Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0017/00171.txt

Text File | 1994-02-14 | 34KB | 514 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00171}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Baseball in Canada}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Prentice, Bruce L.
Clifton, Merritt}
$Subject{Canada Canadian Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Montreal Provincial
League Jenkins}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  Other Leagues


Baseball in Canada

Bruce L. Prentice and Merritt Clifton


Baseball as we know it--with three bases and home, nine players to a side, and
three outs to an inning--has been played in Canada at least since 1860, when
the existing teams in London, Hamilton, St. Thomas, and Woodstock, Ontario,
all accepted the rules of the New York Game popularized by Henry Chadwick.
This was the game played on June 19, 1846 between the New York and
Knickerbocker clubs on the Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey.
     But a game differing from early baseball mainly in having five bases was
played in Beechville, Ontario, as early as June 4, 1838, according to witness
Adam Ford, who described it in a letter to Sporting Life published on May 5,
1886. The game included at least two "greyheaded men" who "used to play when
they were boys."
     Thus the Canadian baseball tradition certainly predates Abner Doubleday's
apocryphal invention of the game at Cooperstown in 1839, and may go back as
far as the U.S. tradition. Indeed, in both nations, ancestors of baseball
including cricket and rounders had been played since the early 1700s, and
determining exactly where their derivatives ended and baseball began may be
well-nigh impossible.
     Before the arrival of the New York Game, the southwestern Ontario teams
played the Canadian Game, with five bases and eleven fielders. All eleven
batters had to be retired to end an inning. Only after the New York rules
were adopted did the game spread to the other provinces. By 1865 baseball had
become so popular in Montreal that an ordinance was passed forbidding games in
city parks as a menace to other users. The Montreal-based Crescents of St.
John's claimed the Canadian championship in 1868. The Montreal game was
apparently not up to U.S. standards, however, as in 1870 the New York
Knickerbockers Lacrosse Club crushed the Montreal Baseball Club, 54-32.
     Baseball reached Manitoba no later than 1874, supplanting a local
ancestor game called "bat", which had been played around the Red River
Settlement as early as the 1840s. A professional three-team Manitoba League
failed in 1886, but the game had firmly caught on by 1902, when the Great
Northern Railway sponsored a Winnipeg entry in the professional North Dakota
League.
     Saskatchewan had semiprofessional baseball by 1887, when future
provincial prime minister Walter Scott led a Regina team to two successive
regional championships. Amateur baseball emerged in Alberta at about the same
time, with games recorded as early as 1886.
     By 1903 baseball was even played in the Yukon, where games attracted
heavy gambling. Professional baseball debuted the same year in British
Columbia, as twenty-year-old Hal Chase--"Prince Hal," the slick-fielding first
baseman--starred for a Victoria entry in an otherwise Washington-based league.
     While major league baseball came late to Canada, Canadian entries in
U.S.-based professional leagues won pennants as early as 1877, when the
Tecumsehs of London, Ontario, led the International Association. The
Tecumsehs reputedly declined a chance to join the two-year-old National League
later that year, and disbanded from lack of fan support in early 1878.
Ontario acquired another pennant winner in 1887, as Toronto began an only
briefly interrupted eighty-year run as a mainstay of the International League,
then called the Eastern League. Toronto either finished first during the
regular season or won four-team playoffs fifteen times, with back-to-back
winners in 1917-1918, 1956-1957, and 1965-1966.
     Montreal's first Eastern League entry folded within weeks in 1890. While
another Montreal club won the 1898 championship, the by then renamed
International League didn't become lastingly situated there until 1928. Even
then, Montreal's third entry struggled until it was acquired in 1935 by gas
station magnate Charlie Trudeau, father of future Canadian prime minister
Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Trudeau anchored the lineup with French-speaking Del
Bissonnette and Quebec native Gus Dugas, who hit .327 with 191 homers in
thirteen minor league seasons. Under manager Frank Shaughnessy, who became
International League president in 1936 and originated the four-club playoff
format many experts credit with saving minor league baseball, the Montreal
Royals won the 1935 pennant.
