Ottawa’s Early Baseball History

Back in the early seventies, Ottawa had a baseball club (amateur) which was a real credit to the city. This club was Ottawa’s first real effort to play the game. … that pioneer team played real classy ball, which would compare favorably with any of the amateur baseball played today. — Ottawa Citizen, December 12, 1936: 2.

 

The Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club baseball players gather for a team photo in 1892. (City of Ottawa Archives, S1978-101, CA-15266)

 

Imagine the scene: anticipation hangs in the air as a clear and pleasant summer afternoon unfolds in 1872. A large crowd has gathered on this civic holiday in the newly-constructed stands of a ballpark at the southern foot of Elgin Street. They’ve come to witness the best baseball team in the world take on a group of local amateurs. As the Boston players step off their horse-drawn bus and take the field in their light brown flannel uniforms and bright red stockings, the crowd is struck by their obvious athleticism and skill. The Ottawa players never stood a chance. “The few minutes previous to the commencement of the match convinced all who were present that the Ottawa club would have no show against the professionals,” one reporter noted, adding “there were very few even of the most sanguine of the Ottawa men who would bet one to ten that our club would obtain a single run.” For the next two hours and 13 minutes, the crowd watched in amazement as the Boston Red Stockings scored run after run to win the ballgame by a lopsided score of 64–0.1

This was arguably one of the most important games—if not the most important game—ever played in this city. The visit of the Boston Red Stockings on August 27, 1872, and the rematch a year later, helped to popularize America’s pastime in Canada’s new capital.

*****

No one really knows how baseball started in Ottawa. People have been playing the game in and around the city since at least the middle of the 1860s. The earliest documented game dates back to September 13, 1865, at a Sons of Temperance picnic in the village of Metcalfe. Founded in the 1840s, the Sons of Temperance was a men’s organization that strongly discouraged alcohol consumption. Over 600 people gathered in a grove for a communal meal, followed by an afternoon of entertainment featuring music—including a bagpiper—and, notably, games that included “cricket and base ball.”2 (The sport was spelled “base ball” back then). The festivities also featured “a game of ball played by the ladies—alone.” It’s possible that the latter is also a reference to baseball, or perhaps another bat-and-ball game, but it seems more likely that the newspaper is describing some other activity altogether.

The brief mention of a baseball game at the picnic suggests two things. First, the lack of detailed explanation implies that the local readers were already at least somewhat familiar with the game’s rules. Second, including baseball in the afternoon activities indicates that people in the area knew how to play it, further suggesting that baseball was already an established pastime.

An August 1867 game report from Ogdensburg, New York, offers us another clue that baseball was still in its early stages in Ottawa during the mid-1860s. The score—Ottawa’s New Dominion Club suffered a crushing 141–20 defeat—suggests the two teams weren’t evenly matched. Maybe Ottawa simply had an off day. The local newspaper chalked up the loss to the visitors’ inexperience.

“In explanation it is proper to say that the Ottawa boys were not well posted on the rules of the game, and consequently missed making several tallies, and also got out several times when they should have avoided it,” wrote the Ogdensburg Daily Journal. “They have, however, good material to make base ball players, and will do better next time. Their pitcher and catcher are as good as average, and all will do well when they understand the game better. They did not come boasting, but requested the privilege of coming to learn the game. Another year we shall expect to see them a match for the best.”3

 

 

By 1868, baseball was gaining popularity in Ottawa, with the New Dominion Club emerging as the city’s leading team. The club had over 60 members, making it the largest in the city.4

At least early on, there did not seem to be many other teams to challenge the New Dominion Club. The New Dominion Club planned to play a Victoria Day game against Metcalfe.5 When that fell through, they ended up playing a game among themselves. The New Dominion first nine triumphed over the second nine with a resounding 94-25 victory. “The spectators were very numerous, including a large number of the fair sex, which gave the ground quite a lively appearance, and added to the spirits of the players,” reported the Ottawa Times. “Further interest was thrown into the game by two prizes being offered, namely, a beautifully finished bat for the highest scorer, and a regulation ball for the best general player.” Shortstop R. Wood led the New Dominion first nine with 14 runs scored and won the bat, while his teammate Walsh caught six fly balls in left field and earned the prize ball.6

The New Dominion Club held regular monthly meetings in a room at the Ottawa Skating and Curling Club,7 which opened a rink on Albert Street in 1867.8 They played their games on a field right behind the rink—which today is in the heart of the city’s downtown core.

