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.) Of the ten Canadian provinces, only Newfoundland hasn't produced
a major leaguer.
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
Canadian major leaguers including outfielders Kevin Reimer and Larry Walker, plus
lefthanded pitchers Steve Wilson and Dennis Boucher.
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, who 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.
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.
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"
right-hander from
Chatham, Ontario, who compiled a 284-226 record over nineteen seasons from 1965 to 1983.
At his peak, Jenkins (the only Canadian-born Hall of Famer 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. 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 later served for ten years as general manager of the Washington Senators. 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 AA pennant.
Catcher Nig Clarke, from Amhurstburg, 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. 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
