We filled the virtual bleachers on the evening of Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 as we watched Steve Rennie start for the Historical Society of Ottawa. Steve is a baseball writer and researcher who lives in Ottawa. A former journalist, he is the president of the Ottawa-Gatineau and Eastern Ontario chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). In the spring of 2024, he presented on Ottawa’s early baseball history at the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference in Cooperstown, New York. He has a particular interest in 19th century baseball in Canada and enjoys unearthing long-forgotten games and teams. He is a contributor and co-editor of “From Bytown to the Big Leagues: 150 Years of America’s Pastime in Canada’s Capital: Ottawa Baseball from 1865 to 2025” available online and his upcoming work will cover early baseball history in the far north and during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Steve began his session with a brief introduction to the origins of the sport. Although it has been widely claimed that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York, this myth has been debunked by baseball historians, the Doubleday family not living in Cooperstown at that time. The game had clearly existed earlier. It had made its way to Canada by 1838, the first recorded game being played in Beachville, Ontario. The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York formalized a set of rules in the 1840s that were widely adopted and form the basis of today’s rules. Steve highlighted some of the differences, pitching being underhand, the batter being able to accept as many pitches as he liked as long as he didn’t swing and an out being recorded if the ball was caught on the first bounce. He pointed out that early on there were no gloves, catcher’s masks, or other protective equipment.
By the 1850s, Steve explained, Base Ball had become very popular, especially in the New York metropolitan area and was spreading following the rail lines. International play began as early as 1860 when a game was played by a team from Buffalo against a team from Hamilton, while another was played a few weeks later by teams from Ogdensburg and Prescott. Steve showed us that the Prescott team was identified in the newspaper as Greenville, but he suspects that it could have actually been Grenville, as in Leeds and Grenville. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first fully professional Base Ball team, leading in 1871 to the establishment of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players.
Steve told us that the first game he has so far been able to find in the Ottawa area took place in Metcalfe on September 13, 1865. An interesting aspect of the write-up of this event is that there was no description of the play, indicating that the readers must have been familiar with the game and that it must have been played locally for some time.
In 1867 Ottawa’s first Base Ball Club was formed, the New Dominion Club of Ottawa, likely taking its name from Confederation. They established a Club House at the Ottawa Skating and Curling Club on Albert Street and played in a field behind it. Shortly after their formation they travelled to Ogdensburg for a game, which they lost 141 – 20. Scores of this type were not uncommon in the early days due to the differences in pitching, rules and the relative experience of the players. The next year saw increasing interest in the game, the New Dominion Club often splitting into two teams to play themselves. They also played a team of mechanics, a 4 game set against a local cricket club, in which 2 games were Base Ball and 2 were cricket. There were 2 more games against the team from Ogdensburg, losing both but doing well in the first of thee two matches. There was a strong social element in the sport at this time, the games being followed by dinners, drinks and songs. In 1869, or just after, their club house and the field on which they played was subdivided into lots and sold, bringing an end to the New Dominion Club of Ottawa.
In 1871 a new club was formed, the Ottawa Base Ball Club, which included a number of members of the earlier New Dominion Club. Steve explained that they were responsible for creating the first Ball Park in Ottawa, actually in Stewarton, a separate village. The park was in the Gladstone/Cartier area to the canal and was needed to host a game on August 27, 1872 against the Boston Red Stockings, the most famous team in the world at that time. The Red Stockings returned to play a second game in 1873, Ottawa losing both games.
Steve gave us a bit of information about two of the early stars that are associated with Ottawa. George Latham, an American born player, played for the Ottawa Base Ball Club against the Red Stockings in the 1873 game. He joined the Red Stockings briefly in 1875 before moving on to play for a number of other teams. Jack Humphries was born in North Gower and was the first locally born player to go to play in the Major Leagues, serving as a backup catcher for a couple of teams.
Although Base Ball was very popular in Ottawa during the 1880s and 1890s, all the teams were amateur. Teams based around professions, government departments, or other local towns competed against each other. In the summer of 1898, Steve explained, the Ottawa Citizen started a campaign to bring professional Base Ball to Ottawa. The timing was good as the Rochester team of the Eastern League was in financial difficulty and so in mid-July it relocated to Ottawa. Met with initial excitement, the attraction faded as the team struggled to a losing season, and continued to lose money, an estimated $4,000 in just its 6-week stay in Ottawa. The team, known as the Senators, as was the team in Washington, folded at the end of the season. It was some years before Ottawa had another professional Base Ball team. July 19, 1898: Jimmy ‘Gussie’ Gannon leads Ottawa to its first home victory in professional baseball – Society for American Baseball Research
You can view Steve’s full presentation at: Ottawa’s Early Baseball History - The Historical Society of Ottawa
Steve also produced a pamphlet for us which has even more information and can be found on our website at: 127. Forgotten Gems: Ottawa’s Early Baseball History (1865–1900)
