.

The first Canadian in the National Baseball Hall of Fame was Ferguson Jenkins, a right-handed pitcher who compiled a 284-226 record, 3.34 ERA and 3,192 strikeouts in 19 seasons from 1965 to 1983 with the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, and Boston Red Sox. Jenkins is considered an anchor of the Black Aces, a group of African American pitchers with at least twenty wins in one season (although Jenkins is actually a Black Canadian, not African American). In 2020, Larry Walker became the second Canadian inducted into the Hall of Fame. Walker played right field for the Montreal Expos, Colorado Rockies, and St. Louis Cardinals from 1989 to 2005, winning the National League MVP in 1997 with the Rockies.

A baseball game during the Toronto Blue Jays's inaugural season. The team later became the first Canadian-based team to win the World Series.

The London Tecumsehs were refused admission to the National League in 1877 because they refused to stop playing exhibition games against local teams. While baseball is widely played in Canada, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian team until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League. The team enjoyed a widespread following until about 1994, when the Expos were in first place in the NL East; after the strike shortened year, a series of poor management decisions, disputes with the city, and neglect by the ownership caused the Expos to be routinely last in MLB attendance.

In 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League. They later became the first Canadian-based team to win the World Series, winning back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993.[8]

In 1993, besides the two Canadian major league clubs, Canada hosted four Triple-A teams (the Calgary Cannons, Edmonton Trappers, Ottawa Lynx and Vancouver Canadians), one Double-A team (the London Tigers), two Class A Short Season teams (the St. Catharines Blue Jays and Welland Pirates) and two rookie-level teams (the Lethbridge Mounties and Medicine Hat Blue Jays).

In 2003 an attempt to create the Canadian Baseball League was launched, but the league folded halfway through its first season.

In 2004, the Expos, then owned by MLB itself, moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals, leaving the Toronto Blue Jays as the only remaining Canadian MLB team.

In the 2010s the sport is experiencing a surge of popularity.[9][10][11][12]

The Canadian national baseball team represents Canada in international competitions. Since 1970, the team has participated in 17 Baseball World Cups. Canada earned the bronze medal in the 2009 Baseball World Cup, their highest finish in the history of the competition. In the 2004 Summer Olympics they placed fourth, losing the game for 3rd place to Japan and, in 2008, they finished fifth. In four appearances so far at the World Baseball Classic, the team has not finished higher than 9th place. The national team also won gold medals at the 2011 and 2015 Pan American Games.