     Bought by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1940, the Royals won either pennant or
playoffs in ten of the next twenty years. Led by Quebecois Roland Gladu (12
homers, 105 RBIs, .338 batting average) and pitcher Jean Pierre Roy (25-11),
the 1945 club was probably Montreal's favorite, but the 1946 Royals are best
remembered: with them, second baseman Jackie Robinson (.349) broke the
Organized Baseball color line that had prevailed for fifty-five years.
     The color line had already been broken in Quebec by .392-hitting
pitcher/outfielder Fred Wilson, who joined Granby of the then-outlaw
Provincial League for the 1935 stretch run. The Provincial League had
included a Montreal-based all-black entry, the Black Panthers, in 1936 and
1937; was all white again in 1940, during a one-year fling at Organized
Baseball; and was reintegrated in 1946 by minor league hockey star Manny
McIntyre, who signed with Sherbrooke only days after the Dodgers had signed
Robinson and optioned him to Montreal.
     The Provincial League was the longest-running of numerous native Canadian
circuits, many of which owed ancestry to the work of longtime Canadian Pacific
Railway sports representative Joseph Page, who helped set up teams and leagues
wherever the trains stopped. A former semi-pro teammate of Tip O'Neill, Page
was involved with O'Neill in assembling Montreal's 1898 International League
pennant winner. He later enlisted former major league pitcher Jean Dubuc to
help him organize the Eastern Canada League, a.k.a. the Ontario-Quebec-Vermont
League, of 1922-1924. This was an ancestor of three leagues of note, each of
which sent over 100 players to the majors--the Provincial, which had already
come together for single seasons in 1894 and 1900; the Canadian-American
League, which could claim descent from the short lived, Ontario-based Canadian
League of 1885; and the outlaw Northern League that flourished in New York and
Vermont from 1935 to 1952.
     Reorganized a fourth time, the Provincial League grew steadily from 1935
to 1940, was interrupted by World War II, resumed play in 1944, collapsed in
1956 after a disastrous six-year return to Organized Baseball, and struggled
on as an outlaw circuit in 1958-1971. Stars were plentiful, from Quebec
native Sam LaRoque (1900) to Felix Mantilla (1969), but the zenith came in
1948-1949, as the league attracted: black greats who were hoping to prove
themselves against whites, displaced wartime major leaguers, and the so-called
Mexican League Jumpers, who were barred from Organized Baseball in 1946-1950
after breaking their major league contracts in an ill-fated stand against the
reserve clause. At least twenty-five major leaguers played in the Provincial
League during those two years, among them Sal Maglie, Max Lanier, Vic Power,
Gladu and Roy, and Negro League stars Dave Pope, Bus Clarkson, and Quincy
Trouppe.
     The less colorful Can-Am belonged to Organized Baseball from 1936 through
1951. Several of the Ontario teams continued as an outlaw league into the
1960s.
     Page also helped promote the Western Canada League, which began play in
1907, continuing with frequent interruptions and occasional name changes into
the late 1940s, when Edmonton and Calgary anchored the Big Four League. The
Western Canada League's best year was probably 1921, when its stars included
Babe Herman and Heinie Manush.
     Canadian teams have also been part of the bygone Northern Copper Country
League, which later became the Northern League; the Northwestern League and
Western International League, which evolved into today's Northwest League; the
Pacific Coast League; the American Association; the Eastern League; the New
York-Pennsylvania League; and the Pioneer League.
     As well as helping return blacks to Organized Baseball, Canada played a
part in popularizing baseball in Japan, through the Asahis (Rising Suns), a
team of Vancouver teenagers of Japanese descent (Niseis) formed in 1914. In
1921, twelve years after the first visit by a U.S. collegiate team and
thirteen years before the first visit by U.S. major leaguers, the Asahis and a
touring team from Seattle barnstormed Japan, playing both Japanese clubs and
each other. The Asahis remained a power in Vancouver-area amateur baseball
and heroes to the substantial British Columbia Nisei population for over
twenty years.
