These unregulated forms of play give rise to two variants of baseball, each with its own written rules of play and team structures. The two forms of gambling competed for public favour until the Civil War.
Baseball is played with a ball and a stick between two teams of nine players who alternate at bat and in the field. The goal of the game is to score points by advancing players counterclockwise around 4 goals spaced 90 feet (27.5 m) apart. The ball and stick games are derived from ancient religious rituals celebrating the return of spring, and can be found throughout history. In North America, the game is based on English rounders (ball games at camp). In New England, rounders take the form of a popular regional sport called townball, which was played in public gatherings in the early 19th century.
These unregulated forms of play give rise to two variants of baseball, each with its own written rules of play and team structures. The two forms of gambling competed for public favour until the Civil War. The “Massachusetts game” is the most similar to townball with 10 to 14 men in the field. A variation of this game is played in Beachville, Ontario, on June 4, 1838, at a celebration marking the army’s victory over the insurgents in 1837. This is the first game of its kind ever reported in writing in Canada. Alexander Cartwright and his club, the New York Knickerbockers, introduced the “New York Game” seven years later, which had nine men on the field.
The Southwestern Ontario region is very closely associated with the early days of organized baseball in Canada. The first Canadian team, the Hamilton Young Canadians, was formed in April 1854. William Shuttleworth, the city clerk, contributed to the club’s growth. The Hamilton Burlingtons (1855) and the London (1856) and St. Thomas (1858) clubs were among the first clubs. The Massachusetts rules of the game were preferred, but the New York rules were introduced in Hamilton in 1859. The popularity of the nine-player game in the United States and the beginning of international competitions in 1860, where Bufallo won over Burlington, contributed to the rapid expansion of the sport in Ontario.
In 1863, the Woodstock Young Canadians awarded themselves a silver ball, which became the annual trophy awarded to the Canadian champions. The Woodstock Club is made up of seven players of Ontario origin who work in a variety of trades. In 1864, they lost to the Brooklyn Atlantics, the American champions, at a tournament in Rochester, New York. In 1867, the Woodstock, Hamilton and Ingersoll clubs participated in a world baseball tournament in Detroit, Michigan, and Ingersoll won the junior championship.
Around 1868, high cash bonuses encouraged some clubs to adopt semi-professional status, allowing players to share the money they had earned. In 1869, the Guelph Maple Leafs overthrew the Canadian champion Woodstock team. The Guelph team was the first to hire professionals from the United States who, along with Canadians such as star pitcher William Smith, won the world semi-professional championship in Watertown, New York in 1874.
In 1876, George Sleeman, president of the Guelph club, and Harry Gorman founded the first Canadian league, which included the Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph and London clubs. The involvement of Fred Goldsmith, the first curveball pitcher, and five other professionals was undoubtedly instrumental in the London Tecumsehs’ victory over the Canadian champions in Guelph. In the same year, several major American cities formed their own national league in order to monopolize the best players.
In 1877, a number of smaller industrial cities founded the International Association for reform. London and Guelph joined the new association and the Tecumsehs won the first championship by defeating the Pittsburgh Alleghenys. London, which dissociated itself from the National League because of restrictions on matches against non-member teams, was the only Canadian club to compete in 1878.
Financial difficulties led the Tecumsehs to bankruptcy in mid-season. In 1885, the formation of another Canadian league in Ontario gave organized baseball the guidelines it needed. Toronto’s decision to join the American Minor League in 1886 marked the end of professional baseball’s independence in Ontario, as Ontario teams were now at the mercy of the interests of American Major League organizations.
Baseball is gaining popularity in other parts of the country. In 1865, a by-law adopted by the City of Montreal prohibited baseball in parks and public places. The sport also spread to the Maritimes through New England. In fact, the first Canadian-born player to join a major league was William Phillips, of Saint John, New Brunswick, who would play for Cleveland in 1879.
In western Canada, a rudimentary form of baseball was played in Red River in the 1840s, but it was not until 1874 that the modern version appeared in Winnipeg. The growth of baseball is linked to the growth of the railway, and many of its early promoters are associated with companies that have an interest in seeing players and supporters travel by train. In the 19th century, railway workers and even a future premier of Saskatchewan, Walter SCOTT, were among the amateur baseball enthusiasts.
American professional players have contributed to the popularization of baseball as well as Eastern Canadians, including James Ross, a member of the London amateur baseball team in 1877. Ross brings the game to the West, where he runs a ranch. He later became a senator. Around 1904, baseball was so popular in the Yukon that a two-game international championship was held, won by Whitehorse against Skagway, Alaska. In 1907, the Canadian Western League, a minor professional baseball organization, was formed in Alberta and, two years later, teams from Saskatchewan and Manitoba joined its ranks. In its short existence, the league has experienced financial problems like so many other minor professional sport organizations in Canada.
The Cape Breton Colliery League brought together the mining towns of Nova Scotia and managed to survive as an official minor league from 1937 to 1939. In Quebec, the Provincial League, sometimes considered outlawed because it is independent of major baseball leagues, lasted from 1935 to the early 1960s. Roland Gladu and Jean-Pierre Roy, French-Canadian stars, will play in this league.
The Toronto and Montreal teams are part of the International League, a renowned minor league, for 78 and 55 years respectively. Montreal has a good reputation in the baseball world and the team’s owners include Canadian baseball star “Tip” O’NEILL and Charles Trudeau, father of Canada’s future Prime Minister.
In 1946, Jackie Robinson joined the Montreal Royals and became the first black player in modern professional baseball. A fan of crowds, he leads his team to the minor league championship. A new era began in 1969 with the arrival of major baseball in Montreal.
In 1977, the MONTREAL EXHIBITIONS left Jarry Park and moved to the Olympic Stadium, where they attracted more than two million spectators in a single season. That same year, a second Canadian dealership was created when the BLUE JAYS DE TORONTO joined the American League. With more than six million spectators in the first four seasons, they set a record for attendance. In 1987, they recorded several other attendance records for a major league team: 2,778,459 fans for home matches and 1,959,280 fans for foreign matches, as well as a record attendance rate for all home and foreign matches.
In 1989, the Blue Jays traded the Exhibition Stadium for the SkyDome in downtown Toronto. The 1990 season, the first full year at SkyDome, they attracted more than four million spectators to their home games, an all-time record. Five-time champions of their division, the Blue Jays enjoyed their greatest success in 1992 and 1993, becoming the first Canadian team to win the world series and the first team, since the Yankees’ wins in 1976 and 1977, to win the series twice in a row.
