Introduction: Ottawa Baseball From 1865 to 2025

Spring in Ottawa Taunts. It teases and tantalizes, offering its charms in unexpected bursts, only to pull back its promise with cruel wintry blasts that test endurance and resilience. In January, spring is merely a concept, but as the days come off the calendar, there is cause for hope, perhaps distant, but hope, nonetheless.

There is but one sound, however, that can definitively prove that renewal is at hand. Well, a few sounds actually—the crack of the bat, the pop of the mitt, and the shouts of “let’s turn two.”

It has been thus in the nation’s capital for more than 150 years, even as much of the world thinks of this northern post as a town consumed by hockey, or, intermittently, Canadian football. Baseball’s formal appearance, like early spring, has sometimes come in intermittent bursts, but baseball has been woven into the fabric of the city and, while professional players and teams have come and gone, quality hardball has always been played here, the combatants lionized and celebrated in the local press for years. A more pedestrian quality of ball continues to be played out in sandlots named Hampton (nestled behind a Food Basics), Brewer, Britannia, and Clarington. A parade of pros have come and gone through the years, but the amateurs have consistently kept the love alive.

Just don’t expect to be sliding into second during April, at least without first clearing away the remnants of stubborn, grey snowbanks and other undesirable winter detritus that may litter the basepaths late into the month. In fact, the city in 2024 asked teams to stay off the playing surface of local diamonds until May 15.1

But, oh, it’s worth the wait. History has proven that the wait has always borne fruit in Ottawa. History has also shown that while Montreal and Toronto have hit the big leagues,2 Ottawa is no poor cousin when it comes to homegrown baseball enthusiasm, even though it has never received a promotion from Triple A. Yes, early-season rain and late-season frost were unwelcome features of an Ottawa baseball season, but fans simply endured rainouts in April and May and donned heavy coats for September playoffs. Premiers, prime ministers, future prime ministers, and visiting royalty all turned up for various opening days, and Ottawans embraced their local baseball heroes, even though for much of the twentieth century that embrace was good only Monday-Saturday. Ottawa voters were determined that Sunday was no day for home runs or double plays, or sports of any kind, for that matter.

The city has witnessed extraordinary baseball skill, even if the likes of Bill Metzig, Urban Shocker, Frank “Shag” Shaughnessy, and F.P. Santangelo are today little remembered. Metzig had two major-league hits, filling his stat sheet with a single run scored and batted in,3 but excelled in Ottawa as a player-manager. Shaughnessy was simultaneously player-manager of the Ottawa Senators of the Canadian Baseball League Class-B entry, coached the McGill University football team to a championship, and was the business manager for the Ontario Hockey Association. He hit .340 for the Senators in 19134 and would go on to be president of the International League from 1936 to 1960. Shocker racked up 39 wins in Ottawa in two years before graduating to fame with the New York Yankees and St. Louis Browns, while Santangelo became an icon of the Triple-A Lynx over four years and 347 games, taking the team’s first at-bat in 1993 and scoring its first run, and winning over fans with his blue-collar style of play, becoming the first Lynx player to have his jersey retired.5 When he finally graduated to the parent Montreal Expos in 1996, he finished fourth in Rookie of the Year balloting.6

Baseball in Ottawa got off to a rather rough start, to be sure. The first nine an Ottawa side ever sent over the white lines did not particularly distinguish themselves, falling to a team from Ogdensburg in Upstate New York in 1867 by a count of 141-20.7 The Senators debuted in Ottawa as the first professional team when the Rochester, New York, Eastern League team relocated to the capital midway through the 1898 season and lost their first home game on July 15 by a score of 8-1. Nearly 2,500 enthusiastic fans filled the grandstand, “many of them ladies.”8 But the Senators finished last and decamped from the capital in November of that year, making Ottawa’s first professional foray one that could be counted in weeks. They lost 14 of their final 15 games, despite the efforts of “Quiet” Joe Knight, a .338 hitter from Port Stanley, Ontario, who went to hit .312 for the 1890 Cincinnati Reds and is enshrined in the International League Hall of Fame.9

