The first of baseball to be known in Coaticook was organized in 1901. The game of baseball really took off in the 1940's with a club known as the Canadiens and the arrival
of the manager, Paul Molloy in 1948. Molloy was celebrated for taking a team of unknowns and turning them into a championship team. Under his coaching, the
Canadiens would go on to win five championships and finish six times in the first place standings in the various leagues of which the club participated.
In the early 1960's, Denis Marcoux and a group of promoters joined forces with the Provincial Baseball League to build a new stadium. There were 800 spectators who
attended the official opening of the stadium on May 24, 1964 in the game between the Coaticook Canadiens and the Sherbrooke Alouettes. Coaticook lost with a score
of 9 to 5.
The construction of the new stadium marks the golden age of baseball in Coaticook during the years of 1964 to 1968. There was high attendance, the shows were highly
professional, and the star players were adored by all, like Louis Michaud. He was an excellent baseball and hockey player and became the darling of both sports in Coati-
cook.
The Sherbrooke A's, in 1981, of the Quebec Major-Junior League moved to Coaticook due to a dispute between the team and the city of Sherbrooke. The A's won the
championship with Steve Oleschuck as their coach in their first season and not without first breaking the record for the longest game held on July 4, 1981. After 19
innings, the game ended at 4 o'clock in the morning for Coaticook. At the end of the season, the team returned to Sherbrooke.
Throughout the 1970's and 1980's the ball game known as slow pitch gained popularity at the expense of baseball. Thanks to the efforts of Benoit Maurais and Maurice
Roy, baseball made a return in the 1990's. It became a rivalry between Sherbrooke and Coaticook with the Coaticook teams known as the Cards, the A's and Big Bill of the
Senior Eastern Townships League. The rivals would go on to compete with each other a total of eight times in various series between 1990 and 2002 with four wins on
each side. During this time period, the name of the stadium was named the Julien-Morin Stadium in honor of Julien 'Ti-Rouge' Morin, a well known name in baseball in
Coaticook.
Nowadays, those good at the game are entitled to not just one chance but two training sessions in Coaticook. The team Big Bill would play in the Quebec Baseball League
and the Rocket Big Bill expansion team joined the Quebec Elite Junior Baseball League in 2014.
True to a long tradition of baseball, the city would host several major tournaments including the World Baseball Championships in 2002 and the Canada Games in 2013.
Historical snapshot created as part of the 150th anniversary of Coaticook in 2014.
Reference: The City of Coaticook
