Kevin Glew’s Canadian Baseball History Blog
By Kevin Glew Cooperstowners in Canada Some Canadian baseball news and notes: -A new Canadian baseball history book called "Our Game, Too: The Development of Canadian Baseball" will be released this spring (likely in early May). Andrew North, the co-founder of the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research and the organizer of the annual Canadian Baseball... Continue Reading →
Book Review: The Man Who Made Babe Ruth: Brother Matthias of St. Mary’s School, by Brian “Chip” Martin A Canadian was the “greatest man” that Babe Ruth had ever known. And it’s that unheralded Maritimer that the spotlight is finally shone on in Brian “Chip” Martin’s superb new book, The Man Who Made Babe Ruth:... 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 →
My weekly observations and notes about some Canadian baseball stories: If it seems like Russell Martin has hit a lot of clutch, late-inning home runs for the Toronto Blue Jays this season, that’s because he has. Thirteen of the Montreal native’s 19 homers have come in the sixth inning or later. Thirty-two years ago today,... Continue Reading →
My weekly observations and notes about some Canadian baseball stories: • Who says you need to have a lively young arm to be a successful big league pitcher? With the shutout he tossed on Saturday against the Miami Marlins, 42-year-old, former Montreal Expo Bartolo Colon has now hurled 25 consecutive scoreless innings for the New... 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 →
My weekly observations and notes about some Canadian baseball stories: • You can add Toronto Blue Jays World Series hero and Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Carter’s name to the list of people upset that Carlos Delgado was not selected on at least five per cent of baseball writers’ ballots in this year’s National... Continue Reading →
A Canadian doctor’s account of a game played in Beachville, Ont., on June 4, 1838 may have been the inspiration behind the myth that Cooperstown, N.Y., was the birthplace of baseball. That’s the theory that Brian “Chip” Martin convincingly proposes in his meticulously researched book Baseball’s Creation Myth: Adam Ford, Abner Graves and the Cooperstown... Continue Reading →