In 1906, the Northern Independent League, an outlaw circuit which operated outside the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, became a five-team loop with the addition of Ottawa as its only Canadian entrant. Again, the professional experience in the national capital was brief and the Ottawans folded after 34 games, citing debts of at least $5,000, claiming losses of $700 per week.10 Yet fans were able to watch some extremely high caliber baseball with catcher “Red” Murray and center fielder Ray Demmitt leading the way among five future major leaguers on its roster. Murray bolted for the St. Louis Cardinals midseason.11

Another quick exit sparked a local debate: was Ottawa really a lacrosse town, not a baseball town? The debate had fierce adherents on either side, and both sides often competed for field space and playing time. But, perhaps baseball had a leg up when it came to the fanaticism of its hard core “cranks,” who go temporarily insane during the season (but they do recover).12 Still, with two very brief forays into professional baseball both over in a blink, another attempt, this time with the Ottawa Senators of the Canadian League in 1912, was greeted with some skepticism—but not by the local newspaper. “Ottawa Has Never Fallen Down as a Good Baseball ‘Town,’’’ the Ottawa Citizen proclaimed, as it assessed the prospects for the Senators.13

This time the operators had invested $5,000 in the team and expected to spend $2,500 per month, “a big outlay” as the paper noted. But those who pointed to the Eastern and Northern League failures were wasting their energy, the unbylined story protested. Everyone knew Ottawa was a lacrosse town when the 1898 Senators moseyed into town from Rochester, but still baseball drew well. The author argued the Ottawa outlaw team was a victim of incompetent management that couldn’t draw crowds on the road. This time, they would not have to pay any player more than $300, compared to the outrageous $700 in salaries in the Independent League and besides “there is a big baseball boom in Ottawa just now and the city is far more advanced in a sporting sense than it was five years ago.”14

Hopes were high. Thousands were expected to attend the Canadian League opener in 1912, with fireworks and an automobile parade scheduled, and the players were invited to a theatre opening, a horse show and a civic lunch, all part of Ottawa’s baseball “epidemic.”15 “I have been in professional baseball nine years and it has never been my good fortune to come in contact with such a gentlemanly lot of players,” manager Louie Cook declared of his Class-D squad on the eve of the opener in St. Thomas, Ontario.16 Whether it was their gentlemanly demeanor or their diamond skills, Cook was correct. This iteration of the Senators went 63-35 in its first year and only got better from there during its four-year run, winning four championships, even after the league graduated to Class-B status in 1914.

Such was the popularity of the Senators that Opening Day 1914 was attended by Prime Minister Robert Borden and the former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier. Their season opener in St. Thomas, Ontario, was attended by the Duke of Connaught.17 The Senators were led by their dominant spitballer Urban Shocker who won 39 games over the 1914-15 seasons before joining the New York Yankees and becoming an elite major-league pitcher who won 27 games in 1921 for the St. Louis Browns and became a member of two Yankees World Series champions, including the legendary 1927 team. He did not pitch in that World Series, but he won 18 games for the team while pitching through serious health concerns and tragically he died of heart disease the following year at the age of 37.

The 1914 season had been clouded by war and the Senators’ exploits were eclipsed by events of more mortal foreboding. A scaled-back league operated in 1915 and the Senators easily won their fourth consecutive pennant but when the 1916 league was suspended during World War I, the league, and that iteration of the Senators, never operated again.

In the ensuing years, professional baseball was played in Ottawa by teams called (again) the Senators (1922 Class B) and the Canadiens (with almost all home games played in Montreal, 192318), the Ottawa-Hull Senators of the Quebec-Ontario-Vermont League (1924), again the Senators of the Canadian-American League (1936), the Braves (1937-38), again the Senators (1939), and the Ottawa-Ogdensburg (New York) Senators in the 1940 Can-Am League.

