City Market Sports Teams

By Connor DeMerchant - 7 September 2026

Although historians dispute when and where the game of baseball was established, professional teams and the modern rules of the game were in place by the late nineteenth century. Softball was also popular in Saint John and was, indeed, the game of choice for many amateur teams. For much of the early twentieth century, the City Market had a softball team, consisting of men employed in the Market. Although this may seem odd today, many of the city’s larger businesses also fielded teams. In the summer months these teams would frequently play in heated games against one another throughout the city. It was great fun for the teams involved but also great entertainment for Saint John spectators. Game schedules and scores frequently appeared in the city’s newspapers, evidence of the importance amateur sport held in the early part of the twentieth century.

The 1920s and 1930s were the height of involvement for the City Market team in local sporting competitions. During these decades Saint John newspapers covered games at sports fields across the city where the City Market team played against teams from a wide variety of other businesses and teams from communities in the suburbs of the city. Indeed, the 1936 season was so successful for the team that they had been defeated only twice by August and issued a challenge to other teams.[1]

The Market’s sporting activities were not limited to softball, the men of the City Market had also formed a bowling team earlier in the century. This team also competed with teams from businesses and firms across the city. For example, in December 1909 The Standard reported a major victory for the Market team, writing that “The City Market Bowling team added new laurels to their already creditable records last evening, when they defeated the Opera House pin pickers on the Victoria Bowling alleys, after a close and keenly contested game, taking 3 points to the Opera House players’ one and winning the aggregate by the safe margin of 31 pins.”[2] In the 1910-11 season it was reported that the City Market Team had “been doing a great deal of bowling.” However, in January 1911 they were soundly defeated by the team from the Post Office.[3]

References to sports teams from the City Market appear less frequently in Saint John newspapers after the late 1930s, with the final reference being in 1948.  

[1] “Market Nine Strong.” The Telegraph Journal. 6 August 1936, Pg. 8.

[2] “Opera House Beaten.” The Standard. 8 December 1909, Pg. 7.

[3] “Post Office Trims Bowlers From Market.” The Standard. 11 January 1911, Pg. 

Photo: "Spider" Mosher pitching during a baseball game in Saint John, NB in 1919 (PANB - P796\28.2)