September 2, 1971: Harold Ballard becomes the majority owner of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, and their arena, Maple Leaf Gardens. He is on his way to becoming the most hated man in Canada.
Edwin Harold Ballard was born in Toronto on July 30, 1903 -- just 71 days before Walter O'Malley, who would become the most hated man in American sports. At some point, Ballard reversed his names, and became "Harold Edwin." His father manufactured ice skates, and that would be his entry into hockey. He was assistant manager of the Varsity Grads team from the University of Toronto that represented Canada at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, winning the Gold Medal.
A member of the Toronto National Yacht Club, in 1930, it appointed Ballard manager of their team in the Ontario Hockey Association, the Toronto National Sea Fleas, winning the Allan Cup in 1932. He then became the head coach, and he became hated by hockey players for the first time. In 1934, he became manager of the OHA's West Toronto Nationals, with former Maple Leafs star Clarence "Hap" Day as coach, and they won the Memorial Cup in 1936. In 1940, Day was named Leafs coach, and recommended Ballard to run their top farm team, the Toronto Marlboros, and he led them to the 1950 Allan Cup and the 1955 and 1956 Memorial Cups.
In 1957, Conn Smythe stepped down as Leafs general manager, and a group known as the Silver Seven took control, including Ballard and Smythe's son, Stafford Smythe. In 1961, Conn Smythe sold most of his shares in the company running the team and the arena, Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., to 3 men: Stafford, Ballard, and the owner of the Toronto Telegram newspaper, John Bassett. But since Ballard gave Stafford most of the money for his share, he essentially had Stafford under his control.
In 1958, the Silver Seven hired George "Punch" Imlach as the Leafs' head coach and general manager. The result was 4 Stanley Cups: 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967. But Imlach had built a veteran team, in a philosophy that later Washington Redskins coach George Allen would call "The Future Is Now."
With the assent of Ballard, Bassett and Stafford Smythe, and with little choice as the NHL was expanding for 1967-68, Imlach broke the team up, and tried to build a new dynasty. But between the changes in the League and those in the organization, he had little chance, and after an embarrassing Playoff exit in 1969, the last year of his contract was bought out.
Conn Smythe may have been the most patriotic man in Canada, as devoted to the head of state, the monarch of Great Britain, as he was to Parliament in Ottawa. Smythe had ordered a huge portrait of King George VI hung at one end of the Gardens during World War II, kept it there after the war, and replaced it with one of Queen Elizabeth II upon the King's death in 1952. Ballard wanted to increase the Gardens' seating capacity, and did by taking down the Queen's portrait and installing new seats. When asked about it, Ballard mentioned his taxes: "She doesn't pay me. I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play?"
In fact, he didn't pay her -- not enough, anyway. In 1969, Ballard and Stafford Smythe were charged with tax evasion, and accused of using MLG Ltd. to pay for their personal expenses. Bassett, who had by this time become chairman of the board, received the support of the board of directors in an 8–7 vote to fire Smythe and Ballard.
However, Bassett didn't force Smythe and Ballard to sell their shares, and both men remained on the board. This proved to be a serious strategic blunder, as Smythe and Ballard controlled almost half the company's shares between them. A year later, they staged a proxy war to regain control of the board. Ballard was reappointed executive vice president. Facing an untenable situation, Bassett resigned as chairman and sold his shares to Ballard and Stafford Smythe on September 2, 1971.
Stafford, suffering from cancer, died on October 13. The last time he saw his father, he said, "See, Dad? They were never going to get me." Ballard won a battle with the Smythe family, and bought Stafford's shares, giving him a 60 percent controlling interest in the Gardens.
But while the taxman couldn't get Stafford Smythe, it got Harold Ballard. On October 20, 1972, he was sentenced to 9 years in Canadian federal prison, after being convicted on 47 counts of fraud, theft and tax evasion. He had been acquitted on 2 others. It wasn't exactly a hardship: He was paroled after only 1 year, and said that prison life was like staying in a motel, with color television, golf, and steak dinners.
Upon his release, Ballard began micromanaging the Leafs. They reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1978, with a team with such stars as Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Börje Salming and goaltender Mike Palmateer. But this was an anomaly, the only time they got to the NHL's round of four, under any name, between 1967 and 1993.
He was petty. He and the Detroit Red Wings' Bruce Norris led the move to include only NHL players on the Team Canada that played the Soviet Union in the 1972 "Summit Series," thus excluding World Hockey Association defectors Bobby Hull and Gerry Cheevers, which (along with Bobby Orr's injury) nearly derailed Canada, and forced them to go the distance to win the series.