     Despite the many major leaguers who have played for Canadian teams,
relatively few Canadian natives have made the majors--a reflection of short
summers and a paucity of places to play since television killed the old town
teams and outlaw leagues in the 1950s. (Only one high school baseball team
exists in Quebec; none in several other provinces.)
     High school baseball programs have flourished in the Metro Toronto area
since 1979, when four schools experimented with a short schedule. There are
now close to seventy schools playing a spring schedule that culminates in a
championship game played at the SkyDome, prior to a regular-season Blue Jays
game. The winning team receives the "Blue Jays Cup."
     College baseball was started in 1978, when Seneca College (near Toronto)
joined the NJCAA, New York-Penn Conference, for five seasons and was the
forerunner to the National Baseball Institute (NBI) located in British
Columbia. This college program has produced Canadians now in the major leagues
such as outfielder Kevin Reimer, lefthanded pitchers Steve Wilson and Dennis
Boucher, and Expos outfielder Larry Walker.
     The province of Quebec in 1989 began its own college program, and
patterned after the successful NBI format will eventually prove to be a
breeding ground for future big leaguers.
     Through the 1992 season, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame had
identified a total of 163 Canadian major league players, 4 managers, and 7
umpires. Among them are 86 Ontarians, 18 Quebecois, and 22 Maritimers. Of the
ten Canadian provinces, only Newfoundland hasn't produced a major leaguer.
     Seven players from the late 1800s are listed by most record books as
having been born in the U.S., but are believed to have altered their birth
records for various reasons, including the 1894 Alien Exemption Act, which
barred Canadian athletes from U.S. employment. In addition, several players
who were born abroad actually grew up in Canada, e.g., Hank Biasatti and Reno
Bertoia, natives of Italy but raised in Windsor, Ontario, and Jimmy Archer,
born in Ireland, raised in Toronto, and signed into Organized Baseball from an
independent team in Manitoba.
     Many of the best Canadian players actually grew up in the U.S., among
them infielder Pete Ward, son of former Montreal hockey great Jim Ward, who
learned baseball in Oregon; pitcher Dick Lines, born in Montreal but raised in
Florida; pitcher Kirk McCaskill, born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, but grew up in
Burlington, Vermont; and infielder Sherry Robertson, born in Montreal but
raised in Washington, D.C. (as the nephew of Senators and Twins club owner
Calvin Griffith, who was also born in Montreal but was brought to Washington
in 1921 by Senators owner Clark Griffith, who married Calvin's aunt).
     Pitcher Sheldon Burnside reversed that pattern. Born in South Bend,
Indiana, Burnside grew up in Toronto.
     Not on the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame list are a number of other
special cases. Del Bissonnette and Napoleon Lajoie, for instance, were both
born in the U.S., but were conceived in Quebec by Quebecois parents.
Bissonnette actually spent more of his life in Quebec than anywhere else.
After starring in the Cape Breton Colliery League of New Brunswick,
Bissonnette broke into Organized Baseball by hitting .395 for Cap Madeleine,
Quebec, of the Eastern Canada League. Years later he ended his playing career
with outlaw teams in Quebec City and Iberville. Bissonnette later managed the
Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. Subsequently, as scouts for
the Braves, Bissonnette and his protege Roland Gladu signed half a dozen other
Canadian big leaguers. Mel Hall, born at Lyons, New York, has been a winter
Montrealer since he married a Quebecois airline stewardess several years ago.
Pitcher Lew LaClaire listed his birthplace as Milton, Vermont, but lived in
Farnham, Quebec, where he and his family died in the influenza epidemic of
1918.
     The first Canadian-born major leaguer was first baseman Bill Phillips,
who played for Cleveland, Brooklyn, and Kansas City, from 1879 to 1888. Born
in St. John, New Brunswick, Phillips actually grew up in Chicago.
