Toronto's Notorious Baseball Con Artist
Plus, my new exhibit about our city's sports history and more!
It was 1887 and Toronto was celebrating. The baseball season was over, and the city had just won its first championship. The team was filled with stars whose names would be revered in the city for decades to come. But one of them wasn't quite what he seemed.
In the midst of all those beloved heroes was one notorious villain. The man who crouched behind the plate that season was more than just a baseball player. He was a con artist whose name would soon appear in the papers for much less celebratory reasons: he would become the subject of manhunts and of courtroom dramas, he would be locked away in prison cells and in lunatic asylums, and he would earn a reputation as one of the most dangerous fugitives on the continent.
Toronto's catcher was a criminal.
Harry Decker grew up in Chicago. As a teenager he was already among the most promising young prospects in the city. A catcher with "a good, strong, accurate arm... solid batting and capable defensive work," he signed his first professional contract as a teenager and quickly broke into the Major Leagues with the Indianapolis Hoosiers. His future seemed incredibly bright.
But it didn't take long for the first signs of trouble to appear. Decker seemed determined to squander all that promise.
He didn't even finish his first season with Indianapolis. He quit halfway through a game, when a couple of players from a new, rival league showed up. "Oh Deck!" they called out to him, "Over here" — quite literally waving a wad of dollar bills in the air. They say it only took three or four innings for Decker to make his move. In the sixth, he let the ball hit him in the finger so he could claim he was injured and pull himself from the game, never to return. He raced off to Kansas City to play for a new team in the new league — leaving a pile of debts and unpaid bills behind him.
It would prove to be a costly decision. The new league quickly failed and Decker was banned from the Majors for a year. The next season, he was back in trouble again: suspected of throwing a game for gamblers. The crime was never proven, but he committed three errors and let himself get thrown out at the plate during the supposedly fixed contest — enough to make people very suspicious.
And so, as the 1887 season approached, Decker found himself looking for a job. He received three offers, from teams in Washington, Rochester and Toronto. So he said yes to all three. And then tried to cash all three of their cheques.
His scam didn't work — thanks to a mistake that was either breathtakingly dumb or breathtakingly brazen. He tried to cash two of the cheques at the same time, with the same banker. The banker caught on quickly since he'd been on the Board of Directors for the Washington team.
Still, Decker wasn't ready to give up. Next, he tried to cash three more cheques from three other teams by pretending to be three different catchers. This time, his fraud was uncovered because he gave a fake address for one of his alter-egos. When the team showed up at that address, they found nothing there but a vacant lot... and Harry Decker pacing up and down the street, waiting for his cheque to arrive in the mail.
Even then, he didn't admit his wrong-doing. His first line of defence was simple: no one, he claimed, could possibly be that stupid. When that failed, he concocted a new fraud, claiming that there were two Harry Deckers who were both catchers in the Major Leagues. That lie didn't work either.
Suddenly, teams were getting cold feet. His offers were quickly drying up. And so, that's how he ended up playing for Toronto.
In 1887, our city was booming. New railroads were bringing new arrivals into Toronto every day. The population was skyrocketing. New businesses and entertainment ventures were opening all over the place. And now, for the first time ever, they included a professional baseball team.
The Toronto Baseball Club had been founded just a year earlier, playing in the city’s first ballpark. It stood overlooking the Don Valley from the corner of Queen & Broadview (just across the street from the spot where the Broadview Hotel would soon be built). It was originally known as the Toronto Baseball Grounds, but was nicknamed Sunlight Park in honour of the nearby Sunlight Soap Works factory.
The Torontos played in the International League, one of the big minor leagues. But they were still stacked with star players and memorable characters. There was outfielder Mike Slattery, fast as anything. He stole 112 bases that year, setting the International League record, which still stands to this day. And as if that wasn't impressive enough, he and another one of his teammates — August Alberts — both had a batting average over .350.
The backup catcher was George Stallings. He would go down in history as a Major League manager — "The Miracle Man" who led the hapless 1914 Boston Braves from last place to a stunning World Series sweep — and is credited with being the first manager to successfully use a platoon.
The star of the team was Cannonball Crane, the ace of the Toronto pitching staff; one of the game's first big power pitchers. His fastball was the fastest in the game. He combined that blistering speed with a "deceptive drop ball" that baffled opposing hitters. It was a deadly combination. With Decker behind the plate catching him, Cannonball carved up opposing hitters. He would win 33 games for Toronto that year — more than any other pitcher has ever won on any Toronto team — with a 2.49 ERA. And he was one of the best hitters in the league that year, too, finishing with a .428 batting average — still considered to be the best batting average by a pitcher in professional baseball history.