Success was often elusive. The 1936 team had fallen $4,500 in the red and the team had to be disbanded on the account of the players’ hefty salaries, said manager Clair Forster.19 Forster scouted and signed 15 players and kept the former Senators in the Canadian-American League, now reconstituted as the Braves, and their first workout of the season, on May 3, 1937 was attended by a couple hundred curious onlookers.20 They didn’t draw much more than that during the season, an average of 298 per game to see the Braves finish last with a record of 32-75. The following year, they went 38-83 and entertained 410 per game (at 30 cents per adult admission, tax included).21 As many as 1,500 attended a late May doubleheader, but the Braves were shut out twice by Oswego dropping to last place and the newspaper predicted a swift drop off in attendance if the team could not turn things around. They couldn’t.22

By December of 1939, the owners of the Ottawa entrant in the Canadian-American League were preparing to move the team to Oneonta, New York, for play the following season. Although they promised to protect the Ottawa “identity” in the league and potentially play a handful of 1940 games there, they cited a lack of playing grounds in Ottawa, the “international situation,” and the exchange rate as reasons for the move.23 The plan was further revised to split games between Ottawa and Ogdensburg, New York, and the team stormed to the pennant, but drew only 718 per game in Ottawa, playing in a Lansdowne Park without lights.24 War eventually intervened and instead of baseball, Lansdowne Park was needed as a drill grounds for Canadian soldiers as World War II interrupted baseball in the nation’s capital.

In 1947, local sports promoter Tommy Gorman decided it was time for a return to professional baseball in Ottawa, this time a franchise in the Border League, a short run marked by success on the field and huge popularity in the city. The first-year Nationals were led by manager Paul Dean, the former St. Louis “fireball flinger” who even made a return to the mound for the Senators on June 4, 1947 against the Ogdensburg Maples.25 His debut drew plenty of advance skepticism, but he threw six innings and gave up four runs (only one earned) on four hits, but left trailing 4-0 before the Nationals rallied twice, in the bottom of the ninth and 10th, to pull out a 7-5 victory in “probably the most dramatic finish ever witnessed in local baseball.”26 Some 4,000 fans attended the game at Lansdowne Park. Dean had burst on to the major-league scene with back-to-back 19-win seasons before he was 23. At the age of 21, he threw a no-hitter and won two World Series games. He would, however, manage only 12 more wins and be out of baseball by the age of 30. In their prime, Dean, known as “Daffy,” a moniker he detested, teamed with renowned brother “Dizzy” to create one of the most famous brother acts of the day. They took their act to vaudeville and starred in a movie (playing themselves) with Shemp Howard, who would go on to fame with The Three Stooges.27

Thirteen years before his arrival in Ottawa, Paul Dean reminded reporters of 1934 when he won 20 games for the St. Louis Cardinals (he exaggerated his total by one) and his brother won 30. Dean’s squad won its opener 6-3 over the Ogdensburg Maples,28 and never really looked back, but Dean decided he had to return to Little Rock, Arkansas, in September (with the Nationals in a tense playoff tussle with the Maples) because of business concerns – according to the team, at least. As Gorman put it, Dean was “anxious to return to his home where he had trouble over his business interests that had been turned over to another individual for management.”29