In 1973, the WHA moved the Ottawa Nationals to become the Toronto Toros. After playing the 1973-74 season at the University of Toront's Varsity Arena, John F. Bassett, son of the previous part-owner and operating the Leafs with Harold's son Bill Ballard, allowed them to move into Maple Leaf Gardens. But when Ballard got out of prison, he made their presence miserable: Denying them use of the Leafs' locker room, forcing them into a secondary locker room; taking seat cushions off the home bench, telling an arena worker, "Let 'em buy their own cushions!"; and demanding $3,500 per game for use of the arena's lights.
When the contract of the Leafs' biggest remaining star, Dave Keon, ran out in 1975, Ballard refused to re-sign him, because he didn't want to pay for him. But he also didn't want him to play for anyone else, and demanded huge compensation. No other NHL team could sign him. Again, Ballard failed to consider the WHA, and Keon went to the Minnesota Fighting Saints, then, when they folded, the New England Whalers.
When the WHA admitted the Whalers and 3 other teams for the 1979-80 season, they had Keon and Gordie Howe, formerly owned by the Wings and Norris. Norris and Ballard insisted they still owned the NHL rights to Howe and Keon, respectively, and refused to let them play for the Whalers or anyone else. NHL President John Ziegler overruled them, angering them.
Again, Ballard alienated the Leafs' biggest star, Sittler, doing whatever he could to avoid paying him what he was worth. He did it again, after Sittler, with McDonald. Ballard had also brought back Cup-winning coach and GM Punch Imlach, but forced him out quickly, ending what may have been Ballard's only friendship. The Leafs did not finish above .500 in any season in the 1980s. And Ballard did little to improve the deteriorating condition of the Gardens.
Harold Ballard was so cheap. How cheap was he? He wasn't willing to pay the price the Toronto City Council for a liquor license for Maple Leaf Gardens, making it the only "dry" arena in the NHL. The Hamilton City Council asked for a lower price for the Tiger-Cats' Ivor Wynne Stadium, and Ballard paid that. But the Gardens wouldn't sell alcoholic beverages for as long as he owned it.
How cheap was he? In the mid-1970s, the NHL, facing competition from the WHA, passed a rule that players' last names must be on the backs of their jerseys. Ballard refused, citing it as a threat to program sales. After being threatened with a large fine, Ballard "complied" by putting the names in blue letters on the Leafs' blue road jerseys, and in white on their white home jerseys, making them unreadable. After being fined, he backed down, and put the names in the opposite colors.
He also wanted to start a 2nd Canadian Football League team in Toronto, to compete with the Toronto Argonauts, owned by the Bassetts. They refused to back the idea. But they decided to sell the Argos in 1974. Ballard offered $3 million, but was turned down, and the Argos were sold to William R. Hodgson.
Ballard then tried to buy their arch-rivals, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and was turned down again. In 1978, Ballard tried to buy the Ticats again, and won. Unlike in the NHL, Ballard was successful in the CFL, as the Ticats reached 3 Grey Cups, losing them all, before winning in 1986. Still, he kept threatening to move them out of Hamilton, Canada's steel city, to Toronto, where (he thought) he could make more money. He sold them in 1989, and they are still in Hamilton today.
In 1976, he tried to get into baseball, leading the group that came within a whisker of getting a deal to buy and move the San Francisco Giants approved. But the deal fell apart, and it was a different group that, later in the year, got the rights to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays.
Due to his mismanagement of 2 historically successful sports teams, Ballard may still be the most hated person in the history of Canadian sports. Still, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1977. He died on April 11, 1990, from various health issues, at age 86, and was missed by almost nobody.
It's no coincidence that, just 3 years after his death, new owner Steve Stavro got the Leafs into the Conference Finals in back-to-back seasons, and made peace with Dave Keon. But the Leafs still haven't been to the Stanley Cup Finals, let alone won them, since 1967. That is on Ballard, as much as on anyone else.
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September 2, 1971 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 11-1 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the 1st inning, and 7 in the 2nd. Stan Bahnsen went the distance for the win. Felipe Alou hit a home run, Thurman Munson got 3 hits, and Alou, Bobby Murcer, Horace Clarke, Roy White and Danny Cater each got 2.
* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Sonny Siebert pitched a 3-hit shutout -- Merv Rettenmund got 2 of the hits, and Davey Johnson got the other -- and hit 2 home runs. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Mickey Lolich pitched a 6-hit shutout. Al Kaline went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.
* The Montreal Expos beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie McAnally was the winning pitcher, and hit a home run. Ernie Banks, in his last month as an active player, did not enter the game.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 1-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Marty Pattin pitched a 5-hit shutout. He must have been loose, quack. (Ball Four reference.)
* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* And these teams were not scheduled: The California Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals, the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants.
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