Sunday curfew would halt ball games in the 1950s

With the Toronto Blue Jays off and stumbling in their 2017 season, I harken back to the first Toronto baseball team I remember.

It was the Toronto Maple Leafs, a AAA team playing out of Maple Leaf Stadium on Lakeshore Boulevard at Bathurst Street. The franchise operated from 1896 until 1967. Starting out as an A level team it moved through AA then AAA in 1946.

Over those years the Leafs were affiliated with a number of major league teams though during its heyday in the 1950s it was an independent team under owner Jack Kent Cooke.

Cooke, who later owned the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL, bought the team in 1951. He sparked flagging interest in the Leafs with promotions, including a flagpole sitter who stayed up there until they gained first place, free orchids for the women and Hollywood stars as guests.

Peterborough had some good senior baseball teams just after World War II when they re-configured Riverside Park and put in floodlights. As a kid we would regularly attend the local games but look forward to a rare trip into Toronto to see the Leafs.

In the early 1950s Toronto had a Sunday sports curfew that prevented games starting before 1:30 p.m. and they had to be done by 6 p.m.

The ridiculousness of the curfew was brought home in 1951. A Saturday evening playoff hockey game between the Leafs and Boston Bruins, tied at 1-1, had to stop overtime just before midnight because the Sunday curfew would not allow the game to continue after midnight. The entire game was scrapped and the series moved on to Boston.

My father used to drive us to Toronto for the occasional Sunday afternoon Leafs baseball doubleheaders in the early 1950s. The first game of the twinbill was seven innings long and of course the second game had to stop at 6 p.m. The remainder of the game would be played the next time the teams met.

With no television to watch major league baseball, the Leafs AAA team was the best available. They had a number of players who would later go on to the major leagues, some becoming stars.

I remember the New York Yankees sent a young player to Toronto to develop as a catcher. Elston Howard was a left fielder when the Yankees signed him. With their catcher Yogi Berra ending his career, they sent Howard to Toronto to learn. He and Rocky Nelson, who had a weird stance in the batter’s box, were the first two players I remember seeing live in Toronto who went on to the big leagues. Howard was the American League MVP in 1963.

The stadium backed onto the western entrance into Toronto harbour and when we became tired of watching the baseball games, there was always Great Lake freighters entering and leaving the harbour behind the outfield fence to entertain us.

In those days there was no Gardiner or Don Valley expressways so our trips into and out of Toronto was along Kingston Road. Often looking at Toronto passing the car windows was more exciting than the games.

By 1967 minor league ball had run its course in Toronto. Talks had started about applying for a major league team. In 1976 Labatt’s Brewery announce it had purchased the San Francisco Giants and were moving them to Toronto. A court challenge in California nixed that deal but Toronto did receive an expansion franchise the next year.

As with everything, watching baseball today has changed drastically. In those days with no players’ names on their uniforms, no replay screens, a basic manually run scoreboard, no roof to close and wondering if the game would finish before curfew; spectating took some effort. Don Barrie is a retired teacher, former Buffalo Sabres scout and a member of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Peterborough and District Sports Hall of Fame. HIs column appears each Saturday in The Examiner.