Doug Harvey and the Ottawa Senators

Doug Harvey. (Courtesy La Patrie du Dimanche, December 3, 1959.)

 

Professional baseball in Ottawa was sporadic in the early to mid-twentieth century. From 1912 to 1915, the Ottawa Senators played in the Class-C (later Class-B) Canadian League and finished first in three of the four seasons. The Senators resurfaced in the Class-B Eastern Canada League in 1922, finishing second to the Trois-Rivieres Trios, and in 1923, renamed the Canadiens, they finished second again, this time behind the Montreal Royals. The Ottawa-Hull Senators were one of six teams in the ill-fated Quebec-Ontario-Vermont League (which operated only for one season, 1924), finishing the season in fourth place. Over a decade passed before Ottawa joined the Class-C Canadian-American League in 1936. This was a less successful venture; after a strong rookie campaign in which they finished second, they ended up no higher than sixth for the following three years. Poor performance, combined with low attendance, “a lack of lights and the pressures of war [made it difficult] to continue.”1 Surprisingly, they managed for one more season by combining with Ogdensburg, and further stunned all by finishing first. This still did not prevent them from bowing out of the league after the season.

In 1946 a new Border League (the original operated in 1912 and T3), a Class-C league with six teams from Canada and the United States, was formed. It included the Granby Red Sox, Kingston Ponies, and Sherbrooke Canadians, but Granby and Sherbrooke left after the 1946 season and were replaced by the Geneva Red Birds and another new professional team from Ottawa, this time called the Nationals. Ottawa’s return to Organized Baseball was a great success right from the start, due to a “mix of young prospects and older guys nearing the end of their playing days.”2 They were managed by former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Paul “Daffy” Dean, brother of Dizzy Dean. This eclectic assemblage enabled Ottawa to outdistance its competition handily and finish the season 12 games ahead of the Watertown Athletics. The Nationals went on to defeat the Ogdensburg Maples in the finals (aided by a triple play in the final game) to win the league championship in their rookie season.

Despite this great success, “Paul Dean had been a disappointment at the helm, and had left the club in the middle of the 1947 playoffs.”3 William Metzig, a Border League all-star who led the team in 1947 in home runs and RBIs and was a solid second baseman, “was better than Dean when it came to handling players,”4 so took over as manager. With Metzig at the helm for 1948, Ottawa (which reverted to their Senators nickname) once again finished the season in first, 6 1/2 games ahead of the Geneva Robins, though they lost the championship in the playoffs to the Ogdensburg Maples. The tables turned in 1949 when they finished 6 1/2 games behind Geneva. The 1950 season was marked by the closest pennant race in Border League history. On September 1, with 10 games remaining, Ottawa (once again as the Nationals) held a slim one-game lead over their old foes, the Ogdensburg Maples. The Maples won eight of their last 10 games, but the Nationals held them off with clutch wins of their own, including dominant victories in their last five games of the season (outscoring their opponents 33-9, highlighted by a no-hitter by Don Bryant on the next to last game of the season against Geneva).

But the pennant was still up for grabs on the final day of the season, and it took another strong pitching performance, this time by Ed Flanagan, who scattered five hits and allowed only one run, for Ottawa to clinch its third pennant in four years on the final day of the season. The Nationals came up short in the playoffs however, surrendering the league championship to Ogdensburg.

Ottawa did not return to the Border League for the 1951 season, but rather fielded a club in the Triple-A International League, the Ottawa Giants, who struggled to stay out of last place for most of the season. The Border League itself also struggled in 1951, with clubs disbanding at the end of June and into July before the entire league ceased operations on July 16, 1951. Overall, Ottawa was the most successful of all the clubs of the Border League, finishing with an overall record of 310-198.

During Ottawa’s run in the Border League, the team featured five players who played in the major leagues. Three of these saw minimal action in the majors: player-manager William Metzig (with Ottawa from 1947 to 1950), who had played five games with the Chicago White Sox in 1944; pitcher Walt Masters, who pitched for Ottawa in 1947 at the age of 40 and had very brief stints with the Washington Senators in 1931, the Philadelphia Phillies in 1937, and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1939; Catcher Bo Wallace (with Ottawa in 1950) played briefly with the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League in 1948. The remaining two players enjoyed much greater success, ultimately becoming Hall of Famers. That is where the similarities end for these two elite athletes.

