While the Blue Jays’ quest for the World Series may have dominated Ontario’s baseball conversation this fall, an announcement made on November 24 indicated a new path for a league that has been part of the province’s sports scene for over a century. That day, the Intercounty Baseball League announced it would become a fully professional league under the new name of the Canadian Baseball League. The league will continue to honour its 107-year history as a semi-pro league, which has seen more than a few recognizable names take to its playing fields.
That history is a celebration of the sport of baseball. To accompany a photo essay spotlighting the Guelph Royals in 2006, the Guelph Mercury painted a picture of the relaxed feeling of attending a game at Hastings Stadium: “Maybe bring a lawn chair and stretch out in the grass along the first and third baselines under huge looming maple trees…or maybe plunk down on metal bleachers under the covered grandstand behind home plate. Want to chat? A few of the old-timers perched beside the visitors’ dugout have seen hundreds of games on this field and can tell you stories more interesting than a lot of the baseball action…This is carefree, slow baseball, with games sometimes so quiet you can hear the players muttering about the umpire from the dugout, or the centrefielder sneeze. There are no superstars here; these guys play for the love of the game.”
Such scenes have played out since the IBL formed in 1919 with franchises in Galt, Guelph, Kitchener, and Stratford. While teams from Brantford and Paris were interested in joining, backers of the Stratford franchise balked over the associated travel requirements. To promote team loyalties and make it easier to acquire players, a three-mile residency rule was imposed on each franchise. Junior and senior levels of play were organized, with an intermediate level introduced a few years later (the lower levels evolved into the Intercounty Baseball Association, which still exists today).
Among the players that first season was a 22-year-old University of Toronto graduate who was bored after a spell articling at a law firm. Feeling restless, he decided to play third base for the Guelph Maple Leafs, where his parents lived, and was joined on the team by his younger brother, who he felt was a better player. “I think the term good field, no hit was used to describe me,” he joked in an interview decades later. “The only way I can add to that is to say I was on the verge of respectability.”
Opening day ad, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, May 14, 1953
And so, Lester Pearson soon switched careers, though later in life he served as an honorary board member for the Montreal Expos.
“When I had become a public figure,” Pearson wrote in his memoirs, “references were occasionally made to my love of and proficiency in baseball. As to my love, there is no question, but I fear that my proficiency was often confused with my brother’s. I used to point this out on occasion but perhaps not so emphatically as I should have. My brother never held it against me; he understood the exigencies of politics.”
Things got off to a rocky start for the senior level in May 1919 when the first two games were cancelled due to rain. Franchise instability marked the next few years, starting in the league’s second season when continuing concerns about Stratford’s distance from the other teams led it to leave, though teams representing the city would be part of the IBL in the future.
Teams representing Brantford were in and out of the league, culminating in a major blowup prior to the 1923 season. That February, Brantford’s latest application to join the league was voted down, prompting representatives of the Galt Terriers to withdraw. Suspecting it would be a contentious meeting, league president Charles Penfold, who represented Guelph and opposed Brantford, tried and failed to keep the press out. As one delegate told the Brantford Expositor on their way out of the meeting, “Penfold has broken up the strongest league in the country and one we have worked hard to bring up to a high standard.”
Guelph Maple Leafs team photo, 1921. Guelph Public Library Archives
Within a few weeks, the league changed its mind and admitted Brantford, which prompted Galt to rejoin. But in mid-April, Brantford was expelled after failing to present the league with signed player contracts. Brantford team officials contemplated a legal challenge, noting that the league’s constitution gave until just before Opening Day (which, in 1923, was May 15) to hand in the contracts. After a discussion with Penfold, which indicated the rest of the league was fine without Brantford, the team gave up. Like Stratford, Brantford would eventually rejoin the league and, as the Red Sox, become one of its strongest franchises.
Some fans and sportswriters have claimed that the IBL’s golden age occurred during the 1950s, which was generally a good time for Canadian sports. This was a period where the top-tier Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League outdrew several Major League Baseball teams, and when the CFL (which officially formed in 1958) was considered almost on par with the NFL talent-wise.
Intercounty games became hot tickets. Longtime Brantford Expositor sports columnist Ted Beare noted that driving to a game at Cockshutt Park in this era “was an adventure in itself. Unless you got there at least a half hour before the opening pitch, there was no place for your automobile. The only way you could have gotten a vehicle in the enclosure would have been to buy a parked car.” In Galt, the Terriers were so popular that local factories noticed high absentee rates on game day.
Opening day ad, Brantford Expositor, May 7, 1948
The league benefitted from an influx of players who were long on professional or semi-pro experience. Over-the-hill major leaguers found a new home in the IBL, including Canadian-born players like Goody Rosen (who had the third-highest batting average in the National League while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945) and Phil Marchildon (who won 19 games for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1947).
The IBL also benefitted from the demise of the Negro Leagues, which opened a pool of talented players who were either too old or uninterested in pursuing spots in the majors. Around 40 former Negro Leaguers played in the IBL between 1949 and 1958, who, despite occasional racism, found Canada a more hospitable environment than the United States.
