Labatt Memorial Park (formerly Tecumseh Park, 1877–1936) is a baseball stadium near the forks of the Thames River in central London, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest continually operating baseball grounds, with a history dating back to 1877. Since December 31, 1936, Labatt Park has been owned by the City of London.
The park is currently home to the London Majors of the Canadian Baseball League and the Western Mustangs. It has previously hosted numerous minor league and independent baseball teams. Several notable sportspeople have played for London teams at Labatt Park, including Greasy Neale and Charlie Gehringer, who were inducted into the Football and Baseball Hall of Fame, respectively.
History Commons area at the riverforks
According to Seneca College's Professor Bill Humber, a noted Canadian baseball historian and author, the site of today's Labatt Park was likely used for recreational games when it was a grassy commons area at the riverforks, prior to becoming Tecumseh Park in 1877.
Baseball's roots are in the immediate area around London. The game of baseball, a derivative of the British game of rounders, had probably arrived in the area from nearby Beachville, Ontario, where the world's first recorded baseball game was played in 1838. (See Baseball Before We Knew It and Origins of baseball for other possible origins).
London Tecumsehs
The founding of the London Tecumsehs Baseball Club in 1868 ultimately led to the creation of Tecumseh Park in 1877. Created by London china merchant W. J. Reid, Tecumseh Park was named after the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh who fought alongside the British during the War of 1812 and who died in the Battle of the Thames near Chatham, Ontario, in October 1813. According to the London Advertiser of May 4, 1877, the first game at the new baseball park was held on May 3, 1877, with a contest between the London Tecumsehs and its junior team, the London Atlantics. The Tecumsehs won 5-1.
To wit: "The first regular game of baseball of the season was played yesterday afternoon in the presence of fully a thousand people. The new grounds are the most complete of every respect of any of the kind in Canada, and but few American cities have a convenient playing field."
On May 24, 1877, before 8,000 fans, the National League champion Boston Red Stockings played the London Tecumsehs of the fledgling International Association, with its star pitcher and later Chicago White Stocking stalwart, Fred Goldsmith. Boston narrowly defeated London, 7-6.
That same year, the Tecumsehs defeated the National League's Boston Red Stockings in an exhibition game at Tecumseh Park and later in the season they defeated the Pittsburgh Allegheny 5-2 to win the International Association pennant. More than 6,000 people attended London's pennant-winning game in a park built to seat 600.
On September 15, 1920, with Ty Cobb in the lineup, the Detroit Tigers defeated the London Tecumsehs 5-4 before 3,000 people at Tecumseh Park in exhibition baseball. Reserved seating for the game was $1.
On May 9, 1921, under manager George Gibson, the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the London Tecumsehs 8-7 at Tecumseh Park before 3,500 people in an exhibition baseball game. Before the game, Gibson and his team were presented with a silver loving cup by the London Kiwanis Club. Gibson thrilled the locals by catching the opening inning with his 1909 World Series-winning battery mate Babe Adams and singling and scoring a run in his lone at-bat.
On September 14, 1921, the Tecumsehs won the Michigan-Ontario Baseball League championship, 1-0 over Bay City, Michigan, before 1,000 people at Tecumseh Park.
On May 23, 1923, Washington's pitching ace Walter Johnson was in uniform but did not pitch as the Washington Senators defeated the Tecumsehs 13-9 in an exhibition baseball game at Tecumseh Park.
Thames River flood of 1883
Tecumseh Park was damaged by a flood of the Thames River on July 11, 1883 which destroyed the original grandstands, located near today's outfield foul ball lines. Originally, home plate was located in today's left-centre field. The new replacement grandstand (1883–1937) was built facing east toward downtown London, with home plate moved to approximately the same location as it is today.
Beginning in 1892 the park was used for amateur and professional bicycle races, attracting such international stars as Harley Davidson (the Canadian Wheelman, a late-19th century cycling magazine was started and published in London).
Baseball continued to be played there as well, with three more incarnations of the Tecumsehs in the International Association (1888–1889), the International League (1890), and the Canadian League (1898–circa 1915), with the London Alerts, also of the Canadian League, playing in 1897 and 1899. Meanwhile, in 1895 the park was the site of the first-ever motion picture display in London, organized by the London Bicycle Club.
From 1912 to 1914, Earle Neale played baseball at Labatt Park before he started his major-league career with the Cincinnati Reds in 1916, later becoming an award-winning and innovative football coach in American pro football.
In 1940 and 1941, the London Pirates played in the Pennsylvania–Ontario–New York League, more commonly known as the PONY League. It was during this period that lights were installed at Labatt Park to permit night baseball.
Negro leagues and other players
During the first half of the 20th century, Labatt Park (Tecumseh Park until December 31, 1936) was regularly visited by numerous barnstorming Negro teams from the U.S., plus a much-celebrated visit by legendary African-American pitcher Satchel Paige on June 30, 1954, when Paige was barnstorming with a baseball version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Paige pitched the last three innings of an exhibition game against another legendary barnstorming team—The House of David baseball team, who all sported beards and long hair and travelled with their own generator-powered lights (before Labatt Park installed lights in the early 1940s), which featured noted baseball clown, Frank (Bobo) Nickerson.
