Brantford Red Sox
The Brantford Red Sox are an Intercounty Baseball League team based in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
The team's history can be traced back to 1911. The Brantford Red Sox continued until 1915 when World War I put an end to the league but the Red Sox continued in the Michigan-Ontario League from 1919 to 1922.
In 1930 the Red Sox played in the short-lived Ontario League which collapsed with the onset of the Great Depression. However, they had a resurgence as an intermediate "A" team known as the Red Sox, winning both the league and the Ontario championships in 1931 and 1933.
Joins the Intercounty Baseball League
The Brantford Red Sox joined the ranks of the Intercounty Baseball League in 1934. It appears the Brantford Red Sox played in the league continuously from the 1934 season until 1941, and in 1936 the Red Sox team was the runner-up in the championship series. There were no winners during the World War II years from 1942 to 1945.
From 1950 to 1981 the Brantford Red Sox were Intercounty Major Baseball League Pennant Winners nine times: 1950, 1951, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1981. Several Brantford players captured numerous titles as Intercounty iron men, in the categories of batting, pitching, fielding and base-running.
London, Ontario-born left-handed pitcher, Ron Stead, for example, led Brantford to six league titles (1959-1963, 1965) and is slated to be inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on June 24, 2006, in St. Marys, Ontario. Stead also won an Intercounty title with the Guelph Royals in 1970.
A legend of the Intercounty loop, Stead is first in all-time wins (104), strikeouts (1,231), shutouts (25) and complete games (116). Stead was a 10-time All-Star and four-time MVP (1960, 1963, 1965 and 1967. He was also the starting pitcher for Team Canada at the 1967 Pan-Am Games in Mexico City, Mexico.