     Among the 150 to follow Phillips are active players Rob Ducey, Larry
Walker, Kevin Reimer, and Matt Stairs, as well as pitchers Steve Wilson, Kirk
McCaskill, Dennis Boucher, Mike Gardiner, Vince Horsman, Paul Quantrill, and
Rheal Cormier. While the number of players by position are roughly
proportional to the numbers on major league rosters, pitchers have won the
most distinction, perhaps because pitching skills can be developed more
readily in short amateur seasons. Bob Emslie of Guelph, Ontario, was the first
Canadian pitcher of note, and won more games in a big league season than any
other Canadian, posting a 32-17 mark for the 1884 Baltimore Orioles. A poor
start in 1885 sent him back to the minors, with a career major league record
of just 44-44. Emslie returned to the majors, however, as an umpire, serving
thirty-five years before retiring in 1926.
     Only George Washington Stovey won more games in a year in Organized
Baseball than Emslie. Stovey, probably born in Ontario, was among the top
black pitchers of the nineteenth century. A headstrong lefty fireballer,
Stovey fanned 22 men in one game with Bridgeport of the Eastern League in
1886, but lost due to poor control. He set an all-time International League
record with 35 wins for Newark the next year, 1887, then was ousted from
Organized Baseball through the racist efforts of white players including Hall
of Famer Cap Anson and slugger Tip O'Neill, whose refusal to play either with
or against blacks drew the color line firm by 1890.
     O'Neill, born at either Woodstock or Springfield, Ontario, in 1858, was
the best Canadian hitter of his time or ever, batting .326 in a big-league
career that ran from 1883 to 1892. Breaking into the majors with New York as
a pitcher, O'Neill soon switched to the outfield. In 1886 he led the
then-major league American Association in hits, doubles, triples, homers, runs
scored, batting, and slugging. His batting average, at the time, was actually
listed as .492, but 50 walks were counted as hits. Subtracting them, he still
hit .435. Though O'Neill fell to .335 in 1887, he repeated as batting
champion.
     The best Canadian player of all was probably Ferguson Jenkins, a 6'5"
black righthander from Chatham, Ontario, who avenged the injustice done to
Stovey with a 284-226 record over nineteen seasons from 1965 to 1983. At his
peak, Jenkins won 20 games or more seven times in eight years. Noted for
control, Jenkins fanned over three times as many batters as he walked--and led
the NL with 273 whiffs in 1969, retiring ninth on the all-time strikeout list.
He earned the 1971 NL Cy Young Award by leading the league in wins (24),
innings pitched, and, for the third time each, starts and complete games. He
also hit 6 homers that year, one behind the NL record for home runs by a
pitcher.
     Other Canadian pitchers of note include Russ Ford, John Hiller, Reggie
Cleveland, Phil Marchildon, Dick Fowler, Claude Raymond, and Ron Taylor.
Ford, whose older brother also made the big leagues briefly, won 26 games for
the New York Highlanders in 1910, his first full season. Hiller saved a
then-record 38 games in 1973 and won an AL record 17 games in relief the next
year, but is best known for his comeback from a 1971 heart attack. Marchildon
and Fowler were half of the Athletics' rotation during the 1940s. On September
9, 1945, Fowler became the only Canadian to hurl a no-hitter, beating the
Browns 1-0 for his only victory that year after coming back from military
service. Marchildon peaked with 19 wins in 1947. Raymond is remembered as
the first native Quebecois to play for the Expos, but was part of another bit
of baseball trivia in 1959, as one of three Quebecois pitchers who helped
Louisville to the American Association eastern division pennant. (The others
were Georges Maranda and Ron Piche.) Taylor relieved for two World Champions,
the 1964 Cardinals and the 1969 Mets, then became team physician for the
Toronto Blue Jays.
     Other top Canadian hitters were George Selkirk and Jeff Heath. Selkirk,
who replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankees' lineup in 1934, hit .290 over nine
seasons, topping .300 five times and twice driving in more than 100 runs. He
played out the string in the early 1950s as a .300-hitting player-manager for
Quebec City of the Provincial League and, following his retirement as a
player, served as general manager of the Washington Senators for ten years.
