The Border League was a Class D minor league that first saw action in 1912. It lasted only two seasons.
After World War II, another Border League was created in 1946. This time the league lasted until July 16 1951, when the league disbanded.
The first Border League started without the required five teams. The sixth team never really got off the ground. In the first season, the league played a 24-25 game schedule. The league was built around teams from Michigan (Mount Clemens Bathers, Port Huron Independents, Pontiac Indians and Wyandotte Akalis) and a team from Windsor Ontario. The Wyandotte Akalis won the championship in the first season with a 4.5 game lead over the Pontiac Indians.
In the second season, a sixth team, from Ypsilanti, was added. The league had a thirty game schedule. About halfway the season, Mount Clemens disbanded. It is said that this eventually led to the downfall of the league.
Despite being the new kid in town, Ypsilanti won the championship with a slim margin of 1.5 games over Wyandotte.
1946-1951 Border League
The second run of the Border League started in 1946. It was one of many minor leagues that were born after World War II. Fans followed their favorite MLB teams in the newspapers and on the radio, but flocked to the local small town ballparks to see professional baseball.
The new Border League was awarded the Class C status. It was a rather successful league as 1,600,000 fans passed the turn styles in the first five seasons of its existence.
On a rather short notice the league was organized. On Dec. 9, 1945 a meeting was held at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church in Heuvelton chaired by Father Harold Martin, to bring minor league baseball back to Northern New York. The 1946 season started with teams like the Ogdensburg Maples, the Watertown Athletics, the Auburn Cayugas, the Geneva RedBirds, the Granby Red Sox and the Kingston, Ont. Ponies.
Where it took other Major League clubs some time to affiliate with a Border League club, the Philadelphia Athletics immediately struck a deal with the Kingston Ponies.
Other teams only followed in 1948 (The New York Giants struck a deal with the Ogdensburg Maples, the Boston Braves affiliated with the Kingston Ponies and the Auburn Cayugas became the farm team of the Boston Red Sox). The Brooklyn Dodgers aligned with the Geneva Robins in 1949.
Cities represented:
Auburn, NY: Auburn Cayugas 1946-1950; Auburn Falcons 1951
Cornwall, ON: Cornwall Canadians 1951
Geneva, NY: Geneva Red Birds 1947; Geneva Robins 1948-1951
Granby, QC: Granby Red Sox 1946
Kingston, ON: Kingston Ponies 1946-1951
Ogdensburg, NY: Ogdensburg Maples 1946-1951
Ottawa, ON: Ottawa Nationals 1947; Ottawa Senators 1948-1949; Ottawa Nationals 1950
Sherbrooke, QC: Sherbrooke Canadiens 1946
Watertown, NY: Watertown Athletics 1946-1951
The league had a rather odd play off system in which the winner of the regular season played vs the number three and the number two faced the number four. The winners of those series would meet in the championship series.
In the first season, nr. 1 seed the Auburn Cayugas were beaten by the Kingston Ponies 3-1. The Watertown Athletics beat the Granby Red Sox 3-1 as well. Watertown became the very first Border League champion as they beat the Kingston Ponies 4-2.
The next season, the Granby Red Sox did not participate in the Border League, but in 1948 the team would move to the Provincial League.
The Red Sox were replaced by the Geneva RedBirds. The Sherbrooke Canadiens were replaced by the Ottawa Nationals.
The Nationals went the distance as they made it through the play offs to the championship series and beat the Ogdensburg Maples 4-2.
Border League champions:
1946 Watertown Athletics
1947 Ottawa Nationals
1948 Ogdensburg Maples
1949 Geneva Robins
1950 Ogdensburg Maples
In 1951, Horace Stoneham , owner of the New York Giants, bought the minor league rights in Ottawa. He moved his AAA affiliation the Jersey City Giants to the Canadian capital, forcing the Senators to move to Cornwall, where they became the Canadians. The club didn’t draw at all in Cornwall which costed the league a lot of money since it was the best team when it came to attendance when located in Ottawa.
At the end of the 1940s, minor league baseball started to lose ground to television. Eventually the Cornwall Canadians and the Geneva Robins dropped out of the league on June 26 1951. Watertown threw the towel on July 1st. With only three teams left, the league had no foundation anymore, even though the three remaining teams kept playing until July 10. On July 16 the Border League disbanded for good.
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