The day the Milwaukee Braves' came to Maple Leaf Stadium
Milwaukee Braves legendary pitchers Warren Spahn (left) and Lew Burdette were just two of the Braves hurlers that appeared in exhibition games at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Stadium. Photo: Getty Images
June 7, 2020
By Denis Gibbons
Canadian Baseball Network
Hall of Famer Warren Spahn was scheduled to make his next National League start for the Milwaukee Braves in just two days when he took the mound at Maple Leaf Stadium on Aug. 16, 1954.
Braves owner Lou Perini promised the triple-A Toronto Maple Leafs he would start his best players for the exhibition game and more than kept his word.
Spahn set the side down in order in the first inning, before being relieved by Lew Burdette in the second.
Three years later, Burdette would be named MVP of the World Series in which Milwaukee defeated the New York Yankees in seven games.
The Braves and Maple Leafs played to a 4-4 tie in 11 innings under the lights at the lakeshore ballpark. They tried to break the tie even though the Braves had to be back in Milwaukee for a National League game against St. Louis the next night.
Less than three weeks before that, Braves first sacker Joe Adcock had become the seventh player in Major League history to hit four home runs in a game in a 15-7 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbetts Field.
Braves rookie Hank Aaron, who had managed to crack the starting lineup after Bobby Thomson broke his ankle in the outfield earlier in the season, went hitless this night, but was a starter along with Adcock and third baseman Eddie Matthews. Aaron and Matthews are both in the Hall of Fame.
Hammerin’ Hank replaced the same Bobby Thomson who hit the shot heard round the world, a home run for the New York Giants to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in a one-game playoff for the National League pennant in 1951.
The only players the Braves did not bring to Toronto were pitchers Gene Conley and Jim Wilson. Conley, who also played basketball for the Boston Celtics during the winter, had beaten the Chicago Cubs 2-1 the day before and Wilson was the scheduled starter for the Braves against the Cardinals the next night.
On June 12 Wilson had pitched the first no-hitter in the history of Milwaukee’s County Stadium, blanking future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts and the Philadelphia Phillies 2-0.
Although it had rained in the afternoon, a crowd of 10,143 attended, raising $7,500 for the Canadian Cancer Society. In those days box seats could be obtained for only $2.50 and general admission was just a buck-and-a-quarter.
Catcher Elston Howard, who would eventually win the International League batting crown and play for the New York Yankees in the World Series the next season, hit a triple and pair of singles for the Maple Leafs.
Before the game both teams attended a buffet dinner at the Royal York Hotel. Perini was asked if considered Toronto a major league city for the future. But the Braves owner said it would not happen until the city build a major league stadium.
It was the start of a father-son relationship between the Braves and the International League, more than two decades before the Blue Jays brought major league baseball to Toronto.
In 1956 the Braves returned to the stadium to play the International League all-stars on July 23. Milwaukee this time won 3-0 in front of 15,028 fans. Right fielder Archie Wilson and catcher Carl Sawatski represented the Leafs on the all-star team and future Leaf Sparky Anderson, then with the Montreal Royals, was named the team’s second baseman.
That same year Aaron won his first National League batting championship with an average of .328.
When fans tuned into CHCH-TV on July 28, 1958, they expected to see the Braves again playing the all-stars at Maple Leaf Stadium. Instead, they were served up Brigitte Bardot engaged in another popular sport with Kirk Douglas!
The game had been blacked out in the Toronto area and the Hamilton station picked up the CBC feed, which produced the unseemly transmission error. Switchboards at the CBC and Toronto Star lit up like Christmas trees with complaints from die-hard baseball fans. One exception to the critics, though, was CHCH sportscaster Norm Marshall, who said he’d take Bardot over baseball any day!
Milwaukee won the game 3-2 in front of a crowd of 10,506. Aaron singled and doubled in three at bats. Rocky Nelson of the Maple Leafs, who would win the International League triple crown, was at first base for the all-stars.
Aaron hit the only home run of the 1960 dream game in Toronto when the all-stars surprisingly beat the Braves 7-2, with 9,137 fans in the stands.
Spahn, then 39, did not pitch because he was the scheduled starter against the Los Angeles Dodgers the next day, but he appeared as a pinch-hitter and delivered a single. Spahn was no automatic out at the plate, hitting 35 home runs during his career.
By 1962, the Leafs had become a farm club of Milwaukee and Charlie Dressen was the manager. Dressen was field boss for the Brooklyn Dodgers when they won back-to-back National League pennants in 1952 and 1953.
Also back in town after earning a World Series ring with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960 was Nelson, the Leafs single-season record-holder for home runs. Nelson belted so many round-trippers for the Leafs and Montreal Royals that he was named to the league’s Hall of Fame while still an active player.