Second baseman Bill Metzig, the on-field leader of the team, deemed Dean “a swell guy,” who might return the following season. But Metzig was now leading the team on and off the field and he was speaking after the Nationals won the Border League championship in Dean’s absence – and before signing a ball for the reporter.30 According to Dean’s SABR biography, however, his departure was more likely tied to editorial carping in the Ottawa newspaper about whether Lansdowne Park should be used for professional baseball. “You-all can’t run a ballclub with opposition like that from the editorial page,” he told The Sporting News.31 Indeed, debate over the use of Lansdowne Park as a venue for a pro team of U.S. players, as opposed to its use as a recreation center for amateur athletes, had played out on the editorial pages and at city council all season long. Days before Dean departed to tend to his Arkansas “business ventures,” the Ottawa Citizen had weighed in, saying professional baseball should not be played at Lansdowne. “Baseball is a popular game and there is every reason why professional baseball should be played here,” its editorialists said. “But professional ball should not be allowed to monopolize the one, big city-owned park to the virtual exclusion of the thousands of amateurs – Ottawa’s younger citizens – who could make far beneficial use of it. ‘Pro’ ball is fine – in its place. But its place is some stadium other than Lansdowne.”32 The editorial might have seemed at odds with the popularity of the team that played out of Lansdowne, but the use of that park, its condition, and its use on Sunday was an issue through consecutive iterations of professional baseball in Ottawa.

Dean’s return to Little Rock ushered in the managerial era of Metzig, another Little Rock refugee. He was no returning major-league star, but his performance in Ottawa as player-manager was astonishing. As a major leaguer, Metzig, a late-season call-up to a woeful Chicago White Sox squad that finished seventh in the eight-team American League, managed two hits and a single run batted in over five games and 17 plate appearances in 1944. His debut on September 19 of that year resulted in an 0-4 with two strikeouts against Philadelphia A’s pitchers Jesse Flores and Carl Scheib. But as manager of the Nationals, who became known as “the Metzigmen,” from 1948-50 he won 228 games and lost only 156, finishing first twice and second once, although a league championship eluded him. In four years with the Nationals, including three as player-manager, he never hit below .317 and twice drove in more than 100 runs. He also became a man about town, hobnobbing with a young Frank Sinatra, discussing the prospects for the New York Giants and receiving regrets from “The Voice” that he couldn’t stay in town to watch Metzig’s boys on the diamond.33

His squad was boosted by Doug Harvey, the hockey hall-of-famer, who in 1949 led the Border League in batting average, runs, and RBIs and ultimately chose the rink over the diamond, turning down a professional offer from the Boston Braves.34 The 1950 team had to play through the tragedy of the death in a car crash of 23-year-old Bob Larkin in July of that year. Larkin was traveling back to Ottawa from Watertown, New York, with four teammates when an army vehicle driving on the wrong side of the road hit their car.35 It injured four other Nats, the team had to endure the usual 15-game road trip while the Central Canada Exhibition took over their Lansdowne Park home, and Metzig still steered them to the pennant on the final day of the season. “It is a remarkable team achievement and Metzig, the bespectacled chap who doubles as manager and second baseman, is entitled to orchards for a job well done,” enthused Jack Koffman of the Citizen.36 The team drew more than 100,000 fans that year, but it was to be the Border League swan song in the capital. Better days were ahead, though. Baseball at the Triple-A level was coming back to Ottawa for the first time since 1898.

The Border League Nationals moved to Cornwall, Ontario (quickly leading to the demise of the league), and the Jersey City Giants were headed to the capital to become the Ottawa Giants of the International League. Poor attendance in Jersey City was blamed on TV. Too many major-league games being beamed in from New York kept fans out of the park, something that was not expected to be a problem in Ottawa. Distractions were fewer in the capital and TV was not yet “underway” in Canada, as the Citizen explained, and when it arrives, Ottawa will be out of range of any American stations.37

Ottawa typically showed its love for its Triple-A orphans, with 7,469 pouring through the Lansdowne Park turnstiles on opening day. It had been set back a day by rain, of course, but the faithful were there to marvel at the new electric scoreboard and watch External Affairs Minister (and future Prime Minister) Lester Pearson bloop a foul down the right-field line on a pitch by Ottawa Mayor Grenville Goodwin in an unorthodox opening ceremony as the Giants beat the Springfield Cubs 5-3.38 But the love was not fully returned by the parent New York Giants who provided Ottawa with a light-hitting, lackluster squad that escaped the basement that year by a scant half-game. The Giants lavished much more attention on their other Triple-A affiliate, the Minneapolis Millers, where they sent a 19-year-old Willie Mays in 1951.39 Mere weeks after opening day, rumors began circulating that the Giants would pull out of Ottawa and consolidate their top farm team in Minnesota, part of a trend of such contraction at the minor-league level already underway. When the Giants finally cut ties, they complained about the facilities at Lansdowne (inferior lighting) and a ban on Sunday baseball that had hampered Ottawa baseball entrants for years.40

