Paul here. Did you know Toronto once had a minor league baseball team called the Maple Leafs (in addition to the NHL team of the same name, obviously)? I didn’t, until I started working on this week’s Bulletin article about the best “Field of Dreams” throwback uniform for each American League team. The Leafs uni shown above would be a perfect choice for the Blue Jays, no? And I’ve come up with similarly fun and interesting choices for the remaining American League teams. (As you may recall, I did the National League last week.)
My Premium Subscribers can access the article here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that here (you’ll need a Facebook account in order to pay). Don’t have or want a Facebook account? Email me for workaround info. Thanks! (If you sign up for the workaround this week, I’ll send you last week’s NL article in addition to this week’s AL piece.)
Speaking of Bulletin: My annual Uni Watch NFL Season Preview will be published there exactly two weeks from today, Sept. 6, and I don’t mind saying it’s shaping up as a doozy — nearly 6,000 words and counting! The NHL and NBA Season Previews will follow in October, so there’s lots of good stuff in the Bulletin hopper.
Toronto still has a baseball team called the Maple Leafs. They are part of the amateur Intercounty Baseball League and play at a ballpark where a majority of the seating is on a hill. Check out the photos in the link. link
I believe that’s a young Jack Kent Cooke in the centre of that photo.
He owned the leafs AAA baseball team and tried to lever his ownership of the team into getting MLB into Toronto in the 1950s. That was well before he owned the Washington NFL team, the Kings, the Lakers, etc.
Babe Ruth hit is 1st professional homerun run (and only minor league homerun) vs the Toronto Maple Leafs on September 5, 1914 in Toronto. The ball left the stadium and is believed to still be at the bottom of Lake Ontario