Toronto Maple Leafs (International League)

The Toronto Maple Leafs were a high-level minor league baseball club located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that played from 1896 to 1967. While the Maple Leafs had working agreements with numerous Major League Baseball clubs after the introduction of farm systems in the 1930s, they achieved great success as an unaffiliated club during the 1950s, when they were the strongest team on the field and in attendance in the AAA International League.

Toronto was without professional baseball from 1968–1976; in 1977 it received an expansion club in the American League, called the Blue Jays; the team still plays today.

History

The first club

The first Toronto club, Toronto Baseball Club, played in the Canadian League in 1885, playing its home games at William Cawthra's Jarvis Street Lacrosse Grounds (Old Lacrosse Grounds) at the northwest corner of Jarvis and Wellesley Street. It finished the season in third place. The next year, Toronto left the Canadian League along with Hamilton to join the original International League (also called the International Association), where it played from 1886–1890. The baseball stadium that would come to be known as Sunlight Park was built for the team and opened on May 22, 1886, with Toronto defeating Rochester 10–3 in front of 3,000 fans. Toronto won the pennant in 1887, behind 33-game-winner Cannonball Crane, who also led the team in hitting with a .428 batting average (walks were counted as hits for that season). The...
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