Diamonds of the North: A Concise History of Baseball in Canada

Ian A. Andrews is a high-school social sciences teacher and editor of the New Brunswick Teachers’ Association’s Focus.

William Humber is the chair of the Faculty of Continuing Education at
Seneca College in Toronto, where he teaches courses in baseball. He is
the only Canadian to have served on the board of directors of the
Society for American Baseball Research. As an academic and an avid
baseball fan, Humber introduces credibility and enthusiasm into Diamonds
of the North; this is surely the most concise and inclusive volume of
Canadian baseball and associated traditions ever written.

In more than 200 pages of text, based on an enormous amount of primary
research and supported with archival photographs, Humber tells the
baseball aficionado all he or she needs to know about the history,
sociology, and sometimes psychology of this very popular North American
sport—as it pertains to Canada.

The origins of baseball in Canada as well as significant contributors
and their contributions are chronicled, from the first Canadian in the
major leagues (Mike Brannock, who played for Chicago of the National
Association in 1871) to the only Canadian member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame (Ferguson Jenkins). There are chapters on “Black
Baseball in Canada,” the World Champion Toronto Blue Jays,
professional women players (the Asahis of British Columbia), Native
players, baseball in Quebec (even before the birth of Les Expos), and
the organizers and promoters who invested in this “apparently
frivolous activity.”

“Baseball,” Humber claims, “provided for a degree of continuity
and community in people’s lives.” Diamonds of the North admirably
provides the historical continuity for baseball fans to understand
Canadian roots and successes in this larger-than-life sport.