Guelph Royals players Dan Jackson, Walt Jeffries, Alf King, and Dave Hastings with Guelph Mayor William E. Hamilton, May 20, 1961. Guelph Public Library Archives.
Among those who came north was pitcher/outfielder/third baseman Wilmer Fields, who had been a star with the Homestead Grays. According to Beare, Grays management (possibly owner See Posey) told Brantford Red Sox owners Mike King and Larry Pennell to sign Fields, noting that “if he doesn’t lead your league in batting, pitching and home runs, I’ll cut my throat.” Fields led the IBL in hitting in 1951 and was named the league’s MVP. After a season in the upper minors with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Fields returned to Brantford and was MVP again in 1953 and 1954. In his later years, Fields served as the president of the Negro League Players Association, fighting to win recognition for the surviving players, especially related to pensions (shortly before his death in 2004, MLB agreed to pay pensions to 27 players who never made it to the majors).
Photo of Wilmer Fields (on the right) at a 1962 Brantford Red Sox oldtimers game. Globe and Mail, August 27, 2004
One near miss with a future star occurred after Brantford officials watched a match between the Kansas City Monarchs and Indianapolis Clowns in Buffalo in the early 1950s. They visited the hotel where the Clowns were staying and talked with the team’s 17-year-old shortstop. While the officials took a coffee break, the Clowns departed, taking with them the player the Red Sox wanted, future home run king Hank Aaron.
The increasing number of American imports and rising salaries led owners to contemplate ways to curb their expenses as several franchises threatened to fold. These ranged from seeking recognition as a professional league to limiting the number of imports. In the end, the IBL remained a semi-pro league and, though its number of teams fluctuated, it held on as minor league baseball attendance across North America declined due to factors including the growth of other recreational sports, the rise of television, and the increasing affordability of air conditioning.
The departure of the Maple Leafs to Louisville following the 1967 season gave the IBL an opportunity to expand to Toronto. The new franchise acquired the rights to the Maple Leafs’ name and began play in 1969. Owners Jack and Lynne Dominico became a key part of the league; the IBL’s championship trophy was renamed in their honour in 1992.
Brantford Red Sox 1951 team photo. Brantford Public Library.
The league continued to attract players who were on their way up or down from the majors. Among those whom the IBL gave an early boost to was Jesse Orosco, who holds the Major League Baseball record for the most games pitched. While playing for the Cambridge Terriers in 1977, he tossed a no-hitter and had a .424 batting average. On the way down was Chatham-born Fergie Jenkins, who pitched two seasons for the London Majors in the mid-1980s, ending a career that would see him inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Several IBL players also played with the Toronto Blue Jays, including brothers Rich and Rob Butler, Scott Diamond, Rob Ducey, Dave Lemanczyk, Dalton Pompey, and Paul Spoljaric.
Team rosters have also included many players who found fame in other sports. Many hockey players found their way onto IBL fields until the NHL urged players not to spend their summers playing baseball due to the risk of injury. Among them were Hall of Famers Bobby Bauer, George Hainsworth, Howie Meeker, Jean Ratelle, and Milt Schmidt. Wayne Gretzky played a few games at shortstop for Brantford in 1978, following in the footsteps of his father, Walter. “I liked baseball so much, but I couldn’t throw hockey away,” he once observed. “If I could have, I would have done both.” The league also attracted CFL players such as Damon Allen and Frank Cosentino.
Like higher levels of play, the IBL has seen some dramatic playoff action, perhaps topped by the final game of the 1994 championship series. Going into the ninth inning, the hometown Guelph Royals had a 10-3 lead over the Stratford Hillers. The lead seemed so insurmountable that it was alleged the PA announcer at Hastings Stadium gave out the location of Guelph’s victory party.
It was a premature call.
During the final inning, the Hillers scored 10 runs, winning the game 13-10.
In recent years, the IBL has increased in popularity, setting record attendance numbers, reaching nearly 250,000 across the league during the 2025 season. While the league’s relaxed, low-cost feel has played a part, it has been aided by attracting former major league stars like Hamilton Cardinals relief pitcher Fernando Rodney and signing its first female player, Maple Leafs pitcher Ayami Sato.
“People are going to hear more about us more and know what it means,” commissioner Ted Kalnins told the Toronto Star when the league changed its name and went fully professional. “It’s the best baseball league in Canada. They’ll know that immediately and probably be a little more likely to check us out.”
Sources: Intercounty Baseball League: 100 Seasons Strong (Intercounty Baseball League, 2018); Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson Volume I 1897-1948 by Lester B. Pearson (Toronto: New American Library of Canada, 1973); the February 28, 1923, April 19, 1923, May 11, 1982, May 7, 2002, and August 17, 2004 editions of the Brantford Expositor; the April 20, 1923, and April 21, 1923 editions of the Globe; the July 15, 2006 edition of the Guelph Mercury; the August 27, 2004 edition of the Globe and Mail; the April 7, 1919, and May 4, 1920 editions of the Kitchener News Record; the September 6, 1994 edition of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record; and the November 24, 2025 edition of the Toronto Star.