Heath, who reputedly never lived up to his potential, averaged .293 over
fourteen years, beginning in 1936, with 194 homers. His best years were 1938
(21-112-.343) and 1941 (24-123-.340). In between he led a player revolt
against Indians manager Oscar Vitt. In his final full year, Heath hit .319
with twenty-four homers, pacing the Braves to the 1948 NL pennant, but broke
his leg sliding during the last week of the season, missing his only chance at
a World Series.
     Canadian managers have included Art Irwin, Freddie Lake, Moon Gibson, and
Bill Watkins, who led the Detroit Wolverines to the 1887 American Association
pennant and had the only winning lifetime record among them.
     Catcher Nig Clarke, from Amherstburg, Ontario, won a spot in the minor
league record books on June 15, 1902, hitting eight homers for Corsicana of
the Texas League in a 51-3 rout of Texarkana. A Corsicana ordinance against
Sunday baseball had forced the teams to play on a youth field at the nearby
town of Ennis. Outfielder Jack Graney, of St. Thomas, Ontario, was reputedly
the first major leaguer to wear a number, and was also both the first hitter
to face Babe Ruth when the latter debuted as a pitcher, and the first
ex-player to become a baseball broadcaster. Outfielder Glen Gorbous, of
Drumheller, Alberta, made the Guinness Book of Records with the longest
measured throw on record. Black pitcher Jimmy Claxton, of New Westminster,
British Columbia, briefly broke the color line by passing as an alleged Native
American with Oakland of the Pacific Coast League in 1916.
     Several Canadian women could also claim to have been major leaguers,
having played in the All-American Girls' Pro Baseball League organized in 1943
by Branch Rickey and Phil Wrigley. The league, the only women's professional
circuit to date, thrived in the Midwest until 1955. First batting champion
was Toronto native Gladys Davis. Catcher-manager and off season fashion model
Mary "Bonnie" Baker of Regina, Alberta, was the league's best-paid player in
1951 and 1952, earning $1,600 a month--more than many men in the National and
American Leagues. Helen Callaghan St. Aubin, of Vancouver, stole 354 bases in
388 games, then became mother of former Expo infielder Casey Candaele. The
three followed a tradition of Canadian women players begun by barnstorming
star Nellie McClung in the 1880s.
     National League baseball finally came to Canada with the expansion
Montreal Expos in 1969. Hoping to get off to a good start, the Expos drafted
mainly veterans, including Maury Wills, who became the only player to appear
with Montreal in both the majors and the minors. Wills was soon traded for
another veteran, Ron Fairly, who had led the University of Edmonton into the
1957 College World Series. A preseason swap of sluggers Donn Clendenon and
Rusty Staub had to be rearranged when Clendenon quit rather than join the
Astros. Clendenon eventually unretired and was swapped to the Mets. The
affair was a landmark in the series of events that led to the overturn of the
reserve clause in 1975. Although the Expos won both their first game and
their home opener (on a home run by pitcher Dan McGinn), they finished last.
No-hitters by Bill Stoneman in 1969 and 1972 were the club high points until
1973. Then, despite a 79-83 record, the Expos were in contention into the
final week, paced by Ken Singleton, Ron Hunt, who set an all-time record by
getting hit with pitches 50 times, rookie Steve Rogers, and reliever Mike
Marshall, who saved 31 games and won 14 in 92 appearances.
     Marshall was promptly traded to the Dodgers for Willie Davis, who staged
a sit-down strike in center field before moving on. Singleton and pitcher
Mike Torrez were sent to the Orioles a year later for former Cy Young Award
winner Dave McNally and outfielder Rich Coggins. A thyroid ailment ended
Coggins' career at age 25, while McNally played the 1975 season without a
contract, then filed one of the two lawsuits that finally broke the reserve
clause (Andy Messersmith of the Dodgers filed the other).
