Montreal Royals


The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team in Montreal, Quebec, from 1897–1917 and 1928–60. A member of the International League, the Royals were the top farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939; pioneering African-American player Jackie Robinson was a member for the 1946 season. The 1946 Royals were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time.

History

In 1928, George Stallings, a former Major League Baseball executive and Southern United States planter, formed a partnership with Montreal lawyer and politician Athanase David and 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. Trudeau, businessman and father of the future 15th Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, would remain on the Montreal Baseball Club Inc. Board of Directors until his death in 1935. Together these men financed and built Delorimier Stadium 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, particularly after it became the top farm team of the Dodgers in 1939. The Royals launched the baseball careers of Sparky Anderson, Gene Mauch, Roberto Clemente and the man who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier with Montreal in 1946, Jackie Robinson. Other Royals' players of note include Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, Chuck Connors, Walter Alston, Roy Campanella, Johnny Podres and the winningest pitcher in the history of the team, Tommy Lasorda.
on the cover
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. Robinson played with the Royals during the 1946 season. John Wright and Roy Partlow, black pitchers, also played with the Royals that year.
During that season, Robinson faced the race-related resistance from his manager and teammates but soon won them over with his masterful play and courage facing hostile crowds and opponents. As for his home city, he was welcomed immediately by the public, who followed his performance that season with intense adoration. For the rest of his life, Robinson remained grateful to the people of Montreal for making the city a welcoming oasis for him and his wife during that difficult 1946 season. They lived in an apartment in a white neighborhood of Montreal that summer.
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 sports journalist with the Montreal Herald: "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, two years after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. On September 13, 1960 Dodgers President Walter O'Malley announced that due to weak attendance, the Dodgers were ending their 21-year 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, and became the Syracuse Chiefs. Montreal would gain an MLB team, the Expos, in 1969; "Royals" was suggested as a nickname for that team but was taken instead by the new American League club in Kansas City.

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.
YearWinsLossesPercentageFinish
18974976.3927th
18986848.5861st
18996251.5492nd
19005472.4297th
19016567.4926th
19025977.4346th
19033795.2807th
19046762.5195th
19055680.4126th
19065783.4077th
19074685.3518th
19086475.4615th
19096883.4506th
19107180.4705th
19117280.4745th
19127181.4676th
19137477.4905th
19146089.4037th
19156770.4895th
19167564.5393rd
19175694.3737th
19288484.5005th
19298879.5274th
19309672.5713rd
19318580.5154th
19329078.5364th
19338184.4906th
19347377.4876th
19359262.5971st
19367181.4676th
19378267.5502nd
19386984.4516th
19396488.4217th
19408080.5005th
19419064.5842nd
19428271.5362nd
19437676.5004th
19447380.4776th
19459558.6211st
194610054.6491st
19479360.6082nd
19489459.6141st
19498470.5453rd
19508667.5622nd
19519559.6171st
19529556.6291st
195389635862nd
19548866.5712nd
19559559.6171st
19568072.5264th
19576886.4428th
19589063.5881st
19597282.4686th
19606292.4038th

Montreal Royals managers

Notable former players