10 interesting facts I learned at the 2024 Canadian Baseball History Conference – Part 1

November 6, 2024

By Kevin Glew

Cooperstowners in Canada

The seventh annual Canadian Baseball History Conference took place at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont., on the weekend.

Organized by Andrew North – the Willie Mays of baseball conference convenors in our country – the event was a rousing success.

Thank you to Andrew and Scott Crawford, at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, for all of the work they put into organizing the two-day event, which featured 16 presentations about topics ranging from the Cooperstown case for Bob Emslie to songs by Canadian musicians that mention baseball.

I took 20 pages of notes, so it would be impossible for me to share everything I learned. Instead, I have narrowed it down to 10 interesting facts that I scribbled down during the event.

Here are the first five:

1. In his presentation, “It’s About Time: Bob Emslie Belongs in Cooperstown,” author Larry Gerlach made a convincing case that Emslie, a longtime big-league umpire who was born in Guelph, Ont., is worthy of a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Gerlach pointed out that Emslie was involved in major league umpiring for close to half a century and that for the early part of his career, from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Emslie worked games solo. There were games when Emslie was injured and punched by players or fans. There were others when he had to be escorted from the ballpark by the police.

Gerlach also pointed out that in 35 seasons as a big-league ump, Emslie never missed a scheduled game and that the resilient Canadian was the first major league umpire to officiate in four decades. In total, Emslie worked home plate in 2,356 major league games, which is the fourth most all-time. In 1924, Emslie was hired to be the first supervisor of MLB umpires. Gerlach also noted that baseball legends Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner said Emslie was one of the best umpires of their era.

Gerlach has also written a fantastic book about Emslie called, Lion of the League: Bob Emslie and the Evolution of the Baseball Umpire, that I purchased here.

2. I learned from Stephen Dame’s excellent presentation called “Ladies of the Night Game: a history of baseball under lights in Toronto,” that the first game played under lights in Toronto was a female softball game between the Sunnyside Supremes and Lakesides at Sunnyside Stadium on Lakeshore Boulevard on August 18, 1930. The Lakesides won 7-4. Dame noted that the first game played under lights by a men’s team in Toronto took place on June 28, 1934 at Maple Leaf Stadium. For the record, the first major league game played under lights occurred on May 24, 1935 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

3. In Warren Campbell’s outstanding presentation called “The Border League (1946-51) Story of the Ottawa Nationals and Kingston Ponies,” I learned that onetime St. Louis Cardinals star pitcher Paul “Daffy” Dean managed the Ottawa Nationals in 1947. Dean managed the Class-C Nationals to an 82-42 record but bailed on the team in the playoffs, taking off for Arkansas before the Nationals won the league championship. Dean, the brother of Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, had back-to-back 19-win seasons with the Cardinals in 1934 and 1935 before struggling through arm woes for much of his next seven big league seasons.

4. I learned from Martin Lacoste’s superb presentation called “Into the Woods” that three boys (Pete, Fred and Jeff) from the Wood family from Dundas, Ont., all played high-level baseball and two of them competed in the big leagues. On September 30, 1885, Pete Wood (pitcher) and Fred Wood (catcher) became the first – and still only – Canadian brothers to form a battery in a major league game when they did so for the National League’s Buffalo Bisons. Buffalo lost 5-3 to Boston, but history was made. That would also be the only regular season game Fred Wood played for the Bisons.

5. In his interesting presentation called “Roark Park – An Extreme Ballpark Effect,” Allen Tait took a deeper look at the eight-home run game (yes, eight home runs in a single game!) that Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Jay Justin Clarke (Amherstburg, Ont.) belted with the class-D Corsicana Oil Citys in their 51-3 win over the Texarkana Casketmakers at Roark Park in Ennis, Texas on June 15, 1902. Clarke went 8-for-8 with eight home runs and 16 RBIs in the contest. Those eight home runs in a single game still stand as a minor league record. Through his research, Tait was able to identify that the right field fence in Roark Park (which was demolished many years ago) was approximately 200 to 210 feet from home plate. In other words, a short fly ball to right was a home run for the left-handed hitting Clarke. Tait also revealed that there were 21 home runs in total in that game and that Clarke only hit 17 other home runs in his entire pro career which spanned 1,415 contests.

Stay tuned for Part 2.