The Ottawa Giants were a professional minor-league baseball team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada that operated in 1951 after the relocation of an existing Triple-A team, the Jersey City Giants. It played at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa and finished with a 62–88 record, in seventh place in the eight-team International League and 31 games in arrears of the regular season and playoff champion Montreal Royals. The Ottawa Giants drew 117,411 fans through the Lansdowne Park turnstiles, also seventh in the league.
History As radio and television broadcasts of New York City area baseball teams increased, Jersey City's attendance plunged from 337,000 in 1947 to 63,000 in 1950. Ottawa had most recently hosted the Nationals and the Senators of the Class C Border League from 1947 to 1950, leading that league in attendance for three of its four seasons and making the playoffs each year.
The Jersey City team was owned by the New York Giants. Tommy Gorman, who held the exclusive rights to baseball at Lansdowne Park, engineered a deal to have the New Yorkers move their Jersey City team to Ottawa for the 1951 season. The Ottawa Giants and the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association were the two Triple-A farm clubs of the New York Giants in 1951. However, the parent club decided to scale back and only operate one Triple-A club in 1952. After one season, the Ottawa team was sold to the Philadelphia Athletics, who operated the team as the Ottawa Athletics from 1952 to 1954.
Roster Source:
P George Bamberger OF Johnny Barrett P Charlie Bishop 1B Marv Blaylock P Roger Bowman P Pete Burnside 1B Lorenzo Cabrera P Al Corwin P Walter Cox 1B/2B/OF Piper Davis P Chuck Eisenmann P Jerry Fahr P Frank Fanovich 3B Billy Gardner OF Harvey Gentry 1B/OF Fred Gerken P Red Hardy P George Heller 2B Bobby Hofman SS Ziggy Jasinski OF Milt Joffe OF Stan Jok OF Pete Karpuk P Alex Konikowski P Dick Libby P Raúl López (Cuban) OF Paul Mauldin OF Dutch Mele OF John Metkovich 2B William Metzig P Harry Nicholas C Edward Sokol P Andy Tomasic C Pat Tomkinson 2B/SS Mylon Vukemire C Neal Watlington IF Artie Wilson P Ed Wright
References
External links 1951 Ottawa Giants page at Baseball Reference