Provincial League (Canada) Cabinet Photos w/ 1st Black Player in Quebec (UPDATE!)
 

(Update: See post 6 for IDs)

I have read about the Provincial League on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provin...ague_(baseball)) and here: https://journalletour.com/colour-of-baseball/

I have the following cabinet photos, one of the St Hyacinthe team, another awesome photo of a player from St. Jean, and then two guys in the field (the jersey on the right appears to say CA BBC).

I am not a uniform and equipment expert, but to me the St. Jean player's glove looks like a workman's style crescent padded glove, which dates it to 1897-1900 (or somewhat soon after):

http://keymancollectibles.com/glovesmitts/pre1900.htm

I have better scans on my Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132359...57677532628734

I am curious if anyone can tell me more about the photos, about this early period of the Provincial League, or contribute some scans of your materials to this thread.

Thanks!

Found another brief mention but it still doesn't provide much info. The team photo I have says 1902 champions, which is not one of the years that is mentioned here, which is interesting:

https://books.google.com/books?id=AS...201900&f=false

That top cabinet is great.

[/U]QUOTE=Jobu;1943855]I have read about the Provincial League on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provin...ague_(baseball)) and here: https://journalletour.com/colour-of-baseball/

I have the following cabinet photos, one of the St Hyacinthe team, another awesome photo of a player from St. Jean, and then two guys in the field (the jersey on the right appears to say CA BBC).

I am not a uniform and equipment expert, but to me the St. Jean player's glove looks like a workman's style crescent padded glove, which dates it to 1897-1900 (or somewhat soon after):

http://keymancollectibles.com/glovesmitts/pre1900.htm

I have better scans on my Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132359...57677532628734

I am curious if anyone can tell me more about the photos, about this early period of the Provincial League, or contribute some scans of your materials to this thread.

Thanks![/QUOTE]

Nice cabinets Bryan. Additionally, that cabinet of an African-American (or I guess to be appropriate, African-Canadian?) baseball player is quite rare.

Rob M

St-Jean
 

Wow, those are super cool. I didn't even know they had a team way back then. I lived there for about 4 years in the 2000's, on Rue Richelieu! My #2 all-time pizza joint is there.

I wish a team would come back to Montreal........1994, what could have been.

Very cool looking photo and uniform. They must have been sweltering in those uniforms.

Andy

With the help of John Thorn and his friends (portions of their text is pasted below), all three of these photos now have more info!

The single player appears to be S. (or T. based on a newspaper article) Smith, the first African American player in Quebec history. He played for Montreal in 1899 and for St Jean in 1900. Here are his stats (clicking on the teams gives you the team stats):

http://web.archive.org/web/201007131...-smithnoir.htm

There is even a short newspaper excerpt about him from 1899:

Attachment 386448

http://web.archive.org/web/201106300..._1899smith.htm

The composite photo of St. Hyacinthe is from 1902 when they won the pennant but lost the playoffs to the Montreal Mascottes two games to none. St. Hyacinthe would go on to win the playoffs the following year.

The players in the field have GABBC on their uniforms. It stands for Granite Association Base Ball Club. The Granite Mills used to sponsor the club from 1894 until 1897. The club was fittingly called the Saint-Hyacinthe Granites during those years. Here is an 1896 team photo with those same uniforms on:

Attachment 386445

I'd like to say thank you again to everyone who helped id these guys!

Awesome items and great research!

Bryan, I have no info for you, but that cabinet is unreal. It looks like it could have been taken last week. Very cool piece

Agree on the single player cabinet. Great image!

That's got to be one of the nicest portrait style photos of a player I've seen.
Most are fairly ridgidly posed and very formal, this looks like the photographer was messing with him and snapped the pic just as he was getting a "come on man!" look from him

Thanks guys! It is definitely one of those photos that it is hard to take your eyes off of.

Wow! That first cabinet is simply unreal! Congrats!

We have a full name and a bio for Mr. Smith! Thanks to digging by Patrick Carpentier and Christian Trudeau, Mr. Smith's full name was Taylor Smith. He spent a lot of his time playing on black teams in Pennsylvania beginning in 1884 before heading north to become the first Black player in Montreal.

There is a perfect line from a newspaper article that matches the personality he is showing in his photo:

"Pitcher Smith of the Cuban Giants has a set of ivories that hoodooed the Stars yesterday and every time he smiled one of his six by nine smiles he rattled the men at the bat so that they did not plug him to the extent expected."

The bio comes from James E Brunson III's Black Baseball 1858-1900.


Bio Part 1

Attachment 458148

Bio Part 2

Attachment 458149

Composite

Attachment 458145

Mr Taylor Smith

Attachment 458146

That is a great cabinet and great research. I have this one of the 1896 St. Hyacinthe team. Could not find out much about them or the league.