     The Expos regrouped under new manager Dick Williams to win a club record
95 games in 1979. The arrival of young stars including Rogers, Andre Dawson,
Gary Carter, Larry Parrish, Tim Raines, and Tim Wallach led management to bill
the Expos as "The Team of the Eighties". The promise seemed real when the
Expos won a playoff against the Phillies for the NL East title during the
strike-shortened split season of 1981, and were leading the Dodgers 1-0 in the
fifth inning of the final game of the NL Championship Series. But Rick Monday
singled and scored the tying run, then won the game 2-1 with a two-out ninth
inning homer off Rogers, who had come on in relief.
     Toronto appeared ready to enter the National League in 1976 by purchasing
the San Francisco Giants. When that deal fell through at the last minute, the
American League admitted the Blue Jays as an expansion team in 1977. The Blue
Jays drafted for the future, enduring six years in the cellar before winning
89 games to place fourth in 1983.
     Good trades and a strong farm system loaded the lineup with sluggers
George Bell, Jesse Barfield, Lloyd Moseby, and Willie Upshaw, plus
hard-hitting infielders Tony Fernandez and Damaso Garcia, and produced a
perennially strong pitching staff led by Dave Stieb and Jimmy Key. Ernie
Whitt, an expansion draft selection, supplied power behind the plate through
1989. Winning 99 games and the AL East title in 1985, the Jays took a 3-1
lead in the Championship Series against Kansas City, but then dropped three
games in a row to lose. Two years later, bolstered by emerging young longball
hitters Fred McGriff and Kelly Gruber, the Blue Jays had a
three-and-a-half-game lead over the Tigers with a week to play but, after
injuries to Fernandez and Whitt, lost their last six games, including three
one-run decisions to the Tigers on the final weekend.
     The Jays partially redeemed a growing reputation for choking by besting
the Orioles in a season-ending series to win the 1989 AL East, but were
crushed by the Athletics, four games to one, in the Championship Series. The
1990 club started slowly. Closing fast, however, the Blue Jays overtook the
slumping Red Sox with two weeks to play--and lost again, dropping two out of
three games to the Bosox in a last-week direct confrontation.
     By 1991 Canadian baseball really began taking hold. The Blue Jays broke
the 4 million attendance figure for the second straight season. Meanwhile, the
Expos were trying to solidify their precarious financial situation, as
original owner Charles Bronfman put the club on the block. A group headed by
club president Claude Brochu finally purchased the Expos, but had to face the
prospect of losing his ballpark (built only in 1976) as a 50-ton block of
concrete fell from the Olympic Stadium roof. The possibility that the stadium
would be condemned left the Expos to consider relocating to another city, with
Buffalo and St. Petersburg among the contenders. The Expos finished the final
weeks of the season on the road, while all waited for stadium engineering
reports--which proved positive. After extensive repairs were made, Le Stade
Olympique was declared safe, and baseball stayed in Montreal.
     Minor league teams were flourishing in Ontario as the New York-Penn
League featured the Welland Pirates, St. Catherines Blue Jays, and Hamilton
Redbirds and the Eastern League's London Tigers. The Pacific Coast League
included Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary, while the Rookie-Classification
Pioneer League featured a Blue Jays farm club at Medicine Hat, Alberta. By
1994 the Hamilton and London clubs had moved to the States but in 1993 the
International League had awarded a successful expansion franchise to Ottawa.
     As for grass-roots baseball, the Canadian National Under 21 Team won its
first Gold Medal in the Pan-Am Games, defeating the USA in the final.
     The 1991 Blue Jays again won their division, but after giving everyone a
sense of "this is the year," collapsed in the ALCS and lost to Minnesota. The
mood in the Dominion, which by now had declared the Jays "Canada's Team," was
one of despair. The rules of Williamsport's Little League World Series had
recently been changed so that an American team would always be in the final
game . . . maybe, just maybe, there was an unwritten rule about the Major
League Baseball World Series, too, thought weary Canadians.
     Pat Gillick, the mastermind of the Blue Jays, had been stuck by media and
fans with the tag "Stand Pat," reflecting opinion that he was overly cautious.