Not content with playing games against themselves, the New Dominion Club would soon face a tougher test. During the 1868 Dominion Day festivities in Ottawa, the New Dominion Club held its own against a visiting team from Ogdensburg. By the third inning, Ottawa had built an impressive 24-run lead over their opponents. But Ogdensburg somehow rallied to win the game by a score of 57–49.9 It seems like there were no hard feelings, as the players dined together after the game, which was customary at the time. “The reception our boys met from Ottawa was princely and the supper provided most magnificent,” the Ogdensburg Journal wrote. “They all come home with the greatest admiration for the people of the Capital of the Dominion, and unable to find words to express their good feeling.”10

Back in Ottawa, the New Dominion Club dominated local baseball. A team of local mechanics fell to the New Dominion Club by a score of 109-15.11 In late July, they defeated the Ottawa Cricket Club in a game of baseball by a much-closer score of 36-27. However, the tables turned in the return cricket match, with the New Dominion Club suffering a heavy loss of 173-54. “However well the New Dominion Club may play baseball,” wrote the Ottawa Times, “they will have to practice cricket a while before playing matches.”12 They ended up playing two more times that summer, although the newspapers offered no details about the final matches.13

The score of these games was typical for the time. In the 1800s, baseball scores were often high due to primitive fielding equipment, inconsistent pitching rules that favored batters, and less sophisticated defensive strategies compared to modern baseball.

Ottawa returned to Ogdensburg for a return match in late August. This time, they lost by a score of 53-19.14 The team was disappointed to suffer such a loss to Ogdensburg after their narrow defeat earlier in the summer. But their spirits were no doubt lifted by the lavish postgame reception, where drinks flowed freely as toasts and songs filled the air well into the early hours of the morning.15

The next and final mention of Ottawa’s baseball team appears the following year in an Ogdensburg Journal article, previewing a July 4, 1869, game against the St. Lawrence Club in Ogdensburg.16 After that, the club, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.

Two years later, the fate of the New Dominion Club was revealed in a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Times, written by a member of the newly formed Ottawa Base Ball Club.

“Sir: In your issue this morning your reporter incorrectly states that the Maple Leaf Club of Ogdensburg is a newly organized one, and not the old Maple City Club. As this statement would materially lessen the credit accorded us for having beaten them, I beg leave to give you the following facts,” he wrote.

“Four years ago we played against this same club under the name of the Ogdensburg Club, for the purpose of learning the rudiments of the game, and we were beaten by some one hundred and twenty runs. The Ogdensburg Club was then organized about six years. We played against them during the following season in Ottawa, and were again beaten, but by a majority of only eight runs. Unfortunately for our old New Dominion Base Ball Club we were unable to continue practice on account of the grounds on which we played being subdivided and sold, and our club became defunct. This season a new organization was formed, with four or five of the old players as members, under the name of the Ottawa Base Ball Club, and on the 30th June we plated at Prescott against our old opponents from Ogdensburg, who had in the interval changed their club name to the more euphonious one of ‘The Maple City.’ The result of this match was that we were beaten by only one run. Our next meeting took place yesterday, when with a fair field and no favor, we had the extreme felicity of beating one of the best clubs in Northern New York.”17

*****

Two members of the New Dominion Club who went on to play for the Ottawa Base Ball Club were Harry Cluff and his brother, Tom.18 Tom Cluff has been credited with being of the most important early figures in Ottawa’s baseball history. He was born in Ottawa in 1843 (although some records list a later birth year) to Irish immigrants. His father, Isaac, worked as a carpenter at shop on Sparks Street19 and laid the city’s first wooden sidewalks.20

Tom Cluff followed his father into the trades. In the early 1860s, as a teenager, he found work at a streetcar company in Cleveland, Ohio. While living in Ohio, he also trained as a blacksmith. Before they burned down in 1916, one could see his ironwork on the original Parliament Buildings.21

The American Civil War broke out while Cluff was in Ohio. He joined the fight on the Union side, enlisting as a private, according to both his obituary22 and a booklet detailing the lives of Loyalists and their descendants buried at Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery.23 Military pension records from July 1903 show a Thomas Cluff—who used the alias George Stephens—served with the 10th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, Company A.24 Since there are no other records of his military service, however, it’s not certain that this is actually the same Tom Cluff from Ottawa or someone else with the same name.

