page_title: Baseball in Canada
section_title: Late 20th century and beyond
hierarchical_section_title: Baseball in Canada / History / Late 20th century and beyond
caption_attribution_description: Second league game for the Toronto Blue Jays. Unlike the first game played in a snow storm, this day was bright and sunny with the temperature well below freezing.
context_page_description: Baseball in Canada dates back to the 19th century, and is played at various levels of competition throughout the country. There is currently one major league team, the Toronto Blue Jays, founded in 1977; Canada's first major league team, the Montreal Expos, formed in 1969, relocated to Washington, D.C., in 2005.
  Around seventy-five Canadian cities and towns have been home to minor league baseball teams. There is currently one MLB-affiliated minor league team, the Vancouver Canadians of the Class A Northwest League, an affiliate of the Blue Jays.
  There are also several independent league teams in Canada, playing in the Frontier League and the American Association.
  Notable amateur leagues include the Intercounty Baseball League, Ligue de Baseball Majeur du Québec, and the collegiate Western Canadian Baseball League There are additionally amateur-level baseball teams playing in each province in the summer months under the auspices of Baseball Canada. Several American-based collegiate leagues have teams in Canada.
context_section_description: The first Canadian in the National Baseball Hall of Fame was Ferguson Jenkins, a right-handed pitcher who compiled a 284-226 record, 3.34 ERA and 3,192 strikeouts in 19 seasons from 1965 to 1983 with the  Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, and Boston Red Sox. Jenkins is considered an anchor of the Black Aces, a group of African American pitchers with at least twenty wins in one season (although Jenkins is actually a Black Canadian, not African American). In 2020, Larry Walker became the second Canadian inducted into the Hall of Fame. Walker played right field for the Montreal Expos, Colorado Rockies, and St. Louis Cardinals from 1989 to 2005, winning the National League MVP in 1997 with the Rockies.
  The London Tecumsehs were refused admission to the National League in 1877 because they refused to stop playing exhibition games against local teams. While baseball is widely played in Canada, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian team until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League.  The team enjoyed a widespread following until about 1994, when the Expos were in first place in the NL East; after the strike shortened year, a series of poor management decisions, disputes with the city, and neglect by the ownership caused the Expos to be routinely last in MLB attendance.
  In 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League. They later became the first Canadian-based team to win the World Series, winning back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993.
  In 1993, besides the two Canadian major league clubs, Canada hosted four Triple-A teams (the Calgary Cannons, Edmonton Trappers, Ottawa Lynx and Vancouver Canadians), one Double-A team (the London Tigers), two Class A Short Season teams (the St. Catharines Blue Jays and Welland Pirates) and two rookie-level teams (the Lethbridge Mounties and Medicine Hat Blue Jays).
  In 2003 an attempt to create the Canadian Baseball League was launched, but the league folded halfway through its first season.
  In 2004, the Expos, then owned by MLB itself, moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals, leaving the Toronto Blue Jays as the only remaining Canadian MLB team.
  In the 2010s the sport is experiencing  a surge of popularity.
caption: A baseball game during the Toronto Blue Jays's inaugural season. The team later became the first Canadian-based team to win the World Series.
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