The 1991 winter meetings changed all that as Gillick pulled off one of the
biggest trades ever made. He swapped the Blue Jays' leading hitter and RBI
man, Fred McGriff, along with slick-fielding shortstop Tony Fernandez to the
Padres for outfielder Joe Carter and future All-Star second baseman Robby
Alomar. Now the gloves were off, and the owners' purse strings were loosened.
Gillick proceeded to sign free agents Jack Morris (who had pitched brilliantly
in leading the Twins to the World Championship in 1991) and Dave Winfield (who
everyone thought was over the hill). With a 1992 payroll of $41 million, the
Blue Jays were determined to crash the World Series.
     Toronto held off the stubborn Baltimore Orioles, who faded in September,
and the Milwaukee Brewers to capture the AL East. Led by Morris' 21 wins and
a bullpen with baseball's best closer tandem, Duane Ward and Tom Henke, the
Jays remained in first place for all but a few days in May. Forty-one-year old
Dave Winfield was the oldest player in to knock in over 100 runs in a season.
With 28 homers, he proved to be the spark that ignited the Jays. In the ALCS,
Toronto defeated the Oakland A's in six games to capture the pennant.
     In the World Series, after splitting the first two games in Atlanta,
Canada was in a frenzy as the Blue Jays went up 3 games to 1. Jack Morris took
the mound for the Jays in Game 5. How could they lose? But lose they did, as
the Braves' Lonnie Smith hammered a grand slam off Morris in the fifth inning.
     Hysteria set in. The press screamed, "Here we go ago! Choke! The Blue
Jays are choking!" Remember 1985 and the Royals, was the chant, when the Jays
were up 3 games to 1 and lost. Blown out by the A's and Twins and Tigers when
they were so close. All the seasons past were coming back to haunt the Blue
Jays of 1992.
     Game Six became one of the most exciting World Series contests ever.
Leading 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth, the Jays brought in top closer
Tom Henke. The Toronto bullpen had been near perfect throughout the Series.
But not this time. The Braves tied the score to force extra innings.
     The top of the eleventh brought Dave Winfield to the plate with runners
on first and second. The rest is history. The Blue Jays' 1992 slogans--"Three
for Three" and "Win with Winfield"--all came together when Winfield doubled
down the left field line, putting Toronto up by two runs. Reliever Mike Timlin
held off an Atlanta rally that brought them to within one run of prolonging
the game. The Blue Jays beat the Braves 4 to 3, and could now be called world
champions.
     Disgruntled Americans asked: How many Canadians were on the Blue Jays
anyway? Yes, the players were either American, Dominican, Puerto Rican, or
other non-Canadians. But just as the National Hockey League is made up of
mostly Canadians and Europeans, it doesn't matter. The 1992 Blue Jays were
Canada's team, and followed up by re-capturing the World Championship in 1993.
     Almost immediately following the last out of the 1992 Fall Classic, a
remarkable purging of the 1992 championship team occurred. Gone were Dave
Winfield, Jimmie Key, Kelly Gruber, Candy Maldonado, Manny Lee, David Cone,
and Tom Henke. But the Jays resigned slugger Joe Carter, attracted free agents
Dave Stewart and Paul Molitor and, remarkably, remained favorites in the
American League East. In a season highlighted by John Olerud's attempt to
break the .400 barrier, the Blue Jays not only justified the prognosticators'
confidence by capturing the division race, but also defeated the American
League MVP Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas and his Chicago White Sox in the ALCS.
Facing the scruffy Phils in the World Series, Toronto triumphed once more on
Carter's Series-ending Game Six homer off Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams.
     In recognition of their achievement, Baseball America named the Blue Jays
the "Major League Organization of the Year." The runner-up? The Montreal
Expos, who else?

     [Thanks for research help to Eves Raja; Bill
Humber; Donald Guay; and the Brome County Historical Society.]



