Gibbons: Looking back at IL's Toronto Maple Leafs championships

Future National Baseball Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams (front row) guided the International League’s Toronto Maple Leafs to a league championship in 1965. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

July 31, 2020

By Denis Gibbons

Canadian Baseball Network

The local history books at Toronto libraries note that Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run at Hanlan’s Point in 1914 while playing for the Providence Grays against the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. Amazingly, Ruth also pitched a one-hit, 9-0 shutout for the win in the game.

Other links to baseball celebrities are not as well recorded in the city’s archives, however.

An aerial view of Toronto’s Maple Leaf Stadium, which was located at Front and Bathurst streets in the city.

Long after the Leafs had moved to Maple Leaf Stadium, at Front and Bathurst Streets, Al Cicotte, the great nephew of Eddie 'Knuckles’ Cicotte who won 29 games for the Chicago White Sox in 1919 before they became the Black Sox because of a betting scandal, was the hero of Toronto’s International League championship team in 1960.

A knuckleball pitcher, Eddie Cicotte was one of eight players banned from baseball for trying to fix the World Series against Cincinnati.

Dick Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2008 following a managerial career that included IL championship wins with the Maple Leafs in both 1965 and 1966 and two World Series rings with the Oakland A’s.

The skipper went directly to Fenway Park following the final game in Richmond on Sept. 16, 1966, and at the same time in 1967 was on his way to a World Series against St. Louis as bench boss in Boston. The Red Sox lost that series in seven games to the Cardinals. Roberto Alomar’s father Sandy was the Richmond second baseman and Hank Aaron’s brother Tommy played first base.

How many know that Babe Dye, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, was the first Toronto batter ever at Maple Leaf Stadium? Although he failed to reach first base that time, he went 2-for-5 for the Leafs in their first game at the Fleet Street Flats, a 6-5 win over Reading, on April 29, 1926. The two-time NHL scoring champ, a native of Hamilton, played for the Toronto St. Pats in the winter time, winning a Stanley Cup in 1922. The baseball Leafs won the Junior World Series that year, defeating the Louisville Colonels, although Dye was traded to Baltimore in July.

Playing manager for the Leafs in 1934 was former major league Ike Boone. At the age of 37, Boone played right field and led the International League in hitting with an average of .372 He also was selected the league’s MVP as Toronto won the league championship. Boone won a box of cigars for hitting a home run the night the lights went on for the first time at Maple Leaf Stadium on June, 28, 1934.

A farm club of the Cincinnati Reds at the time, the 1934 Maple Leafs won the Governor’s Cup by sidelining the Newark Bears and Rochester Red Wings, but lost to the Columbus Red Birds in the Junior World Series five games to four.

Columbus clinched the series with a 13-8 victory on Oct. 10, just one day after Dizzy Dean had pitched the parent St. Louis Cardinals to an 11-0 shutout win over the Detroit Tigers in Game 7 of the World Series.
It was the International League’s 75th anniversary when the Leafs won 100 games in 1960 and recorded 32 shutouts, establishing a new league record.

The Montreal Royals were the victims of an 11-inning no-hitter tossed by Al Cicotte on Labour Day weekend, striking out 11 batters. He finished the season with 16 wins. It eventually earned Cicotte another shot at the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Richmond Virginians, a farm club of the New York Yankees were 17 games behind the Maple Leafs when the regular season closed. Outfielder Jim King clinched the pennant for Toronto with his 24th home run in extra innings against Buffalo.

The Cleveland Indians leading hitter that same season was current Cleveland manager Terry Francona’s father Tito. He hit .292, although the Indians finished fourth. The major league club purchased the contract of King, who was named IL MVP, at the end of the season. King was then claimed by the Washington Senators in the expansion draft, producing $60,000 in revenue for the Cleveland club.

The Louisville Colonels, a farm club of the Milwaukee Braves, defeated Toronto four games to two in the Junior World Series. One of the Louisville stars was Mack Jones, later to play for the Montreal Expos and hit the first major league home run outside the continental United States. It happened in Montreal’s first home game at Jarry Park, an 8-7 win over St. Louis.

Al Cicotte had arrived in Toronto when Leafs owner Jack Kent Cooke bought his contract from Cleveland for $12,500, which is less than a day’s pay for today’s superstars. The Leafs were the triple-A affiliate of the Indians

Cooke, who later owned the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Lakers, boasted the Leafs would be a pennant contender even in the Major Leagues and forecast that a Toronto team would be in the World Series by 1966.

The parent Boston Red Sox sold pitcher Jack Lamabe out from under the Leafs to Houston right in the middle of International League playoffs in 1965. Nevertheless, Williams guided Toronto for a four-game sweep of the Atlanta Crackers in the semifinals and a five-game win over the Columbus Jets in the finals.
Lamabe, who had started the season with the Red Sox, had won 10 games for the Leafs after being farmed out.

Toronto’s Joe Foy hit .302 and was named both league MVP and Rookie of the Year. Three Leafs – Reggie Smith, who won the IL batting crown with a .320 average, Joe Foy and Mike Ryan – were in the Red Sox opening day lineup in 1967. Before the end of April two other International League champions Mike Andrews and Russ Gibson also were starting.

The Maple Leafs also won league titles in 1897, 1902, 1907, 1912, 1917 and 1918, as well as a Little World Series in 1907.

They remained in the league until 1967, but declining attendance led to their demise. There was an effort to promote community ownership in the Leafs after Cooke sold the club in 1964. I still have the official certificate for the 10 shares I purchased in Toronto (Conmunity) Baseball Limited, dated July 13, 1964. Unfortunately, I was one of the few who responded to the call and the ball club lost a bundle in the 1964 season.

Only 2,211 fans bought tickets for opening day in 1967. Empty seats also predominated for the team’s final game on Sept. 4, 1967 when only 802 fans showed up. In the 1950s, the club had drawn 500,000 for a single season. It was fitting that the club’s leading hitter in its final year, 1967, was a Canadian – John Ryan of Oshawa, Ont.

Toronto was without professional baseball for a decade before the Blue Jays arrived in 1977.