Ottawa Titans
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| Ottawa Titans | |||||
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| Information | |||||
| League | Frontier League (East Division) | ||||
| Location | Ottawa, Ontario | ||||
| Ballpark | Ottawa Stadium | ||||
| Founded | 2020 | ||||
| Colours | Red, white, black | ||||
| Mascot | Cappy | ||||
| Playoff berths |
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| Ownership | Sam Katz, OSEG, Jacques J.M. Shore | ||||
| Manager | Bobby Brown | ||||
| General Manager | Martin Boyce | ||||
| President | Regan Katz | ||||
| Media | Ottawa Citizen Ottawa Sun CTV News Le Droit Radio-Canada Sportsnet TSN TSN 1200 TVA Sports RDS Sports Illustrated CKDJ-FM FloSports | ||||
| Website | ottawatitans | ||||
The Ottawa Titans (French: Les Titans d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Titans Baseball Club (French: Club de baseball des Titans d'Ottawa) are a professional baseball team based in Ottawa. They compete in the Frontier League (FL) as a member of the East Division. Since 2022, the Titans have played their home games at Ottawa Stadium, originally known as RCGT Park. The Titans have made it to the playoffs twice in their franchise history. The Titans mascot is Cappy.
Founded in 2020, the Titans played their inaugural season in 2022 due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario. They became the city's seventh professional baseball franchise succeeding the Eastern League's Ottawa Wanderers, the International League's Ottawa Giants, Ottawa Athletics and Ottawa Lynx, the Intercounty Baseball League's Ottawa Fat Cats, as well as the Can-Am League's Ottawa Rapidz and Ottawa Champions. The franchise is one of the expansion teams of the FL, following their merger with the Can-Am League in October 2019.
History
[edit]After the 2019 season, the Can-Am League merged with the Frontier League and five of the six teams remaining in it joined the latter league. The Champions were not invited to take part, but it was not immediately clear if they would fold or go on hiatus as owner Miles Wolff, the former Can-Am League commissioner, looked to sell the team. He could not find a buyer, however, and the team folded operations. Eventually, the Frontier League decided to expand to Ottawa anyway, announcing in September 2020 that the league would be granting a franchise to a group led by Sam Katz, the former mayor of Winnipeg and owner of the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, who owns the Ottawa 67’s junior hockey team and the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League; the league considers this to be an expansion team and not to have any connection to the Champions.
In September 2020, the ownership group led by former Winnipeg Mayor and the American Association's Winnipeg Goldeyes, Sam Katz, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (who owns the Canadian Football League's Ottawa Redblacks and the Ottawa 67's of the Ontario Hockey League), along with local lawyer Jacques J.M. Shore struck a deal with the city of Ottawa to bring the Frontier League and Titans to Ottawa for the 2021 season.
In December of 2020, following a name-the-team contest that saw over 1,200 entries and 700 unique names, the Ottawa Titans were born. The league considers this to be an expansion team and not to have any connection to the Champions.
On October 6, 2020, Ottawa announced Steve Brook as the team's inaugural manager. Brook previously managed the River City Rascals in the Frontier League from 2010 to 2019. He led the Rascals to a 488–373 record over his nine seasons at the helm including the 2010 and 2019 championships. In December 2020, Ottawa announced the team name as Ottawa Titans a result of a name-the-team contest, and the team colours in the tradition of Ottawa sports franchises such as the Ottawa Redblacks, Ottawa 67's, and Ottawa Senators.[1]
The continued closure of the Canada–United States border, unfortunately resulted in pushing the Titans’ first game in the FL to the 2022 season. Ottawa, Québec, and Trois-Rivières were replaced on the 2021 schedule by Équipe Québec. Équipe Québec used the Canadian players from the Titans, Capitales and Aigles to craft their roster and spent the first half of the season on the road, before returning to Canada in late July. Équipe Québec split home games between Stade Canac in Quebec City and Stade Quillorama in Trois-Rivières.
On July 30, 2021, Équipe Québec hosted the New York Boulders at Stade Canac and won the game 10–8 in front of a full house of 2,800 spectators, the maximum number allowed during sanitary measures.
On September 12, 2021, Équipe Québec qualified for the playoffs, and they faced the Washington Wild Things in the best-of-five divisional round. The crowd of 3,750 gathered at Stade Canac during Game 3 represented more than 900 people than the number allowed due to sanitary measures, and Québec were able to pull a 3-2 win over the Wild Things. They however lost Game 4 and 5, which ended their very unique season. Équipe Québec finished the season 1st place in the Atlantic Division with a record of 52 wins and 44 losses with an average of 2,288 fans in 24 home games, including the playoffs. A full reset was done by the front office to immediately shift focus to the 2022 season.
