May 23, 2024
By Kevin Glew
Cooperstowners in Canada
John Upham, who rose from the Windsor, Ont., minor ball ranks to become a two-way player with the Chicago Cubs, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 83.
The Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame shared the news of his passing last night.
Born on December 29, 1940, Upham was a multi-sport star – excelling in basketball, hockey and baseball – when growing up in Windsor, Ont.
At age 12, the young left-hander began pitching for legendary coach and Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Father Ronald Cullen at Windsor’s Assumption High School.
“My dad, who was an umpire, told me that if I was really serious, that he (Father Cullen) was the only man to play for [in Windsor],” Upham once said.
Cullen coached Upham for several seasons and helped him blossom into one of the best baseball prospects in the region.
In 1959, Upham turned down scholarship offers from the University of Michigan and Michigan State to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies as an outfielder.
The 6-foot,180-pound Canadian would play six seasons in the Phillies’ organization, rising as high as triple-A. His finest campaign came with class-C Bakersfield in 1961 when he batted .356 with 175 hits – including 12 triples – in 129 games.
It wasn’t until 1964, however, that he started to pitch professionally. He’d make one relief appearance for the double-A Chatanooga Lookouts that season and five more for the Phillies’ class-A Eugene Emeralds in 1965.
On November 29, 1965, he was selected by the Cubs from the Phillies in the minor league draft. And the Cubs began to employ Upham as a two-way player. With the Cubs’ double-A Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs in 1966, the outfielder/left-handed pitcher batted .284 with 119 hits in 124 games while also posting a 2.96 ERA in 11 starts.
That performance helped him crack the Cubs’ Opening Day roster the following spring. Upham made his major league debut on April 16, 1967. He entered a game started by fellow Canadian Fergie Jenkins (Chatham, Ont.). Jenkins would pitch 6 1/3 innings and leave with a 5-2 lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Upham was the second reliever for the Cubs and he allowed a single to Manny Mota in the ninth inning. Mota was the only batter he’d face before being replaced by right-hander Joe Niekro. The Pirates rallied for a 6-5 win.
“He had a chance to come into some ball games that were quite crucial throwing against the left-handed hitters because he had a pretty good slider, a good fastball,” Jenkins recalled of Upham during an interview with the Canadian Baseball Network’s Melissa Verge in 2023. “And the times that he pitched at Wrigley Field he did a great job.”
On May 19, 1967, in his first major league at bat with the Cubs, Upham hit a pinch-hit single off Dodgers Hall of Fame right-hander Don Drysdale in the eighth inning. It was one of just six hits Drysdale permitted that day while hurling a shutout in a Dodgers’ 8-0 win.
During 1967 and 1968, Upham continued to be a two-way player in the Cubs’ minors and for a combined 21 games in the majors. With the Cubs during that stretch, he posted a 5.40 ERA in seven mound appearances and went 4-for-13 (.308 batting average) and played in two games as an outfielder.
In total, Upham suited up for nine seasons in the affiliated minor league ranks and batted .293 in 789 games, while also registering a 3.05 ERA in 43 appearances as a pitcher.
After hanging up his professional playing spikes after the 1968 season, Upham returned to Windsor and became a popular high school teacher and helped Cullen coach a number of teams that won local championships. In 1982, Upham managed the Windsor Chiefs, a local senior men’s team to a Canadian championship in Newfoundland.
Upham also served as the pitching coach for Team Ontario when they captured gold medals at the Canada Summer Games in 1981 and 1985 and was also the pitching coach for Canada at three consecutive World Junior Championships.
“It gave me the opportunity to work with kids, make them better ball players but more importantly better people,” Upham told Verge about his love for coaching in 2023.
Other prominent coaching assignments included coaching third base for Canada at the 1988 Olympics, managing the Junior National Team in 1989 and 1990 and the senior national team in 1992.
For his efforts, Upham was elected to the Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Baseball Ontario Hall of Fame in 2021.
“John’s dedication to sportsmanship and his passion for education will be deeply missed,” reads part of a statement issued by the Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame. “Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time.
THanks for the read and the update.
Thank you for reading this.
Great rundown Kevin and John’s wonderful career. He will be so missed. RIP John.
Thanks for your comment, Scott. I don’t feel like I’ve done justice to his coaching career. But there are plenty of tributes from his former players that are coming out, so that’s good.
CHECK ALL NEWS SOURCES AS JOHN UPHAM SHOWS YEAR 1941 NOT 1940 FOR BIRTH DATE.