We don’t know much about Cluff’s early years in Ohio. But we do know that he was back in Ottawa by 1868 at the latest, working as a blacksmith. He and his brothers were active in many sports, and Tom Cluff’s name appears in newspaper reports about various sports, such as lacrosse and snowshoe racing.25

 

He married Diantha Adelaide Clark in September 1869.26 In the summer of 1870, Cluff was once again in Ohio, where his older brother, Edward (who also went by Ned), lived. The story goes that Tom Cluff fell in love with baseball after watching three Cincinnati Red Stockings players put on a show for picnic-goers at a rural Ohio farm. The dazzling display apparently left Cluff spellbound. He sought them out afterward, eager to learn more and bring that knowledge back to Ottawa.27 The problem with this story is that we know Tom Cluff was already playing baseball in 1868 for the New Dominion Club28—two years before he purportedly saw the Red Stockings’ exhibition in Ohio. He may not have been baseball’s pioneer in Ottawa, but he was undoubtedly one of its earliest players.

Cluff was back in Ottawa by 1871, alternating between shortstop and first base for the newly formed Ottawa Base Ball Club, playing alongside another one of his brothers, Harry, who was the catcher.

The Ottawa Base Ball Club was one of several amateur teams in the city at the time, and probably the most ambitious. They built new baseball grounds on a 10-acre plot of land at the southern foot of Elgin Street near the Rideau Canal,29 the city limits at the time, which featured a grandstand as well as concession booths that did not serve alcohol.30 This is where Ottawa played their August 1872 game against the Boston Red Stockings (which they lost by that score of 64–0).31 Tom Cluff managed to hit a single off future Hall of Fame pitcher Albert Spalding, while his brother Harry hit a double. Ottawa lost a rematch against Boston a year later by a score of 44–4.32

*****

By the early 1870s, baseball fever had gripped the nation’s capital. Newspapers of the day are filled with a kaleidoscope of colorful names like the Clippers, Unions, Nationals, Hurons, Pastimes, Capitals, Victorias, Olympics, Merchants, Electrics, and Diamonds. Like many other cities in this era, Ottawa had a team called the Mutuals—a moniker commonly associated with volunteer fire companies. This may have been a nod to the city’s own volunteer firefighters, which had a hand engine called the Mutual in 1848.33

Other clubs, like Brittania and Billings Bridge, drew inspiration from their local neighborhoods. Workplaces, fraternal associations, and Ottawa College (now the University of Ottawa) all fielded teams. So did several government departments. It seemed like everyone was playing baseball in Ottawa.

Even the young messengers of Parliament, the House of Commons pages, fielded their own baseball team. Fast-forward to 1900 and the most notable player on the Pages was a 14-year-old named Thomas Patrick “T.P.” Gorman—who went on to become an Olympic gold medalist34, a sports journalist, and a hockey general manager who hoisted multiple Stanley Cups, ultimately earning his place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Teams from the surrounding towns and villages came to Ottawa to compete against the city’s amateur teams. Baseball was one of the city’s most popular pastimes.

However, this passion wasn’t universally embraced. Grumbling letters to the editor documented residents’ discontent. Some lamented the boisterous youth who turned their streets into makeshift diamonds. Sunday games, seen as a disruption of the traditional day of rest, faced particular scorn.

Local leagues—which only ever lasted a season or two—offered a platform for competition, but issuing open challenges in newspapers was another popular way for these clubs to prepare to face off. Typically, a team would declare themselves unbeatable, and inevitably, a rival would rise to the challenge, with local journalists covering these exchanges in great detail.

The teams played all around the growing city. Venues like the Metropolitan Grounds on Jane Street (later Pretoria Avenue) between O’Connor and Metcalfe streets, the grounds of Rideau Hall, and the parade ground by the military drill hall at Cartier Square (where Ottawa City Hall now stands) were all popular places to play.