Together, they battled for first place all through the summer, neck and neck with the teams from Newark and Jersey City. The decisive day came on a Saturday afternoon in September: a double-header against their rivals from Newark. Cannonball pitched both games and hit the walkoff home run iin extra innings to win the second contest, propelling Toronto into first place. They would never relinquish that lead: they won every single game for the rest of the year. Sixteen in a row.
Harry Decker had helped bring our city its first baseball championship.
He would play even better the following season, hitting .313 as the Toronto Baseball Club finished in second place. But even after he'd established himself as a star in Toronto, it was his life off the field that made Harry Decker truly remarkable.
For one thing, he was an inventor. He came out of his time in Toronto having produced a design for a new kind of padded catcher's mitt — the same basic idea used today. In fact, some people still call them “deckers.” He enlisted a business partner and together they applied for a patent, working in the offseason to prepare for production. It would prove to be an incredibly lucrative idea, but Decker was never a patient man. He nearly lost the patent entirely when he didn't bother to pay the necessary fees. And in the end, he sold off his interest in the new glove for $50. The rights were bought by Al Spalding's company: the sporting goods king who founded the National League would go on to manufacture the glove for years to come.
And that may not have been Decker's only successful invention. That same winter, he claimed to have invented a new kind of turnstile, which quickly became the standard in ballparks, fairgrounds and racetracks across the country. But the details aren't clear. The New York Sporting Times accused Decker of ripping off the design: they claimed he stole a turnstile from the Philadelphia Phillies' ballpark, filed off the name of the original inventor, replaced it with his own, and then tried to sell the turnstile back to the Phillies as a completely new design.
And whether or not that story was true, it certainly wasn't out of character. Harry Decker was a con artist with an impressively long rap sheet.
Over the years, he faced criminal charges over and over again. He was arrested for stealing from teammates. And from his roommate. He was arrested for stealing a suit of clothes, and for stealing a bicycle, and for stealing a horse. He forged a cheque to pay his tailor, another to pay his grocer, a third to pay for a fancy hat for his mistress, and many more beyond that. He forged the signatures of Al Spalding and of the owners of the Phillies. He got caught counterfeiting money — and then forged the signature of the U.S. Marshal who arrested him for it.
As one Pinkerton detective put it, "I know it is customary in some circles to always describe a criminal as 'one of the most dangerous men in the country.' But this trite phrase well applies to him." The Chicago Tribune complained, "Decker's hallucination is that he owns the City of Chicago. He was in the habit of entering saloons and ordering wine for everybody present and then walking out with the belief that the place belonged to him and he could give away his own wares if he saw fit."
He used so many fake names that eventually the police admitted they didn't even know what his real name was anymore. All they knew for sure was that he grew up in a respected, wealthy family... in Pittsburgh. Which wasn't true at all.
Decker gave many explanations for his litany of crimes. He blamed some of them on getting hit in the head by a baseball. Others on getting kicked in the head by a horse. Some, he blamed on the stress of having a wife and a young child. Some, on insanity — the courts institutionalized him twice, but both times the doctors at the asylum found nothing wrong with him and released him back onto the streets again.
Once, Decker convinced a judge to send him to a particular prison of his own choosing by claiming he was dying of tuberculosis — from which he miraculously recovered as soon as the decision was handed down. On another occasion, when arrested for forging yet another cheque, he evaded jail time entirely by pointing out that when he signed the person's name, he'd spelled it wrong. He couldn't possibly be guilty since he hadn't actually signed their name at all. At one point, he even seems to have had an operation to remove a cyst from his forehead — so it would be harder for witnesses to identify him. And on the occasions when he wasn't able to talk his way out of trouble, his rich parents were usually there to bail him out or to hire the best lawyers to defend him.
But his personal life, as you might imagine, did suffer.
Decker married young, during the year he was banned from the Major Leagues, to Annie Burns, a fifteen year-old girl he'd gotten pregnant. He had never been faithful to her: as his baseball teams toured from city to city, he gained a reputation as a serial womanizer. The Philadelphia Inquirer called him "The Don Juan of the Diamond." And their marriage suffered another crushing blow when their two year-old daughter — who by all accounts, Decker truly adored — died at the end of his final season in Toronto. Things seem to have gotten even worse after that.
In 1891, Decker tried to marry a second woman under a fake name. But his fraud was quickly uncovered and he was charged with bigamy. It wasn't the last time he'd be caught trying to do something similar. And on another occasion, he was charged with statutory rape, having seduced an underage girl.