I’m going with the Windsor Public Library page (link below), which is his hometown library, that says it’s 1940. They have information about his schooling. If I’m wrong, I’ll change it. https://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/?page_id=30451
Also, his family also wrote this post on Facebook in 2020 that said he was going to turn 80 on December 29, 2020. That would make his birth year 1940. https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=3577535482301704&id=1192640407457902&paipv=0&eav=AfYIxe8SpyfmVsi0-Heylkoz1CEBcBjQLdyKiK4KiOzI4mdGEJATJ5-QqW3oSTBdf6w&_rdr
Thanks for the interesting read and update.
Thanks for your support, Bob.
“Uppy” was born in 1940. His baseball cards, baseball reference, and baseball encyclopedia incorrectly list it as 1941. I asked about this forty years ago. He said the Phillies’ organization changed it for reasons that were never explained. He appeared in two games an outfielder, not four. In 1967, he was listed as a Pitcher on the Cubs’ roster. In 1968, he was brought up from AAA Tacoma where he hit .369. He was listed as an Outfielder on the Cubs’ roster.
I was a very close and personal friend of John Upham, and so often picked his brain about about his nine year career in proessional baseball. I used to tell him that I knew his career better than he did. He agreed. LOL!!!
I idolized this man from the time I first played for him as a 15 year old in 1978. We played slo-pitch together in adulthood and became best of friends. He was a mentor and role model. I will miss him. RIP My Friend.
Thanks for your note and my sympathies to you. I messed up on the number of games in the outfield. I will fix it. Baseball Reference lists it weirdly, but it’s my fault for reading it incorrectly.
Thanks for the article on Uppy Kevin. He was a very key influence in my life.
John Upham. Where do you start?
Uppy is one of only a couple hundred Canadians to make it all the way to the Major Leagues. Corner Joey Siddall or Stubby Clapp sometime if you wish to try to begin an inkling of understanding how hard a climb that is, a total staircase, as there are no elevators in baseball. His well-publicized accomplishments over the past few days, as a player and coach, speak for themselves, as they are tremendously extensive and beyond impressive. But I would like to address John Upham, the man. If you were sincere about improving, in English, in Math, in basketball, in baseball, it didn’t matter what your passion was, he would take your hand and carry you to levels beyond your wildest expectation. You didn’t have to be the best player on the team, or a Major League prospect, you just had to have a genuine passion and a willingness to put in the work. When he retired from baseball, he became a teacher, and gave back to the sports that were so good to him by coaching, anybody, any individual, any team, any small group, a room of coaches, a room of parents, a room of youngsters, or even a room of twenty-and-thirty-somethings who returned to Windsor after peaking in college or pro ball, but who still wanted to play at the highest level, such as the Windsor Chiefs, who he ignited the unmatched run of national championships in the 1980’s. He made everyone better, individually, and collectively, as ballplayers, and as citizens. He knew more than just about any coach he ever faced, the athletes he coached believed in him fully and would run through a wall for him, because we all knew that he had our backs, no matter what! John always gave you the straight goods, he didn’t have time or interest in sugar-coating anything. He always tried his best to make you better, every day, every practice, every car ride, bus ride, and plane ride, and every game. He was a true dynamo, he could make an entrance like nobody into any dugout, in any ballpark, or in any room, and people were drawn to him. We always wanted to learn more about what we knew he knew, we always wanted to hear his latest joke, his endless anecdotes from the days of yore, his opinion about … anything! He never sat on a fence. He could back up every position he expressed. He craved having the last word, and we craved hearing his last word. He could work an audience like few others, whether he had time to prepare, or whether it was off the cuff. He always got you laughing, and we always walked away from him smiling. He influenced hundreds and hundreds, arguably thousands, of Canada’s baseball family. All of us who became coaches or administrators took what Uppy, Fr. Cullen, Bernie Soulliere, Lee Nantais, Mike Morencie, Harry Lumley, and others fed us and without trying, we carried his legacy forward, because he simply did things that had so much logic behind them that they were impossible to dispute. Our teams under Uppy were always incredibly prepared, we had a plan as individuals and as a team, and we executed those plans, made adjustments thanks to his instincts, wisdom, experience and guidance, and we seemed to always come out on top. He had the magic touch. He was a winner, and he created winners. He was a legendary coach, and he created many great coaches. He made baseball a joy, an honour, and a cherished pasttime for countless Windsorites, and Canadians. I hope that there will be an opportunity for all of us who had the good fortune to learn from him, and to love him, to get together with an open mic, and share tributes, remind us of all the amazing, unique, and hilarious moments we experienced with him, to pour deserving gratitude his way, to celebrate his life, and his legacy, and to thank Carol and Tracey for allowing us all to steal so much of their family time and sharing John with us. He inspired us, and made all of us better in so many ways! RIP Uppy, you will always be remembered!❤🙏❤🍎⚾
That’s a wonderful tribute, Tom. Thanks for giving us a greater glimpse into John Upham, the man.