Willard Brown, who played 30 games with Ottawa in 1950, was, as celebrated on his plaque in Cooperstown, a “power-hitting center fielder who helped lead the Kansas City Monarchs to six pennants in 10 seasons from 1937-1946, including a Negro Leagues championship in 1942.”5 This was broken up by his service in the US Army for two years during World War II: “He was among those sailing on 5,000 ships that crossed the English Channel during the D-Day Invasion of 1944.”6 He returned to the Monarchs in 1946 (rejoining fellow Hall of Fame teammates Satchel Paige, Buck O’Neil, and Hilton Smith).

The next season, “Hank Thompson and Brown became the second and third Black players in American League history when they signed with the St. Louis Browns on July 17, 1947. The Browns, however, sent the duo straight to the majors. The adjustment proved difficult as Willard Brown played in just 21 games between July 19 and Aug. 21 before he was released.”7 He went on to win two Triple Crowns with the Puerto Rican Winter Leagues and was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2006.

Ottawa’s other Hall of Famer is not to be found in Cooperstown however, but rather in Toronto, home of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Regarded as one of the top defensemen in NHL history (listed third by Sports Illustrated, behind only Ray Bourque and Bobby Orr), Doug Harvey excelled in virtually every sport he played, and from 1947 to 1950, many wondered if he was destined to find fame on the diamond rather than in the hockey rink.

Douglas Norman Harvey was born on December 19, 1924, in Montreal, the second child of Alfred and Martha Harvey. Alfred was born in 1896 in Hammersmith, England, a borough of London, and joined the Canadian Army medical corps and served as a stretcher-bearer in France and Belgium during the First World War. He married Martha Evans in September 1921 in Kingston and worked mostly for a pharmaceuticals company in Montreal.

Growing up in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace district of Montreal, author Brown writes, “there was never a problem finding a pick-up game of football, baseball, or hockey. And the parks in the area had hockey and softball leagues (the grounds were not yet big enough for baseball).”

“When Doug had arrived at West Hill [High School] for grade eight in September 1938, he wanted to play football but was told he was too small. He played soccer instead [and] made the school’s senior soccer team, even though he was still a couple of months shy of his fourteenth birthday.”9 The following year he played on a newly created Bantam football team at West Hill.

A versatile and competitive athlete, Harvey tried badminton, track, lacrosse, and boxing during his high-school years. But it was football that Harvey excelled in during his time at West Hill, notably in his grade twelve year in 1942. The Sporting News declared that “he was one of the most promising running stars on Canadian gridirons.”10 He and team captain Don Loney helped lead the West Hill Red Raiders to the championship game against the team from Catholic High, only to lose after a controversial call by the referees.

The football season over and World War II raging, Doug decided to enlist in the Royal Canadian Navy and, though a month shy of his 18th birthday, the Navy “found a spot for Doug right away—on its hockey team.”11 He yearned to see some action in the war and did join the war effort, but “he was kept close to home until the spring of 1944 so he could continue to play football and hockey for the Navy.”12

Since he remained at home during the summer of 1943, Harvey was asked to play fast-pitch softball in the newly formed Snowdon Fastball League (founded by 17-year-old Sam Pollock, who would one day take over from Frank Seike at the helm of the NHL Montreal Canadiens). Harvey was a line-drive-hitting third baseman for the league’s St. Augustine team, and one of the top players in the extremely competitive league. A teammate of Harvey’s, Alex Smart, remembered how Harvey loved to catch someone with his head down: “The guy’d be running around second, never looking, and all of a sudden BINGO, he’d run into Doug, and Doug would have the ball. He was thinking all the time.”13

In the fall of 1943, Harvey was assigned by the Navy to play for Donnacona in the Québec Rugby Football Union. This was common practice at the time, as quite a few “NHLers and top amateurs [also played] for military teams all over the country. It was thought the teams would be good for enlisted and civilian morale.”14 He continued to attract attention for his overall ability, notably his defense, and at the end of the season was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. In 1944, he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean as a gunner on a merchant ship. After the war, he resumed his hockey career with the Navy as well as the junior Montreal Royals of the Québec Junior Hockey League.