"I think I am a most unfortunate man," he once complained. "It seems to me that if I merely look at a girl she fancies me so much that a breach of promise suit is the result."
Annie divorced him in 1896.
His baseball career was even shorter than his marriage. He played only two and a half seasons after leaving Toronto. His talent was undeniable and he got another shot at the Majors, but his on-field results were generally mediocre and teams’ patience with his criminal behaviour didn’t last long. He was released by the New Haven Nutmegs halfway through the 1891 season — after he was arrested for the second time in just a few months. "If Decker had pursued a different course," an old manager once lamented, "he would now be in demand by the best clubs in the country." Instead, he would never play professional baseball again.
He did turn up on a diamond at least once more, though. In 1915, Sporting Life magazine stumbled across an interesting photo. It had been sent to the manager of the Los Angeles Angels as a thank you: the Angels had given free uniforms to the team of prisoners who played baseball at San Quentin Prison. The autographed photo showed the full roster of inmates, and there among them was the star of the team: a catcher who looked awfully familiar. He was older now, and calling himself Earl Henry Davenport, but the face was unmistakable: it was Harry Decker. His life of crime had caught up with him yet again. He's thought to have spent a total of twelve years in prison.
But after that, he disappears from history. Once he was released from prison in October of that year, Harry Decker essentially vanished. Historians from the Society for American Baseball Research have spent decades trying to track him down, searching for any mention of him in the years after his stay at San Quentin. But it's not an easy job: Decker is thought to have used anywhere between fifteen to twenty aliases during his life; it was once said he "changes his name each time he boards a train."
And so, no one knows how Harry Decker spent his final days, when he died, or where he is buried. It seems as if the ultimate fate of the one most notorious ballplayers in the history of Toronto will forever remain a mystery.
Cannonball Crane would earn his own infamous reputation. In the years after winning the pennant with Toronto, he found himself pitching in the World’s Series and then travelling around the world as part of the Spalding World Tour, playing for an all-star team showcase the sport to the rest of the planet. But instead of shining on the international stage, Crane spent much of the trip getting drunk with his pet monkey. I tell his story in one of the chapters in The Toronto Book of the Dead, which you can learn more about here.
That 1887 season is also the year Toronto played a leading role in the creation of baseball’s racist colour barrier. I wrote about that story in the newsletter earlier this year. You’ll find it here.
And all three of those Toronto baseball stories appear in the new exhibit I co-curated for Myseum…
A New Exhibit About Toronto’s Sports History!
It’s open! I’ve spent much of my 2023 working with the wonderful people over at Myseum on my first ever exhibit, co-curating it with sportswriter and TV commentator Morgan Campbell, along with contributions from journalist Sam Laskaris. “Winners & Losers: Sports Histories of Toronto” dives into our city’s athletic past and is free to visit while it’s open for next few months!
Sports are one of the most powerful ways cities come together, with dramatic events played out on a big public stage. And so, much of Toronto's history has been written on the field, in the rink, and in the stands. The teams and athletes we've cheered for have become intertwined with our civic identity, reflecting the way we want to see ourselves and challenging our assumptions about who we truly are as a city. The exhibit highlights some of the most pivotal moments from Toronto's athletic history, with a special focus on six sports in particular: lacrosse, baseball, hockey, boxing, football and basketball.
It also includes some fascinating artifacts, like the hockey stick Bill Barilko used to score his dramatic Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1951 and the fishing rod he then took with him when he disappeared in Northern Ontario just a few months later. Or a signed bat Dave Winfield used during the 1992 postseason as he led the Jays to their first World Series victory. Or the hockey helmet of Angela James, “the first superstar of women’s hockey.”
Plus, we’ve got an old tabletop hockey game you can play while learning about how the game was invented in Toronto, rank your own favourite basketball moments, or throw on a blazer, grab a mic and snap a photo behind our own TV sportsdesk.
If you’d like a tour of the exhibit, we’ll be offering one this weekend! This Saturday, December 9, Morgan and I will be leading a couple of tours through the exhibition, sharing some of our favourite stories and a bit about how it all came together. It’s free with registration! The tour are happening at 1pm and 3pm; you can register here and here.
Here’s everything else you need to know if you’d like to check the exhibit out:
How much: It’s free! (Though donations to Myseum are welcome.)
Where: Myseum of Toronto, which is inside 401 Richmond (right across the hallway from the Spacing Store).
When: It’s open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, and runs until March 9.
