George Lee/pagetext
From SABR Encyclopedia
George "Knotty" Lee is regarded as one of the most important individuals in the history of baseball in Canada from the latter part of the nineteenth century up to the early years of World War II. Three recent books describe his roles as a baseball player, manager, scout, promoter, and equipment manufacturer. William Humber in his book Diamonds of the North : A Concise History of Baseball in Canada (Oxford, 1995), emphasizes his connections with baseball in Toronto. David Pietrusza documents his pivotal role as a minor league promoter in Baseball's Canadian-American League (McFarland, 1990). Pietrusza also contributed a chapter on Knotty Lee in the recent All I Thought About Was Baseball (University of Toronto, 1996), edited by William Humber and John St. James. Pietrusza's profile of Knotty Lee is titled "Knotty Lee: Canadian Baseball's Forgotten Pioneer" (pp232-239).
Knotty Lee was born in Toronto on May 12, 1877. In 1896 he joined the Toronto Athletic Club, a highly regarded amateur team, as a lefthanded pitcher. By 1898 he was a professional baseball player in the Eastern League, which later evolved into the International League. From 1899 to 1901 he pitched and played the outfield in the New York State League for teams in Binghamton, Utica and Cortland, New York. From 1902 to 1906 he performed with three different teams in the New England League and in 1907 with Oswego in the Empire State League. In 1911 he played for the Hamilton franchise in the Canadian League, but he was more than just a player.
In 1911, Knotty Lee was one of the founders of the Canadian League, the first professional baseball league in Canada. The league, originally a Class D league, later Class C, was made up of teams from Guelph, St. Thomas, Brantford, London, Berlin and Hamilton. Later Ottawa and Toronto had teams in the Canadian League. Knotty Lee was the manager of the Hamilton team for three seasons, transferring to Toronto in 1914 and Guelph in 1915. In 1916 he was one of the organizers of the short-lived semi-professional Pennsylvania League. In 1919 he helped found the Class B Michigan-Ontario League. For three years he was a manager with Brantford (1919, 1920) and London (1925) in the league. In 1921-22 he was the business manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the International League. Around this time he manufactured and sold the "Knotty Lee Special" baseball glove. From 1928 to 1933 he managed three teams in the New England League - Attleboro (1928), Haverhill (1929) and Worchester (1933). In 1930, he was the president and manager of the Class D London Tecumsehs in the Ontario League. In 1934-5 he was a manager with either the Peterborough Petes or Kingston of the semi-professional Central Ontario Baseball League.
One of Knotty Lee's most significant achievements in baseball was his role, described in several paragraphs below, in the formation of the Class C Canadian-American League, which operated for thirteen seasons over a 16-year span from 1936 to 1951. (Like most minor leagues, the Can-Am league suspended operations for the war years of 1943-45.) More than one hundred players from the Canadian-American League made it to the major leagues including Lew Burdette, Gus Triandos, Johnny Blanchard, Bob Grim, Joe Collins, Bob Aspromonte, Dick Fowler, Dale Long, Frank Malzone, Al Rosen, Tommy Lasorda and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Bob Lemon. In 1946, the Canadian-American League became the second integrated league in organized baseball. In the same season that Jackie Robinson was playing for the Montreal Royals in the International League, John Wright and Roy Paltrow were patrolling the outfield for the Quebec City team in the Can-Am League. At its height of popularity, in the years following World War II, the regular attendance of the Canadian-American League reached 703,143 in 1948. Three years after reaching its peak, the league folded, a victim of improved communications in the form of an increasing number of radio broadcasts of major league games, and the onset of the television age.
In November 1935 Knotty Lee attended the National Association convention in Dayton Ohio. The National Association was the governing body for the minor leagues. At the convention in Dayton, Knotty Lee was approached by Joe Carr, the promotion director of the National Association to help organize yet another new league. According to the Ottawa Journal, in a story datelined Toronto, January 3 1936, "‘Knotty' Lee, veteran of the baseball wars, ... has been engaged by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues to assist in organizing the proposed league composed of Eastern Ontario and Northern New York towns." Lee traveled to several possible league locales, including Smiths Falls, over the next few weeks. Jimmy Johnston, the sports editor of the Smiths Falls Record-News, reported in his "Gist & Jest of Sport" column of January 9 1936, that Knotty Lee, in town to do "a bit of missionary work for the proposed new professional league (was) an engaging gent whose chatter is rich in baseball slang."