Harvey’s last football season was 1945 with the Montreal Hornets (forerunner of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League). In 1946 he decided that since Canadian football was semiprofessional, his best bet was hockey. He was moved up to the Royals’ senior squad, and helped the team win the Québec Senior Hockey League Championship in 1946. The following year, he starred on defense with the Royals as they went on to repeat, and then defeated Calgary to win the Allan Cup, awarded to Canada’s amateur hockey champions.

In between hockey and football seasons, Harvey continued to play softball, and in the summer of 1947, as he prepared to play again with St. Augustine, a new opportunity arose. “Thomas Gorman (one of the founders of the NHL), now back in Ottawa, having recently retired as GM of the Montreal Canadiens, approached him about playing baseball for a new franchise he had landed in the Class ‘C’ Border League. Gorman was looking for players and thought of Harvey—he had grown fond of him while he was playing for the Royals, and he had given him summer jobs around the Forum.”15

“Harvey is probably the only athlete who has been signed to play baseball on his ability as a hockey player,”16 but Gorman admired Doug’s durability and determination. So while he had never seen Harvey play baseball, “he offered him a contract and never regretted it.”17

But Harvey was very green when it came to baseball. American players “made fun of Harvey because his beat-up glove looked like it came from a dime store.”18 They were even more amused when they saw the way he gripped a bat, with his hands several inches apart. Manager Metzig “got Harvey a proper glove and some baseball cleats, and he persuaded him to put his hands closer together on the bat. Although Harvey didn’t crack the starting lineup and didn’t even get into a game until mid-August, he showed he could hit, run, and handle himself in the outfield.”19 In his very first game, he came off the bench and got two hits, helping the Nationals defeat the Auburn Cayugas, 9-5.

That season Harvey made it into only 10 games but made the most of it as he went 6-for-15, “an amazing performance for someone facing professional baseball pitching for the first time.”20 As the Canadiens training camp had opened, Harvey missed the playoffs; he had to focus on making the Canadiens. Though he tried to manage both sports for a time, “jumping into his car after a ballgame and driving the more than 250 kilometers to the training camp, but he could only keep that up for a week or so.”21

After his first NHL training camp, Harvey made the Canadiens team, but had limited ice time and did not often impress with the opportunities he was given. He was sent down to Buffalo of the AHL in mid-December, and though not spectacular while there, was recalled to Montreal about a month later and remained with the Canadiens until season’s end. The 1947-48 campaign proved a major disappointment for the Canadiens, who after finishing first the last four seasons, ended up next to last and failed to make the playoffs. Some of the criticism fell on Harvey, who himself was unspectacular in his rookie season and failed to live up to the expectations made of him by the fans and the media. The only saving grace of missing the playoffs was that it allowed Harvey to be on the diamond from the start of the 1948 baseball season.

Back in the Border League, the Nationals had many players back from the previous season and there were only a few openings in the starting lineup. One of them was in right field, where Harvey had played briefly in 1947. He showed up for spring training leaner than he had been the summer before and was obviously determined to make the team. He hit the ball hard during exhibition games, picking up where he had left off the previous fall. On the eve of the season opener, manager Metzig announced that Harvey would be his starting right fielder. “Harvey’s a steady fielder, covers a lot of ground, and in our game Thursday he hit two drives to center field that would have been out of the park on our diamond,” the manager said.22

The season started well for Harvey and the Nationals, as they “walloped the Ogdensburg Maples 15-3 in front of more than 4,000 Ottawa fans. Harvey, wearing number seventeen, managed a base hit and a walk. He batted sixth at first, but gradually moved up in the order. By August, he was the team’s cleanup hitter and was contending for the Border League batting title. He was also named as a starter in the league’s mid-season All-Star game.”23

Helping the Nationals win the pennant in 1948, Harvey finished sixth in batting (.340), second in hits (144), and second in runs scored (107). This caught the attention of major-league scouts: “They’d say, ‘Who the hell is this guy?”‘24 In the playoffs, Harvey batted .357 with two home runs and five RBIs in the first four games against Ogdensburg. He missed the final game because he had to report to the Canadiens training camp. “Harvey, it seems, was in no hurry to emerge from the baseball boonies to rejoin the cushy ranks of the NHL.”25

Many scouts later commented that Harvey had “all the skills to become a star on the diamond, but unfortunately was a bit too old when he started playing Organized Baseball. He was 22 years old when he accepted an offer from Ottawa. … Normally, in the US where baseball is considered as the national sport, an athlete makes the jump into Class C when he is 18 or 19 years old, at most.”26

In early May of 1949, as the Nationals began spring workouts, Metzig telephoned Harvey to ask him when he would be reporting to camp. Harvey was vague, saying he had to wait until doctors examined the knee he’d injured during the hockey season. But he left Metzig with the impression that he wanted to play baseball and would eventually report to the team. A few days later, word came out that Harvey was getting married and might not play baseball at all.