A Bit More About My Governor General’s History Award
Last week, I shared a bit about each of the teachers, historians and museums recognized with this year’s Governor General’s History Awards. (You can that out here.) And a few of you asked me to share the citation for my own work, which received the Governor General’s History Award For Popular Media — The Pierre Berton Award.
So, here it is:
Adam Bunch is a modern storyteller, captivating audiences with Canadian history through a variety of innovative platforms. His best-selling books, The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, offer just a glimpse of his talent. Beyond his writing, Bunch leads community-based projects like the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History and the Toronto Dreams Project, which invite the public to discover hidden gems of the past.
Bunch broadens his reach through digital platforms, infusing his distinctive humour into social media stories, newsletters, and online courses. He is widely recognized as the host and one of three co-creators of the award-winning video series Canadiana, which chronicles his journey throughout Canada in pursuit of history’s forgotten and extraordinary tales.
Bunch educates and entertains audiences wherever they are, whether in the virtual realm, public spaces, or mainstream media. He presents his stories with approachable, informal language while grounding them in meticulous research and respect for the subject matter. His work demystifies history, allowing his own curiosity and passion to shine through and inspiring others to explore the diverse stories of their country and communities.
Thank you all so much for subscribing and reading and supporting my work! It really does mean the world to me!
…and while we’re on that topic, I want to offer an extra big thank you to those of you who support The Toronto History Weekly with a paid subscription. It’s because of you that the newsletter is able to survive — and a big part of why I’m able to do all the work I do! If you haven’t yet made the switch, but would like to, you can do it by clicking right here:
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
HATED MEGASPA NEWS — There’s been more news about Doug Ford’s infurating plan to turn much of the public park at Ontario Place into a private spa. This week, his government tabled legislation that would allow them to bypass a whole series of laws, including ones around heritage. As the CBC puts it, “[The proposed bill] states that the Ontario Heritage Act will not be applied to portions of Ontario Place.” Read more.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Place For All advocacy group has taken the fight to save the site to court. Read more.
And Olivia Chow has agreed that the municipal government will “step aside” as part of a deal between the City and the provincial government, “allowing the province to take over responsibility for the entirety of Ontario Place — the city owns a small sliver of the land — paving the way for the province's controversial redevelopment of the site to continue.” Read more.
BY THE NUMBERS NEWS — Speaking of local sports history, The Toronto Star’s This Matters podcast took a fun look at it this week: “Our sports department spent much of a year compiling historical information and debating tough questions on a simple, maybe even silly, question: when you look at jersey numbers, who is the ultimate Toronto pro athlete to have worn each one?” Read more.
BIGGER ON THE INSIDE NEWS — The TVO strike has finally ended, which means we can get back to enjoying Jamie Bradburn’s posts about the history of our province. And with Doctor Who currently celebrating its 60th anniversary, he took a look at the Torontonian who created the famously British show. Read more.
I also shared my own piece about Sydney Newman in the newsletter last year, which you can find here.
888 NEWS — The demolition of 888 Dupont is well underway. I wrote about its long history in the newsletter this summer, and now Toronto Life has a fascinating piece about its more recent past as a home to artists and their studios. “The rent was dirt cheap, the rules were nonexistent and the parties were legendary… Former tenants share their wildest memories of the city’s most storied art squat.” Read more.
CASTLE FRANK NEWS — On his Scenes of Toronto blog, Bob Georgiou dives into the history of the Castle Frank neighbourhood, with a name that can be traced all the way back to a two-year-old boy in the late 1700s and the log cabin his parents built for him in the forests towering above the Don Valley. Read more.
WEATHER BEACON WORRIES NEWS — Over at blogTO, Jack Landau worries about the future of the Canada Life Building (whose iconic weather beacon has kept watch over the intersection of Queen & University for nearly 100 years) and College Park (which began its life as an Eaton’s department store around the same time). Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
ANNUAL FALL AUTHOR SERIES: DR. IAN RADFORTH
December 7 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — Town of York Historical Society
“Dr. Ian Radforth will present on his publication "Jeannie's Demise: Abortion on Trial in Victorian Toronto " as he unveils the results of his detailed investigation of a backstreet abortion that occurred on the streets of Toronto in 1875 and its tragic consequences while exploring the story about how one woman navigated politics in Victorian Toronto, when abortion was illegal.”
$17.31 for members; $22.26 for non-members
ST. JOHN’S WEST TORONTO & THE JUNCTION: A CENTURY OF FAITH, COMMUNITY AND HISTORY ON HUMBERSIDE
December 7 — West Toronto Junction Historical Society
“A special meeting of the West Toronto Junction Historical Society, in partnership with St. John’s West Toronto Anglican Church, to celebrate the church’s centenary on Humberside Ave and 142 years in the Junction.”