With the Ottawa franchise rumored to be headed to Newark, New Jersey, capital baseball fans were thrown a lifeline when the Giants team was purchased by the American League Philadelphia Athletics. The A’s vowed stability, a competitive team in 1952 and even promised fans that, unlike the Giants, they would leave top performers on the Ottawa squad for the enjoyment of fans all season long. “We’re not here on a fly-by-night proposition,” promised Philadelphia general manager Arthur Ehlers.41 The best the “Little A’s” could do was to clinch seventh place in the eight-team league on the final day of the season, but not before police charged the team with illegally running a lottery in a “pot of gold” promotion in which an unsuspecting 18-year-old girl carted away an estimated $350 in nickels, a fitting capper on a disappointing season.42 At year’s end, the Athletics also let it be known they hoped Ottawans voted to allow Sunday sports in an upcoming vote, so the home team would not have to travel to play on Sundays for another season. But Ottawa voters had other ideas, decisively backing a Sunday sports ban in a December plebiscite, an ongoing obstacle and portent of things to come for professional baseball in the nation’s capital.43

The following year was no better for the A’s and by 1954 attendance plummeted as the team staggered to a record of 58-96. In 1952 the A’s had drawn 153,152 fans.44 In 1954 they drew 93,982.45 The club’s future was indeed clouded from early in the season. “Toronto sports writers have expressed the opinion that Ottawa fans must be the keenest in America to total approximately 120,000 for the season with a trailing team,” wrote the columnist Tommy Shields.46 (Shields inflated the attendance in his column). But there were larger issues out of Ottawa’s control. The parent A’s packed up and moved to Kansas City, Missouri,47 and after persistent rumors that the “Little A’s’’ were headed to Miami, the new Kansas City operation, citing the lack of Sunday baseball and poor conditions at Lansdowne Park, announced the Ottawa Athletics were headed to Columbus, Ohio. Ottawa Mayor Charlotte Whitton dismissed complaints about lack of Sunday baseball and its role in the demise of professional baseball in her city, saying the Athletics had second-rate players who couldn’t play any better on a Sunday than a weekday.48

It would take 39 long years, and a much more supportive mayor, Jim Durrell49, but Triple-A baseball finally returned in the name of the Lynx on April 17, 1993, and, of course, once more the Ottawa reception was rapturous. A capacity crowd of 10,332 packed newly-built (and not totally finished) JetForm Stadium, this time a park with good lighting that would open its gates on a Sunday.50 Some things never changed. It rained. Ottawa loved their team and set an eye-popping International League attendance record of 674,258.51 And, like every other Triple-A franchise, the Lynx eventually departed, on September 3, 2007, when 7,468 bid the team adieu. It had survived much longer than any other baseball franchise in the nation’s capital. It was a beautiful Labor Day afternoon. For once, no one shivered at a September Ottawa baseball game. As the headline read, “Another one bites the dust.”52

Soon to follow were teams with names like Voyageurs (nee Rapidz), Fat Cats, Champions, and Titans, but the spirit of baseball in Ottawa did not ebb and flow with its visiting pros. It never wavered on its ball diamonds and sandlots, or wherever some white chalk could mark the batter’s box and the foul lines.