In October 2021, Bobby Brown was hired as the Titans manager for the 2022 season, after Steve Brook, on a one-year contract, became the Gateway Grizzlies manager.
In 2022 in their first season in the Frontier League as a local Ottawa team, the Titans are taking their first steps in this new league. The Titans played their first home game in franchise history on May 24, 2022 in front of a crowd of 3,458 against the Evansville Otters.
The Titans have made it to the playoffs in their inaugural season in 2022, but lost to the eventual champions, the Québec Capitales 2 games to 1 in the divisional series.
In 2023, the Titans ended 6th place in the East Division of the Frontier League with a record of 48-48 and did not made it to the playoffs.
The team made it to the playoffs again in 2024 and faced the Tri-City ValleyCats in the Wild Card Game. They defeated the ValleyCats 5-2 in the Wild Card Game, However, they lost to the Québec Capitales again in the divisional series 2 games to 1.
Rivalries
[edit]The Titans have developed strong rivalries with two Frontier League franchises, with whom they frequently shared divisions and competed in postseason play. The oldest is with the Québec Capitales, who faced the Titans in the Frontier League Divisional Series (FLDS) in 2022 and 2024.[2] The Capitales won both the series 2 games to 1, then won both the Frontier League Championship Series (FLCS) 3 games to 1. The rivalry is due to Ottawa and Quebec City being the two largest cities of the league and two of the largest fanbases in the league, and was sometimes dramatized as being emblematic of Canada's English and French linguistic divide. The rivalry was also present in the Can-Am League from 2015 to 2019.
The team's second biggest rival are the Tri-City ValleyCats. The rivalry is symbolic due to a total of five players being ejected in only three games, including two bench clearing brawls in one game. On August 25, 2022, Carson McCusker of the ValleyCats got plumped twice by Evan Grills, which caused both benches to start clearing. Later, McCusker hit a solo home run to left field, and was mocking of the Titans catcher Tyrus Greene, which caused benches clearing once again.[3] Since then, both teams developped a strong rivalry. On July 20, 2023, infielder Jason Dicochea hit a walk-off 2-run home run off the foul pole to give Ottawa a 9–7 win over Tri-City in the bottom of the 11th inning. As of the end of the 2024 season, Tri-City and Ottawa both have a regular season of 15–15 while facing each other.
The Titans also have a rivalry with the Trois-Rivières Aigles. This is due to both teams playing in the same country and the closeness of both provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Both stadiums are located within a distance of 320 kilometers, which happens to be the closest team to the Ottawa Titans.
Season-by-season records
[edit]| Ottawa Titans | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | W–L Record | Win % | Finish | Playoffs | Total Attendance |
| 2022 | 56–39 | .589 | 3rd in East | Won East Division Wild Card Game over New York Boulders 8-2 Lost Divisional Round to Québec Capitales 2-1 |
112,727 |
| 2023 | 48–48 | .500 | 6th in East | Did not qualify | 129,495 |
| 2024 | 53–42 | .558 | 3rd in East | Won East Division Wild Card Game over Tri-City ValleyCats 5-2 Lost Divisional Round to Québec Capitales 2-1 |
144,140 |
| TOTAL | 157-129 | .549 | |||
Ottawa Stadium
[edit]
Since 2022, the Titans play their home games at the 10,332-seat Ottawa Stadium just east of downtown Ottawa. Ottawa Stadium has a pedestrian bridge to get to the ballpark using OC Transpo's light rail system. The pedestrian bridge crosses over Highway 417 to connect the ballpark to the Transit Way and is named in honour of the late Canadian broadcaster Max Keeping.
Broadcasting and stadium entertainment
[edit]Titans games can be heard on CKDJ-FM, and all season games are available via the FloSports website. The play-by-play broadcasters are Davide Disipio in english, and Mikael Lafleur in french (FloSports only). At many home games, the fans are entertained both outside and inside Ottawa Stadium with myriad entertainers – live music, DJs, giveaways and promotions. Between innings, the entertainment varies with on-field contests with their mascot Cappy, youth games, t-shirt giveaways, promotions and many more.
Current roster
[edit]| Active roster | Coaches/Other | |||
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Pitchers
Utility players
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Catchers
Infielders
Outfielders
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Manager
Coaches
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References
[edit]- ^ Baines, Tim (3 December 2020). "REMEMBER THE TITANS: Ottawa's new pro baseball team gets a name". Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
- ^ "ottawa titans playoffs". Bing. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
- ^ Benvenuti, Frankie (26 August 2022). "Titans Take Down ValleyCats as Rivalry Boils". 13th Man Sports. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
External links
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