- Montreal Royals
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For the CBL club, see Montreal Royales. For the former ice hockey team, see Royal Montreal Hockey Club. For other uses, see Montreal Royals (disambiguation).
The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team located in Montreal, Quebec, that existed from 1897–1917 and from 1928–60 as a member of the International League and its progenitor, the original Eastern League. The Royals are most famous as the top farm club (Class AAA beginning in 1946) of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1939 to 1960.
The team's nickname was derived from the city name, which means "Mount Royal". Thus the full team name, like that of the Los Angeles Angels, the Phoenix Firebirds, and the Philadelphia Phillies, had a built-in redundancy.
Contents
History
Delorimier Stadium, seen here in 1950, was the home of the Montreal Royals.In 1928, George Stallings, a former Major League Baseball executive and Southern United States plantation owner, formed a partnership with Montreal lawyer and politician, Athanase David, and Montreal businessman, Ernest Savard, to resurrect the Montreal Royals. Among the team's other local affluent notables were close friends Lucien Beauregard, Romeo Gauvreau, Hector H. Racine, and Charles E. Trudeau. Charles Trudeau, businessman and father of former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, would remain on the Montreal Baseball Club Inc. Board of Directors until his death in 1935.[1] Together these men financed and built Delorimier Stadium (also known as Montreal Stadium, Hector Racine Stadium and Delorimier Downs) [2] at Delorimier Avenue and Ontario Street in east-end Montreal to serve as the team's home field. This version of the Montreal Royals enjoyed great success and launched the baseball careers of Sparky Anderson, Gene Mauch, Roberto Clemente and the man who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier with the Royals in 1946, Jackie Robinson. Other Royals' players of note include Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, Chuck Connors, Walter Alston, Roy Campanella and the winningest pitcher in the history of the team, Tommy Lasorda.[3]
The team holds a unique place in baseball history for being the first major-league affiliate to break the so-called "baseball color barrier". On October 23, 1945, two members of the Brooklyn National League Baseball Club Inc. Board of Directors, Montreal Royals owner and team president, Hector Racine, and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, signed Jackie Robinson, an African-American.[4][5] Robinson played with the Royals during the 1946 season. John Wright and Roy Partlow, black pitchers, also played with the Royals that year.[6]
During that season, Robinson faced the racist resistance of his manager, Mississippian Clay Hopper, and teammates to his entrance, but soon won them over with his masterful playing (beginning with spectacular play in the opening game against the Jersey City Giants) and courage facing against hostile crowds and opponents. As for his home city, he was welcomed immediately by the public, who followed his performance in that season with intense adoration. For the rest of his life, Robinson remained grateful to the people of Montreal for making the city a welcome oasis for his wife and himself during the difficult 1946 season. He and his wife lived in an apartment in a white neighborhood of Montreal that summer.[7]
Statue at Montreal's Olympic Stadium of the Royals' most famous player, Jackie Robinson made by sculptor Jules Lasalle.Robinson then left to play for the Dodgers the following year, but not before winning the Little World series and being chased by exultant Montreal fans right to the train as he left. In Ken Burns' documentary film Baseball, the narrator quotes Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier: "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind."
The Royals continued through the 1960 season. On September 13, 1960 Dodgers President Walter O'Malley announced that due to weak attendance, the Dodgers were ending their affiliation with the team. While a new affiliation with the Minnesota Twins was arranged, efforts to keep the team in Montreal failed, and the franchise was relocated to Syracuse, New York for 1961, where it has played as the Syracuse Chiefs since.