Amateur baseball in Ottawa featured everything from excellence to “scandals.” One squad in the nation’s capital which began in 1882 before disbanding in 1887 never suffered the agony of defeat, holding the Central Canada title and vanquishing all challengers from northern New York state over the five years, at least based on the memories shared by fans years later. All players were Ottawans, except one Toronto interloper – the catcher Sam Reid – and included third baseman Billy Kehoe, who was known nationally for his football skills. Second baseman Dick Wheatley was an acrobat of some skill who thrilled his fans with a handspring as he took the field before each game (an early-day Ozzie Smith, it would seem) and road trips and equipment were financed by a passing of the hat to spectators at games. It was an era, a letter writer told the Citizen, “when good fellows got together and played games in a clean and manly way for the fun that was in it and the athletic fame of the home town.”53

In 1920, the city’s “baseball scandal,” more properly classified as a misunderstanding, erupted over the true recipient of the Lyall Cup, presented by William Lyall of the athletic association which bore his name. His team won the 1919 cup and held onto it as the league disbanded. But a rival league had not disbanded and the cup had been played for and won by the Strathcona Club. The league demanded the cup be presented to Strathcona and the dispute had led to county court while a wise Judge Gunn ruled in favor of the rival league, calling for cool heads on both sides and giving thanks that no money was found under the pillows of any of the disputants.54

And what about that bitter rivalry in the Senior League of 1925 between Montagnard and the Rideau Aquatic Club who met for the best-of-five final at Lansdowne Park in August of that year? It featured a match-up of star center fielders, the Montagnards’ Clyde Moran, who hit a lusty .571 on the season and was deemed “one of the finest judges of fly balls in the city,” and his counterpart Bert McInenly of the Rideaus, who similarly played errorless ball on the season and showcased his burning speed. But despite the hype for this heavyweight battle, the newspaper account of the day somewhat grudgingly conceded the series would end a “hard struggle” for a league that dealt with diminishing attendance – but always managed to complete their games.55 Rosters in this era were perpetually in flux when life intruded. A star pitcher might choose pro hockey, a slugger might move to the gridiron, and love for a woman might move a shortstop to another town. But some teams lost stalwarts to the pro wrestling circuit, or to the railway.56

But the constant thread to Ottawa’s baseball history are the sandlots. These leagues were populated by illustrious team names like Kerwin Realty, a number of local pizzerias, even the Slide Rulers (yes, the Slide Rulers) and the bitter rivalry between teams sponsored by two competing Westboro pubs, Whispers and Puzzles, would usually come to a dramatic climax in a late September showdown. This was the league where the home-run hitter had to retrieve the ball after his home-run trot, sometimes competing with an off-leash dog, where the definition of sheer terror occasionally awaited hitter, catcher, and umpire, all of whom would have to dive for cover as the automatic Hampton Park lights went off at 11 P.M. with a fastball in mid-route.

These were the leagues where after three consecutive home runs pinged off the roof of the change hut in the playground far beyond the left-field fence at Hampton, the little lefty hurler in the subsequent mound visit barked that the outfielders had to play deeper. There was the autumn night at Brewer Park when the veteran pitcher took a comebacker off the face on a poorly-lit diamond, spit out a couple of teeth and suggested infielders tending to his well-being get their asses back to their position and mind their own business. It was the league where a second baseman could be a national television correspondent, preparing a piece on time management, who brought a film and sound crew out to film him and the shortstop working on double plays one evening, and when that keystone duo glanced at their wide-eyed opponents watching the film crew at its work, they knew they had them, at least that night. Those Whispers-Puzzles games were never immortalized in the public prints like the Montagnard-Rideau tilts, but they took no back seat in intensity.

Ottawa, a lacrosse town, you say? Today, it is to laugh. Ottawa, a northern outpost where hockey rules? The evidence strongly suggests otherwise. Urban Shocker could have told you that.

TIM HARPER interspersed baseball coverage with a long career as a political reporter at the Ottawa Citizen and Toronto Star, reporting on the Montreal Expos, the Toronto Blue Jays and the birth of the Washington Nationals, successor to his beloved Expos. He covered postseason series in New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Kansas City and traveled to the Dominican Republic to chronicle the roots of Dominican stars for the Jays. Labour strife book-ended his baseball writing, beginning with a trip to West Palm Beach to cover the Expos’ training camp for the second half of the 1981 season divided by a strike, then becoming the Star’s Jays beat writer in 1994 when he was dealt the ultimate bad hop—the premature end of the season and the cancellation of that year’s World Series due to a players’ strike. Tim lives in Toronto.