Ballclubs that wanted to play at Cartier Square faced the bureaucratic hurdle of first having to seek written permission from the Department of Militia and Defence to use the grounds, which were used mainly for drilling and training by two infantry regiments, the Governor General’s Foot Guards and the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. This practice is documented as early as 1872. Senator Robert William Weir Carrall petitioned the Department on behalf of the Victoria Base Ball Club, requesting permission to play at the parade grounds. A week later, written permission was granted, provided the Victorias “will not interfere with the privilege already granted to other similar clubs.”35 Library and Archives Canada has many similar requests on file, spanning nearly three decades.

 

A young Tommy Gorman poses with his House of Commons Pages team in 1900. (Thomas Patrick Gorman / Library and Archives Canada / C-079945)

 

One thing about living in a city like Ottawa in the late nineteenth century that made it fertile ground for baseball was that it featured a growing middle class of politicians, government officials, business owners, and other professionals who had the disposable income and ample free time to devote to leisure activities.36

The Ottawa Amateur Athletic Association provided a platform for mostly young men (women could join for $2 a year as “lady associate members” with far fewer privileges37) to engage in a variety of athletic and recreational pursuits, promoting physical activity and social interaction. The association catered to the city’s elites; you could become a life member by paying $100 (a lot of money at the time) or by being a member for 15 years. Otherwise, privileged members paid $10 a year, or $2 a month, for the use of its clubhouse at the corner of Elgin and Maria (now Laurier Avenue West) and to join its sports teams.

To manage the building, the association created a new entity in 1889 known as the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club. Funded through memberships and fundraising initiatives, the club served as an umbrella organization for the city’s major sports teams.38

One aspect of the athletic club’s legacy endures to this day. Notably, it embraced the red, black, and white color scheme—first worn by the Ottawa Hockey Club in 188440—that has become synonymous with Ottawa sports.41 This iconic palette was adopted by the forerunner of the original Ottawa Senators hockey team, which was affiliated with the club, and continues to be worn today by, among others, the modern Senators franchise, the Ottawa RedBlacks of the Canadian Football League, the Ottawa 67s junior hockey club, and the city’s Frontier League baseball team, the Titans.

Despite a thriving amateur baseball scene in the latter half of the 1800s, the professional game wouldn’t arrive in Ottawa until nearly the turn of the century. The Eastern League’s struggling Rochester franchise relocated to Ottawa midway through the 1898 season. That team—which local sportswriters referred to as the Senators, and not the Wanderers as they are now often called—finished with a record of 53-70 and disbanded after the season ended. The most notable thing about this team might just be the tartan uniforms they wore. In fact, if you go to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, you can see a photo of the players in these outfits. This photo is also readily available online.

Baseball continued to thrive in Ottawa after the city’s first professional team folded. Ottawa competed in the outlaw Northern League during the early 1900s, while another team called the Senators found success in the Canadian League. Just six days after clinching the 1928 World Series with the New York Yankees, baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig brought their talents to Ottawa for a barnstorming exhibition at Dupuis Park in nearby Hull.42 For a brief stint in the 1950s, Ottawa served as a Triple-A affiliate, first for the New York Giants and then for the Philadelphia Athletics. The 1990s and 2000s saw Triple-A baseball return to Ottawa with the Lynx. Since then, the city has witnessed a revolving door of teams from independent leagues.

But what lies ahead? With so many entertainment options vying for attention, the future of professional baseball in Ottawa remains an open question. Will the independent leagues continue to provide a platform for the city’s love of the game? Only time will tell.

However, one thing is clear: those formative years of the nineteenth century laid the groundwork for generations of baseball fans in this city. Ottawa’s baseball story is far from over.

STEVE RENNIE is a former journalist now working in the Canadian government. He grew up in the village of Osgoode, which is now part of the city, and got to see the Ottawa Lynx in their heyday. His baseball writing includes articles for the SABR Team Ownership Histories Project and an upcoming piece on the short-lived Eastern International League of 1888. In the spring of 2024, he presented on Ottawa’s early baseball history at the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference in Cooperstown, New York. He is the president of SABR’s Ottawa-Gatineau and Eastern Ontario chapter.He has a particular interest in nineteenth-century baseball in Canada and enjoys unearthing forgotten games and teams from the sport’s early history for the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research and Protoball. He lives in Ottawa with his wife Joanna and their two children.

 

NOTES

1 “The Civic Holiday, The Great Cricket Match, The Boston Red Stockings,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, August 28, 1872: 4.