Knotty Lee offered the opinion that a operating a professional baseball team in Smiths Falls would cost little more than the "shaded" amateur ball played in the St. Lawrence league during the past few years.
On February 10 1936, the Ottawa Citizen reported on an organizational meeting held in Brockville, "which laid the groundwork for the formation of the Canadian-American league of Class ‘C' baseball, under the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. The clubs represented were: Oswego, Watertown and Ogdensburg, NY, Ottawa, Smiths Falls, Perth and Brockville. There is every possibility that Kingston will join the eight club circuit."
In its first season, the Can-Am League was made up of six teams, one each from Oswego, Watertown, Ogdensburg, Ottawa, Perth and Brockville. In 1937 Smiths Falls had a franchise in the league. For most of its history, the Can-Am league was an eight team circuit. In addition to being the prime mover behind the formation of the Canadian-American League, Knotty Lee managed a franchise for the first five years of the league's existence, in Ogdensburg NY from 1936 to 1939 and Auburn NY in 1940. He also remained a very colourful, engaging and enthusiastic promoter of baseball. One man, who sold tickets for Knotty Lee in Ogdensburg, remembers that, "He had a personality that picked people up, that people liked." Another remembers that " He was a hot-headed Irishman, a real Canadian." Lee's promotional skills took some rather ingenious turns. In 1937, an increase in the number of home runs at Ogdensburg's Winter Park provided an opportunity for this story that appeared in the Brockville Recorder and Times on June 10 1937.
Knotty discovers cause of worry Lively Balls Prove Disturbing to Manager of Ogdensburg Colts
The mystery of the continuance of balls over the fence at Winter Park from the bats of the Colts and visiting players was solved when Manager Knotty Lee took one of the official balls of the league and sawed it in half. To Knotty's amazement the inside of the ball revealed that it was the liveliest thing ever made and the wonder of it all is that it didn't fly right out of the hand of the pitcher over the fence without going near the bat. The inside revealed that instead of it being the gray yarn with the cork centre, the ball had a white substance resembling fluffy down. Knotty lost no time in contacting the manufacturer and asking ‘how come the balls' got wings.' Lee will make an effort to have the ball used last year restored to shipments at once. No more of the ‘golfers,' as Knotty called the sphere when he had sawed it in half.
In 1939 to mark the opening of the new Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown New York, the National Association sponsored a Minor League All-Star game, in which representatives of each of the 41 minor leagues would compete in a game between two teams, named the "Doubledays" and the "Cartwrights". The first, and last, minor league all-star game occurred on July 9, 1939 at Doubleday Field, lacking players from most of the invited leagues, but one of the coaches for the Doubleday team, honoured for his contributions to baseball, was Knotty Lee. David Piertusza reports that, "It was his proudest moment in the game."
In 1940 Knotty Lee was in Auburn New York, a city with a rich baseball history, where the team had a dismal season, but Knotty remained in fine form. Spec Shea, a future star with the New York Yankees, was with the Amsterdam Rugmakers in 1940. He remembers that Knotty would, "raise hell all the time. He was quite a guy....He was quite an entertainer, I'll tell you. He argued like hell. He'd throw his hat up in the air. He'd throw it up ... and then they'd warn him, and a little later they'd warn him again. He'd have the crowd crazy." It was his last baseball venture in a career that stretched back before the turn of the century.
In 1941 Knotty Lee moved to Smiths Falls and bought the Palliser Hotel, across from the CPR station. Knotty Lee renamed the Palliser, the Lee Hotel. Knotty Lee died in Smiths Falls on September 5 1962. The next day, Bill Westwick, sports editor of the Ottawa Journal wrote that Knotty "was known for years as a pioneer of pro baseball, a man who forgot more of diamond lore than many of us will ever know. Knotty loved this game of baseball from the time he was a boy, was part of its history as so many...were in the early days of the game, especially in Canada."
On June 4 1998, George "Knotty" Lee was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. [1]