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SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com.

 

NOTES

1 City of Ottawa press release: https://ottawa.ca/en/recreation-and-parks/facilities/outdoor-recreation.

2 The Montreal Expos were in the National League from 1969 to 2004 and the Toronto Blue Jays have been in the American League since 1977. Ottawa has been home to Triple-A (or equivalent) franchises three times: 1898, 1951-1954, and 1993-2007. The 1898 team was Class A, but that was the highest minor-league level at the time.

3 “William Metzig,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/metziwi01.shtml. Accessed February 26, 2024.

4 “Who’s Who on Ottawa team of 1914, Senators Strong in Every Department,” Ottawa Citizen, May 13, 1914: 9.

5 Wayne Scanlan, “Lynx Pay Homage to Saint,” Ottawa Citizen, June 9, 1998: 26.

6 Associated Press, “Hollandsworth Adds To Dodgers’ Top Rookie Roll,” Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 1996: 30.

7 Daily Journal, Ogdensburg, New York, August 31, 1867: 3.

8 “Lost the First,” Ottawa Journal, July 16, 1898: 6.

9 “Ottawa Wanderers,” Baseball Reference Bullpen, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Ottawa_Wanderers. Accessed March 4, 2024.

10 “Baseball Club Is Disbanded,” Ottawa Citizen, August 21, 1906: 8.

11 Gary Belleville, “July 12, 1906: Frank Shaughnessy Leads Ottawa to Victory in outlaw Northern Independent League,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-12-1906-frank-shaughnessy-leads-ottawa-to-victory-in-outlaw-northern-independent-league/, accessed February 26, 2024.

12 Hugh S. Fullerton, “Baseball Fans Usually Crazy,” Ottawa Citizen, May 19, 1906: 17.

13 “Ottawa Has Never Fallen Down as a Good Baseball ‘Town’,” Ottawa Citizen, May 4, 1912: 9.

14 “Ottawa Has Never Fallen Down as a Good Baseball ‘Town’.”

15 “Rousing Reception Now Assured for Members of Ottawa Ball Club,” Ottawa Citizen, May 9, 1912: 8.

16 “Rousing Reception Now Assured for Members of Ottawa Ball Club.”

17 “Duke of Connaught Will Likely Attend Opening of Canadian League Season,” Ottawa Citizen, May 1, 1914: 8.

18 Gary Belleville, “May 24, 1922: Ottawa Senators’ Fred Frankhouse tosses 14-inning complete-game win over Trois-Rivières,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/may-24-1922-ottawa-senators-fred-frankhouse-tosses-14-inning-complete-game-win-over-trois-rivieres/, accessed July 9, 2024.

19 “Manager Forster Replies to Larry Gardner’s Letter,” Letter to the Editor, Ottawa Citizen, June 17, 1937: 11.

20 “Fifteen Ball Players Attend Ottawa Braves’ First Workout,” Ottawa Citizen, May 4, 1937: 11.

21 Statscrew.com, https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/leaders/t-ob13563, accessed April 11, 2024.

22 Tommy Shields, “Something Wrong,” Ottawa Citizen, May 30, 1938, 10.

23 “Ottawa Club Retains Identity in Canadian-American League,” Ottawa Citizen, December 13, 1939, 10.

24 “Senators Move to Amsterdam After Monday Game Postponed,” Ottawa Journal, September 10, 1940, 17.

25 “Here Comes Paul!” Ottawa Citizen, June 7, 1947: 22.

26 Tommy Shields, “Homers By Metzig and Riley Win Thriller,” Ottawa Citizen, June 9, 1947, 18.

27 Paul Geisler Jr., “Paul Dean,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/paul-dean/, accessed April 13, 2024.