LOTS OF LIGHT: VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES
Thursdays & Fridays until December 15 — 7pm — Colborne Lodge
“As the year's longest nights approach, join with us to explore indoor cold weather traditions from the 1800s - decorations that remind us that summer will return, singing to warm the heart and a live candle-lit reading of a unique genre of literature - the Victorian Christmas ghost story. Explore the fears of approaching winter's darkness and the hope of the light to follow. Staff will share these stories after visitors have a short tour of the cozy Colborne Lodge.”
$20
LOTS OF LIGHT: CAROLS IN THE TAVERN AT MONTGOMGERY’S INN
Dec 9 & Dec 16 — 7pm — Montgomery’s Inn
“Celebrate the season by singing together. Gather by the fireside in the historic tavern as our host leads traditional Christmas carols to the accompaniment of live music. Includes a light historic meal served buffet style. Drinks available for purchase at the bar.”
$45
LOTS OF LIGHT: SOLSTICE STORIES AT TODMORDEN MILLS
December 21 — 6pm — Todmorden Mills
“Join us at Todmorden Mills to celebrate the longest night of the year. Hear stories of the winter season with Elder Garry Sault, an Ojibway Elder from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, share light refreshments, and craft a tabletop paper lantern to light up winter evenings.”
Free with registration!
LOTS OF LIGHT: HOGMANAY AT MACKENZIE HOUSE
December 30 — 6:30pm — Mackenzie House
“The popular event returns! Enjoy an evening of live music featuring the trio Gin Lane, a diverse selection of festive snacks, and printing a New Year's souvenir on the 1845 press! (Note: the historic house is open to visitors but is currently unfurnished, as the restoration process following a 2021 flood continues.)”
$30
LOTS OF LIGHT: LUNAR NEW YEAR LANTERN MAKING AT FORT YORK
January 6 — 1pm — Fort York
“Head to Fort York for this family-friendly lantern making workshop in preparation for the Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year celebrations. For centuries, lanterns (or sky lanterns) have been made across Asia to signify special occasions and national holidays.”
Free!
LOTS OF LIGHT: FAMILY DROP-IN AT TODMORDEN MILLS
Until January 7 — Various Times — Todmorden Mills
“Enjoy a holiday-themed tour of Todmorden Mills' two historic homes and learn about food and festivities from many traditions, finding the common threads that connect us all. Sample treats and gather with friends and family over crafts and games throughout the day.”
Free!
LOTS OF LIGHT: FESTIVE CARD PRINTING AT MACKENZIE HOUSE
Until January 7 — Various Times — Mackenzie House
“Visitors are invited to choose a picture from Mackenzie House’s image collection and print a festive card on the historic printing press! (Note: the historic house is open to visitors but is currently unfurnished, as the restoration process following a 2021 flood continues.)”
Free!
Good morning, Adam:
We were very excited to go to your Sports exhibit at Myseum yesterday -- I subscribe to your substack on Toronto history because you are a marvelous story teller of unusual stories.
So, what happened here?
I have to tell you we were all (3) deeply disappointed by the exhibit, which has no evident curatorial point of view or vision. It is deeply incoherent, and not in an avant garde kind of way. You offer up recycled tired stories about the Leafs and the Raptors, throw in a bit of lacrosse and boxing, the odd tidbit (Christie Pitts riot) and so clearly have not considered women as participants that we get a lime green bristel board on Angela James and the CWHL taped to the door, that looks and reads as if you found it in the hallway of an elementary school. I felt embarrassed for you.
You've written interesting pieces on Toronto's deep history in women's sport in your substack. Your exhibit was preceded by the "52 Remarkable Women who Changed Toronto" exhibit that featured 5 women in Toronto sport -- you could just have included them. if you and Morgan couldn't be bothered to do original research.
Honestly, in this day and age if you choose not to include the stories of women in anything you do, you are really messing up. Really, deeply, seriously messing up.
I would immediately rename the exhibit "(Yet Another) look at men's pro sport in Toronto".
Even then, it is a boring look. Too much writing. Almost no interaction with the visitor.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why you would have put your name to this.
Sincerely, Ann Peel, Toronto
The Winners and Losers display was an amateurish disappointment. I expected way better from a good chronicler of Toronto history. Toronto has such a rich depth of sports stories and interesting characters and odd happenings. None of these were covered. Instead it was basically a Sportsnet exhibit for kids.