Harvey would eventually report to the team, although he missed spring training. His return did not go unnoticed; the Ottawa Journal reported: “Metzig is relieved by the arrival of Doug Harvey, who should bolster the hitting department.”27 This proved an understatement, as Harvey improved upon his impressive 1948 season. He continued to terrorize Border League pitchers, winning the batting title with a .351 average and leading the league in runs (121) and RBIs (109). He also demonstrated increased power with 14 home runs and continued to display impressive speed, stealing 30 bases and hitting 10 triples. “And the fact that he struck out only 28 times proves that he had a very precise eye to make the distinction between a ball and a strike.”28 He was once again named to the all-star team and “to Metzig’s satisfaction, he also became a team leader.”29

In the semifinals, as headlined in the Ottawa Journal, Harvey was “… in Hero’s Role When Nats Triumph.”30 In the ninth inning of a 1-1 game against the Auburn Cayugas, he hit a triple and tried for home, where the “charging Ottawa runner brushed the ball out of [catcher] Brass’s outstretched hand.”31 Auburn nevertheless sent Ottawa packing by winning the series in seven games. For Harvey, this was likely fortuitous; he would not have been able to play in the finals, for he once again had to report to the Canadiens training camp.

Now with two outstanding baseball seasons under Harvey’s belt, more major-league scouts began to take notice. Harvey “was drafted by the National League’s Boston Braves and offered a spot on their Class B team in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. And some reports said the Boston Red Sox were interested as well. In addition, Harvey later told friends that he had received a letter from the St. Louis Cardinals but had put it aside unopened. He found out later that the letter contained a minor league contract.”32 Much like when he was tempted with offers to play professional football, he ultimately had to decline.

This was never an easy choice for Harvey. In later years he often commented on the joy he found on the diamond. “He would never really say which sport was his favorite, but it was clear that he believed hockey provided the best career path.”33 “Harvey said he must concentrate on hockey because “that is where the money is.” His hockey salary as a big leaguer was roughly three times what he made playing Class C baseball. Since the hockey playoffs sometimes ran well into April, through most of the baseball training season, this would seem to preclude any immediate possibility of Harvey reaching higher minors in the diamond sport.”34 Years later, he was quoted as saying, “[M]aybe I would have been interested in reporting to spring training if I could have gotten the chance to make a Double-A team. But as they weren’t really interested in giving me a serious try, I preferred to stay in Canada.”35

The team that had drafted him hadn’t heard this news however, as “sometime during the 1950 NHL semifinals, the phone rang on Harvard Avenue. It was someone from the Boston Braves wanting to know why Doug Harvey had failed to report to spring training. […] Harvey had never told the Braves he was passing up their offer. When he failed to report to [the Braves], Tommy Gorman re-acquired his contract and asked him to play for the Nationals again. Harvey agreed to play on an occasional basis, depending on his commitments in Montreal. Ursula had given birth to their first child, Doug Jr., in February 1950. […] In the end, Harvey was too busy for baseball that summer and played only ten games for the Nationals. […] It was now time for him to concentrate on hockey and his life in Montreal.”36

But Harvey’s career as a baseball player was not immediately over. After leaving Ottawa, he batted .449 to lead the Valleyfield Chiefs (which featured a 17-year-old pitcher named Johnny Podres) to the pennant of the Laurentian Senior Baseball League, a semipro league in Québec. And in 1951 he was play-er-manager-co-owner of the Lachine Canucks, also of the Laurentian League, and brought along several other hockey players to play on the team on occasion, including fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Maurice “Rocket” Richard. Harvey managed Lachine into the 1952 season but left partway during the season as Lachine floundered at the bottom of the standings.

