Kevin Glew’s Canadian Baseball History Blog
“It still hurts.” That’s the response you’ll get from Montreal Expos fans like myself when you mention “Blue Monday” because those sinister words force us to relive the events of Monday, October 19, 1981. It was on that chilly fall day that the Expos and Los Angeles Dodgers played the fifth and deciding game of... Continue Reading →
A Canadian manager had to shut down a Canadian superstar for the city of Detroit to win its first World Series. That’s one of the many fascinating stories that Brian “Chip” Martin shares in his excellent new book, The Detroit Wolverines: The Rise and Wreck of a National League Champion, 1881-88. It was in 1887... Continue Reading →
He was Major League Baseball’s first 300-game winner and was later reported to have been the first player to have experimented with performance-enhancing drugs. Yet despite his accomplished and fascinating career, it took 124 years after his final professional pitch for a book to be published about Hall of Fame hurler Pud Galvin. Fortunately for... Continue Reading →
When the Toronto Blue Jays clinched their first World Series title on October 24, 1992, Canadians rejoiced. Tens of thousands spilled on to Yonge Street in Toronto where they hugged each other and broke into joyous renditions of the national anthem. Similar celebrations erupted in cities and towns across the country. The revelry was understandable... Continue Reading →
It might be baseball’s greatest comeback story. At least that’s what I came away thinking after finishing “Safe At Home,” Gregory Jordan’s riveting biography of former Kansas City Royal and Toronto Blue Jay Willie Mays Aikens. This 264-page book offers a no-holds-barred account of Aikens’ spiral into drug addiction that reduced the one-time World Series... Continue Reading →