On Account of Darkness: The Summer Ontario Baseball Broke the Colour Barrier

On Account of Darkness is a fictionalized story (based on real events) of the 1934 Ontario amateur baseball season, when the Chatham Coloured All Stars were accepted to play in the Ontario Baseball Association (OBA) Intermediate B provincial playoffs, breaking the colour barrier over a decade before Major League Baseball did.

The All Stars had to battle issue after issue - umpiring that was inconsistent at best, racist taunts from opposing players and fans, and bureaucratic bungling from the OBA - in order to reach the finals. Their opponent was a team from tiny Penetanguishene, a southern Georgian Bay resort town. Penetang was led by pitcher Phil Marchildon, who would go on to star for the American League’s Philadelphia Athletics. Chatham’s best player was first baseman Boomer Harding, who later became the first player of colour in the International Hockey League.

On Account of Darkness draws its name from the controversial third game of the best of three series that was played on a grey late October afternoon with winter threatening.

This is more than just a baseball story; it is an account of one team’s battle to overcome racism, and the struggle by everyone involved to escape the clutches of the Depression.

It was a summer which the players and fans of both teams would never forget.