Harvey was a natural both at the plate and on the basepaths, though defensively, he admitted, “I was no Mickey Mantle in terms of covering ground in the outfield, but, he added with modesty, I did well enough.”37 We can never know if he indeed would have made it to the major leagues, let alone be anywhere near the success that he was in the NHL, but baseball, he noted, “is a sport that I always loved to play and still, today, when I have the opportunity, I make my way to the De Lorimier stadium to see the Montreal Royals at work. If I chose hockey over baseball, it was that my chances of progress within the organization with the Canadiens were better than they were with the Boston Braves. Personally, I think I made a wise decision to abandon baseball.”38 He “would later claim, during moments of nostalgia, to regret not having pursued baseball more seriously.”39

What is known is the result of Harvey’s decision to commit to hockey. As part of the great Montreal hockey dynasty along with fellow Hall of Famers Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Jean Beliveau, Dickie Moore, and Jacques Plante, under coach Toe Blake, Harvey helped Montreal win the Stanley Cup six times, including a record five in a row from 1956 to 1960. He then played for three seasons with the New York Rangers and briefly with Detroit and St. Louis before retiring in 1969. He was named to the NHL All-Star Game 13 times and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman seven times from 1955 to 1962, losing only to teammate Tom Johnson in 1959. Only Bobby Orr won more Norris Trophies in his career (eight). Doug Harvey was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1973. The Canadiens retired Harvey’s number 2 in 1985, a few years before his death on December 26, 1989, in Montreal at the age of 65.

MARTIN LACOSTE recently retired as a high-school music educator and is excited to have more time to devote to some of his interests, including baseball. Once an avid Montreal Expos fan, since their relocation he has refocused his passion for the sport toward its history, notably nineteenth-century Canadian baseball. He has presented papers at the Canadian Baseball History Conference, written biographies for SABR, and contributed articles for the 2022 SABR publication on the development of Canadian baseball entitled Our Game, Too. When not poring through microfilm or digital newspaper files, he continues to engage in his musical interests, either as a performer or director, and enjoys keeping active by playing squash, hockey, slo-pitch, and cycling.

 

Acknowledgments

This article was edited by David Siegel and fact-checked by Kevin Larkin.

 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted a number of newspapers and other sources including:

Baseball-reference.com

Costello, Rory. “Willard Brown,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr. org/bioproj/person/Willard-Brown/, accessed January n, 2023.

“Douglas Harvey,” The Sporting News Player Contract Cards, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/pi7i03coll3/id/69ii8/rec/5, accessed December 23, 2022.

“How Doug Harvey Loafed His Way to Fame,” http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1958/2/15/how-doug-harvey-loafed-his-way-to-fame, accessed December 5, 2022.

“Top 25 NHL Defensemen of All Time,” https://www.si.com/nhl/2015/01/16/top-25-nhl-defensemen-all-time#gid=cio2554d826oo5258o&pid=2-ray-bourque, accessed December 8, 2022.

“Willard Brown,” Hall of Fame Explorer, https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/brown-willard, accessed January 11, 2023.

Christian Trudeau files and research

 

Notes

1 David Pietrusza, Baseball’s Canadian-American League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc., 1990), 43.

2 William Brown, Doug: The Doug Harvey Story (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2002), 29.

3 Brown, 43.

4 Brown, 43.

5 Hall of Fame Plaque, “Willard Brown,” National Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/brown-willard, accessed January 5, 2023.

6 “Willard Brown.”

7 “Willard Brown.”

8 William Brown, 68.

9 Brown, 71.

10 Lloyd McGowan, “Canadiens’ Doug Harvey Border League Slugger,” The Sporting News, February 23, 1949: 2, 5.

11 Brown, 78.

12 Brown, 82.

13 Brown, 82.

14 Brown, 83-84.

15 Brown, 29.

16 McGowan.

17 McGowan.

18 Brown, 31.

19 Brown, 29-30.

20 Brown, 31.

21 Brown, 31

22 Brown, 43.

23 Brown, 43.

24 Brown, 44.

25 Brown, 45.

26 Bert Souliere, “Harvey aurait pu se créer une carrière au baseball,” La Patrie du Dimanche, December 3, 1959: Section Spéciale, 4.

27 Brown, 54.

28 Souliere.

29 Brown, 56.

30 Gordon Ryan, “Harvey in Hero’s Role When Nats Triumph,” Ottawa Journal, September 10, 1949: 35.

31 Ryan.

32 Brown, 57.

33 Brown, 58.

34 McGowan.

35 Souliere.

36 Brown, 57.

37 Souliere.

38 Souliere.

39 Brown, 58.