Additionally, numerous former players with the Negro leagues played in the Senior Intercounty Baseball League after the Negro leagues gradually folded after Jackie Robinson broke the "colour barrier" in 1947, including pitcher Ted Alexander of the Kansas City Monarchs and the Homestead Grays (1950-51 London Majors); Wilmer Fields (Brantford Red Sox); Jimmy Wilkes (retired jersey #5 for the Brantford Red Sox, later became a City league umpire after a decade with Brantford); Gentry (Geep) Jessup (Galt Terriers); Larry Cunningham (Galt Terriers, Hamilton Cardinals); Ed Steele (Galt) and Shanty Clifford (Galt and Brantford); Luther Clifford; Max Manning; Lester Lockett; Bob Thurman and Stanley Glenn (St. Thomas Elgins); all made numerous appearances at Labatt Park in the 1950s.
Tecumseh Park becomes Labatt Park
According to the 1926 Geodetic Survey of Canada (and the subsequent detailed maps printed in 1928), there was a structure situated near what is now the main entrance to the ballpark at 25 Wilson Avenue (at the time, the two entrances to the ballpark were off of Dundas Street—now Riverside Drive—including an art deco entranceway that was demolished in the early 1980s).
According to Mooney Gibson's nephew, George Lambourn, a noted baseball historian in his own right, the residence at 27 Wilson Avenue was the home of the park's cranky caretaker, Jakey Butts, which was destroyed by the Thames River flood of 1937.
This devastating flood damaged the park again, necessitating the construction of the park's third grandstand (1937–2001) and a new clubhouse, with the local Labatt Brewing Company donating $10,000 to renovate the park, as well as deeding the park itself to the City of London on December 31, 1936, with the written provisions that the park remain a public athletic park in perpetuity and that it be renamed "The John Labatt Memorial Athletic Park."
At the end of August during the 1950s, Labatt Park annually hosted athletes from across the city's playgrounds competing in a variety of sports during a two- to three-day event, called the "Junior Olympiad."
Frank Colman and Tom Burgess
Other London notables to graduate to the Major Leagues from Labatt Park during the 1940s are Tom (Tim) Burgess (1927–2008) and Frank Colman (1918–1983).
In 1936, Frank Colman started out at Labatt Park with the London Winery of the Senior Intercounty Baseball League, winning the Most Valuable Player award, batting title and Intercounty Baseball League championship. Colman was 25 when he broke into the major leagues as a right fielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing with them from 1942 through 1946, before he moved to New York to play with the Yankees. He played with the Yankees in 1946 and 1947, where he roomed with Yankee catcher Yogi Berra. He finished his six-year major league career with 571 at-bats, 15 home runs and 106 RBIs.
Colman returned to London in 1954 after playing in the minor leagues and being the player/coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the AAA International League from 1951–1953. He bought the London Majors and, as player/ owner, won the Intercounty League title in 1956 and the Great Lakes championship in 1957 before returning to the Intercounty League in 1958 and selling the team in 1959.
Colman is also a co-founder of the Eager Beaver Baseball Association (EBBA) in London which has provided competitive league play for thousands of youngsters since its founding in 1955. In 1984, a year after Colman's death, the EBBA's all-star day in mid-July was renamed "Frank Colman Day."
Colman was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in 1999 and the London Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
In a letter to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999, Yogi Berra wrote that he visited Colman at his home in Canada on several occasions.
"I've made a lot of friends in baseball through the years, but I'll always remember Frank as one of the most decent and genuine people that I ever met", Berra wrote. "I was proud that he was my friend."
Tom Burgess first signed a pro contract with St. Louis in 1946 and played right field and first base for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1954 to 1961 and right field and first base for the Los Angeles Angels from 1962–1963.
"[Former P.U.C. recreation director] Bill Farquharson gave me the opportunity from the playground days and I worked my way up to the big leagues where I made a living for 44 years."—Tom (Tim) Burgess, November 28, 2005
Since 1968, Burgess has been involved in Major League Baseball in a variety of managing, coaching and instructor capacities with several organizations, including the St. Louis Cardinals from 1968 to 1975, the New York Mets from 1976 to 1977, the Texas Rangers from 1980 to 1984, the Detroit Tigers from 1985 to 1987, the Kansas City Royals from 1987 to 1995. From 1996 to the present day, Burgess has been an instructor with both Baseball Canada and the Ontario Baseball Association. He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in 1992 and the London Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.
London Supremes and London Army Team
During World War II (1942 onward), the park was the home field for several women's baseball, softball and fastball teams, including the London Supremes who played in the Michigan–Ontario Women's Fastball League into the 1950s. In 1943 and 1944, the London Army Team won the Canadian Sandlot title.
Shortly after World War II Labatt Park was the home of the London Majors, which won the Canadian Sandlot Congress in 1947 and the Can-Am Baseball Congress championship in 1948, beating the Fort Wayne, Indiana, General Electrics in a best-of-seven-game series at Labatt Park, as well as winning the Canadian, Ontario and Intercounty titles.
Denny McLain and Fergie Jenkins