Titles
The Royals won the Governors' Cup, the championship of the IL, 7 times, and played in the championship series 11 times. For more details on their playoff history, please see Montreal Royals Accomplishments
Montreal Royals records
Year Wins Losses Percentage Finish 1897 49 76 .392 7th 1898 68 48 .586 1st 1899 62 51 .549 2nd 1900 54 72 .429 7th 1901 65 67 .492 6th 1902 59 77 .434 6th 1903 37 95 .280 7th 1904 67 62 .519 5th 1905 56 80 .412 6th 1906 57 83 .407 7th 1907 46 85 .351 8th 1908 64 75 .461 5th 1909 68 83 .450 6th 1910 71 80 .470 5th 1911 72 80 .474 5th 1912 71 81 .467 6th 1913 74 77 .490 5th 1914 60 89 .403 7th 1915 67 70 .489 5th 1916 75 64 .539 3rd 1917 56 94 .373 7th 1928 84 84 .500 5th 1929 88 79 .527 4th 1930 96 72 .571 3rd 1931 85 80 .515 4th 1932 90 78 .536 4th 1933 81 84 .490 6th 1934 73 77 .487 6th 1935 92 62 .597 1st 1936 71 81 .467 6th 1937 82 67 .550 2nd 1938 69 84 .451 6th 1939 64 88 .421 7th 1940 80 80 .500 5th 1941 90 64 .584 2nd 1942 82 71 .536 2nd 1943 76 76 .500 4th 1944 73 80 .477 6th 1945 95 58 .621 1st 1946 100 54 .649 1st 1947 93 60 .608 2nd 1948 94 59 .614 1st 1949 84 70 .545 3rd 1950 86 67 .562 2nd 1951 95 59 .617 1st 1952 95 56 .629 1st 1953 89 63 586 2nd 1954 88 66 .571 2nd 1955 95 59 .617 1st 1956 80 72 .526 4th 1957 68 86 .442 8th 1958 90 63 .588 1st 1959 72 82 .468 6th 1960 62 92 .403 8th Montreal Royals managers
Year(s) Name 1897 George Weidman 1897–1902 Charles Dooley 1903 Gene DeMontreville 1904 Charlie Atherton 1904 Ed Barrow 1905–1906 James Bannon 1906–1907 Malachi Kittridge 1907 James Morgan 1908–1909 Doc Casey 1910 Ed Barrow 1911 Edward J. McCafferty 1912 Billy Lush 1912–1914 Kitty Bransfield 1914–1917 Dan Howley 1928 George Stallings 1928–1932 Ed Holly 1932–1933 Doc Gautreau 1933–1934 Oscar Roettger 1934–1936 Frank Shaughnessy 1936 Harry Smythe 1937–1938 Walter “Rabbit” Maranville 1938 Alex Hooks 1939 Burleigh Grimes 1940–1942 Clyde Sukeforth 1943 Fresco Thompson 1944–1945 Bruno Betzel 1946–1949 Clay Hopper 1950–1953 Walter Alston 1954 Max Macon 1955–1957 Greg Mulleavy 1957 Al Campanis 1957 Al Ronning 1957 Tommy Holmes 1958–1960 Clay Bryant Notable former players
- Goody Rosen – Major League Baseball All-Star outfielder
- Jackie Robinson – Major League Hall of Famer
- Roberto Clemente – Major League Hall of Famer
References
- Brown, William (foreword by Ken Singleton) Baseball's Fabulous Montreal Royals (1996) Robert Davies Publishing ISBN 1-895854-64-4
- ^ "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation : Charles Trudeau ownership". CBC News. http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-74-73-194/people/trudeaumania/clip9.
- ^ Baseball Reference: Delorimier Downs
- ^ [1]
- ^ General Baseball History: Baseball's Negro Leagues
- ^ Society for American Baseball Research: Quebec
- ^ Hill, Benjamin (2007-02-14). "Forgotten members of the 'great experiment': Roy Partlow, John Wright lost in Dodgers' 1946 Minor League integration". Minor League Baseball. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070214&content_id=176859&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ "US to honor Robinson's Montreal home". FOXSports.com. Associated Press. February 27, 2011. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/United-States-to-honor-Jackie-Robinsons-Montreal-apartment-022711. Retrieved 2011-02-27. "... the apartment the couple called home in the summer of 1946."
Categories:- Sports clubs established in 1897
- Sports clubs disestablished in 1960
- Defunct International League teams
- Montreal Royals
- Baseball teams in Quebec
- Brooklyn Dodgers
- Former Los Angeles Dodgers minor league affiliates
- Defunct baseball teams in Canada
- Baseball teams in Montreal
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