{Honored Members of The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame}
Inducted    Name/Career Facts
---------------------------------------------------------------
  1990      Archer, Jimmy: Pit-N 1904, 1918; Det-A 1907;
            Chi-N 1909-17; Bro-N 1918; Cin-N 1918
  1988      Bertoia, Reno Peter: Det-A 1953-58, 1961-62;
            Was-A 1959-60; Min-A 1961; KC-A 1961
  1984      Bilesky, Andy: Little League coach
  1988      Bowsfield, Ted: Bos-A 1958-60; Cle-A 1960; LA-A
            1961-62; KC-A 1963-64
  1984      Bronfman, Charles: executive
  1989      Brown, Bob: minor league player, executive and
            club owner
  1992      Burgess, Thomas (Tim): StL-N 1954; LA-A 1962, minor
            league manager 1964-1989
  1985      Bush, Carmen: amateur player, coach, manager,
            umpire and administrator
  1986      Cleveland, Reggie: StL-N 1969-73; Bos-A
            1974-78; Tex-A 1978; Mil-A 1979-81
  1985      Cooke, Jack Kent: minor league owner and
            executive
  1983      Ducey, John: amateur player, minor league
            umpire and administrator
  1986      Emslie, Bob: Bal-A 1883-85; NL umpire 1891-1924
  1987      Ford, Russell William: NY-A 1909-13; Buf-F
            1914-15
  1985      Fowler, Dick: Phi-A 1941-42, 1945-52
  1987      Gibson, George "Moonie": Pit-N 1905-16; NY-N
            1917-18
  1984      Graney, Jack: Cle-A 1908-22; broadcaster Cle-A
            1932-53
  1988      Heath, Jeff: Cle-A 1936-45; Was-A 1946; StL-A
            1946-47; Bos-N 1948-49
  1985      Hiller, John: Det-A 1965-70, 1972-80
  1989      Irwin, Arthur: Wor-N 1880-82; Pro-N 1883-85;
            Phi-N 1886-89, 1894; Was-N 1889; Bos-P 1890;
            Bos-A 1891
  1987      Jenkins, Ferguson: Phi-N 1965-66; Chi-N
            1966-73, 1982-83; Tex-A 1974-75, 1978-81; Bos-A
            1976-77
  1985      Judd, Thomas "Lefty": Bos-A 1941-45; Phi-A
            1945-48
  1983      Marchildon, Phil: Phi-A 1940-42, 1945-49; Bos-A
            1950
  1987      Nelson, Glenn "Rocky": StL-N 1949-51, 1956;
            Tor-IL 1951, 1958, 1962; Pit-N 1951, 1959-61;
            Chi-A 1951; Bro-N 1952, 1956; Mon-IL 1952-56;
            Cle-A 1954
  1983      O'Neill, James "Tip": NY-N 1883; StL-A
            1884-1889; Chi-P 1890; Cin-N 1892
  1983      Pearson, Lester B.: (Honorary Inductee) amateur
            player; former Prime Minister of Canada
  1988      Phillips, Bill: Cle-N 1879-84; Bro-A 1885-87;
            KC-A 1888
  1988      Piche, Ron: Mil-A 1960-63; Cal-A 1965; StL-N
            1966
  1986      Prentice, Bobby: minor league player and scout
  1984      Raymond, Claude: Chi-A 1959; Mil-N 1961-63;
            Hou-N 1964-67; Atl-N 1967-69; Mon-N 1969-71
  1991      Robinson, Jackie: Montreal Royals, International
            League, 1946; Bro-N 1947-56
  1984      Rosen, Goody: Bro-N 1937-39, 1944-46; NY-N 1946
  1983      Selkirk, George "Twinkletoes": NY-A 1934-42
  1983      Shaughnessy, Sr., Frank "Shag": minor league
            administrator and executive
  1985      Taylor, Ron: Cle-A 1962; StL-N 1963-65; Hou-N
            1965-66; NY-N 1967-71; SD-N 1972
  1991      Ward, Peter: Bal-A 1962; Chi-A 1963-69; NY-A 1970
  1991      Williams, Jimmy: LA, Pacific Coast League, 1947-1964; minor
            league manager, 17 seasons; major league coach,
            Hou-N 1975; Bal-A 1981-1987