28 Tommy Shields, “Nationals Open With 6-3 Victory,” Ottawa Citizen, May 15, 1947: 23.

29 “Dean Leaves, Metzig Boss,” Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 1947: 18.

30 Don Mackintosh, “Nationals Win Border Baseball Championship,” Ottawa Citizen, September 25, 1947: 22.

31 Austin F. Cross, “Dean’s Run-Out During Playoffs at Ottawa Laid to Editorial Rap,” The Sporting News, October 22, 1947: 25.

32 “Baseball – In Its Place,” Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 1947: 30.

33 Jack Koffman, “Joining the Sinatra Club,” Ottawa Citizen, July 9, 1949: 14.

34 Harvey’s NHL career spanned three decades. He was seven times voted the league’s top defenseman and he won six Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1973.

35 “Bob Larkin’s Tragic Death Big Shock to Baseball Fans,” Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 1950: 1.

36 Jack Koffman, “A Thrilling Baseball Jamboree,” Ottawa Citizen, September 9, 1950: 20.

37 Canadian Press, “Ottawa Gets Jersey Baseball Rights,” Ottawa Citizen, December 6, 1950: 1.

38 Gordon Ryan, “Giants ‘At Home’ on Lansdowne Diamond,” Ottawa Journal, April 27, 1951: 26.

39 Mays did not stay in Minneapolis for long, getting the call to the parent Giants after only 35 games in Minnesota, during which time he hit .477.

40 “New York Giants Cut Ottawa Link,” Ottawa Citizen, November 9, 1951: 1.

41 Jack Koffman, “A’s General Manager Says ‘We’ll Treat You Right,’” Ottawa Citizen, February 6, 1952: 9.

42 “A’s Face Lottery Charge,” Ottawa Citizen, September 3, 1952: 1.

43 “Mayor Whitton Returned in Sensational Finish, Sunday Sports Plebiscite Decisively Rejected,” Ottawa Citizen, December 2, 1952: 17.

44 statscrew.com, https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/roster/t-oa13562/y-1952, accessed May 14, 2024.

45 “1954 Ottawa Athletics,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=1d4d98ab, accessed May 14, 2024.

46 Tommy Shields, “’Round and About,” Ottawa Citizen, September 14, 1954: 23.

47 The Athletics had been in Philadelphia since 1901. The Kansas City Athletics later moved to Oakland, California in 1967.

48 Canadian Press, “Triple-A Ball Club Gone,” Ottawa Citizen, January 8, 1955: 22. Charlotte Whitton was appointed mayor in 1951 upon the death of Grenville Goodwin, then won the election in 1952 and served until 1964. She was the first female mayor of a major Canadian city, a woman known for her flamboyant and bombastic style and one who faced charges of racism and anti-Semitism.

49 Jim Durrell was mayor of Ottawa from 1985-1991 and was a huge booster of Ottawa sports, playing a leading role in landing the International League Ottawa Lynx and the NHL Ottawa Senators for the city.

50 Ken Warren, “Here’s the Pitch . . . And Baseball’s Return is a Hit,” Ottawa Citizen, April 18, 1993: 13.

51 Ken Warren, “Backtracking the Lynx,” Ottawa Citizen, September 14, 1993: 23.

52 Wayne Scanlan, “Another One Bites the Dust,” Ottawa Citizen, September 4, 2007: 13.

53 Anonymous letters to the editor, “A Real Ball Team,” Ottawa Citizen, October 12, 1921: 16 and “1883 Game Recalled,” Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1921: 20.

54 “No Money Was Found Under the Pillows,” Ottawa Citizen, November 12, 1920: 1.

55 “Montagnards and Rideaus Start Championship Series Wednesday,” Ottawa Citizen, August 4, 1925: 7.

56 “District Baseball Delegates to Meet at Windsor Hotel for Annual Meeting,” Ottawa Citizen, April 28, 1928: 10.