2 “Sons Of Temperance Pic-Nic,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, September 21, 1865: 2.

3 “Base Ball,” Daily Journal (Ogdensburg, New York), August 31, 1867: 3.

4 “Local News,” Ottawa Times, August 7, 1868: 2.

5 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, May 23, 1868: 3.

6 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, May 27, 1868: 2.

7 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, June 4, 1868: 2.

8 “Club History,” Ottawa Curling Club, Accessed October 21, 2024. https://ottawacurlingclub.ca/index.php/about-the-club/28-club-info/151-club-history

9 “Base Ball Match,” Ottawa Times, July 3, 1868: 2.

10 “Base Ball at Ottawa,” Ogdensburg Journal, July 3, 1868: 3.

11 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, August 5, 1868: 2.

12 “Base Ball vs. Cricket,” Ottawa Times, August 7, 1868: 2.

13 “Cricketers at Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, August 18, 1868: 2.

14 “Base Ball Match,” Ogdensburg Journal, August 22, 1868: 3.

15 “Base Call Club,” Ogdensburg Journal, August 24, 1868: 3.

16 “Local and Miscellaneous,” Ogdensburg Journal, June 4, 1869: 3.

17 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, July 28, 1871: 2.

18 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, August 5, 1868: 2.

19 Cluff & Campbell advertisement, Ottawa Daily Citizen, June 25, 1853: 3.

20 “Pioneer Of Bytown Is Fatally Injured,” Ottawa Citizen, May 11, 1925: 16.

21 United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton Branch. “Descendants of Loyalists in Beechwood Cemetery: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Dominion Association.” September 14, 2014, 21.

22 “Pioneer Of Bytown Is Fatally Injured.”

23 “Descendants of Loyalists in Beechwood Cemetery: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Dominion Association.”

24 “United States Civil War and Later Pension Index, 1861-1917,” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NHNF-TYZ: March 24, 2016), Thomas Cluff, 1903.

25 “The Lacrosse Match At Prescott,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, October 2, 1868: 3; “Lacrosse March,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, May 26, 1869: 2; “The Ottawa Cup,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, February 22, 1870: 3.

26 Thomas Cluff and Diantha Clark. “Marriage Record,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, September 8, 1869.

27 David McDonald. “Aug. 27, 1872: The Day the Tide Turned in Ottawa,” Ottawa Citizen, August 27, 2005.

28 “Base Ball,” Ottawa Times, August 5, 1868: 2.

29 “International Base Ball Match,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, August 21, 1872: 4.

30 “Manly Sports,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, August 12, 1872: 1.

31 “The Civic Holiday, The Great Cricket Match, The Boston Red Stockings,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, August 28, 1872: 4.

32 “The Base Ball Match,” Ottawa Daily Citizen, August 27, 1873: 4.

33 City of Ottawa, Centenary of Ottawa, 1854-1954: “The Capital Chosen by a Queen” (Ottawa: City of Ottawa, 1954), 25.

34 The medal he won was as a member of the lacrosse team. Olympic.ca. “1908 London – Canadian Olympic Team.” https://olympic.ca/games/1908-london/. Accessed June 13, 2024.

35 Canada. Library and Archives Canada. Hon. R.W.W. Carrall Senator – Ottawa – Requests the use of “Cartier Square” for the Victoria Base Ball Club. RG9-II-A-1, Volume 42, File 6733, 11 June 1872.

36 Paul Kitchen, Win, Tie, or Wrangle: The Inside Story of the Old Ottawa Senators, 1883–1935 (Manotick, Ontario: Penumbra Press, 2008), 41.

37 Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club, Constitution and By-Laws of the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club (Ottawa: J.D. Taylor, printer, 1890), 5.

38 Kitchen, 41–42.

39 “Affiliated With The O.A.A.C.,” Ottawa Citizen, May 18, 1894: 8.

40 Kitchen, 44.

41 Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club, Constitution and By-Laws of the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Club (Ottawa: J.D. Taylor, printer, 1890), 3.

42 Kelly Egan, “Capital Facts: That time Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig came to Ottawa,” Ottawa Citizen, May 1, 2017. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/capital-facts-that-time-babe-ruth-and-lou-gehrig-came-to-ottawa