instead of five. Southwestern Ontario was the first region in Canada to adopt this version of the game, doing so in . The so-called "Canadian Game" soon fell out of favour. The London Tecumsehs of London, Ontario were charter members of the International Association and won its first championship in 1877, beating the Pittsburgh Alleghenies. Rather than competing nationally in an east–west fashion, local baseball clubs would instead compete with their American neighbours to the south. This meant that teams from the Maritimes played teams from New England, teams from Quebec played against teams from New York and teams from British Columbia competed with those from Washington. The first Canadian to appear in a Major League game was Bill Phillips, who played for Cleveland. In his first game on May 1, 1879, the Saint John, New Brunswick native went hitless, although managed to get three hits the next game. In his second season, in , he became the first Canadian to hit a home run in the Majors. By the 1880s black Canadians were barred from playing in white professional leagues, but Emancipation Day black vs white matches provided an opportunity for black teams to shine, such as when the Northern Stars trounced a white team in Edmonton. Early 20th century By 1913, there were 24 minor league baseball teams in Canada, a number which has been unequalled since. Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run on Canadian soil on September 5, 1914, at the former Hanlan's Point Stadium on Centre Island in Toronto. Ruth was playing for the Providence Grays against the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team of the International League. In 1985, the City of Toronto erected a small plaque to denote the location, but it is difficult to locate, given the parklike setting and remote nature of the Toronto Islands. In 1946, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey assigned new-signing Jackie Robinson to the Montreal Royals of the International League, Brooklyn's Triple-A farm team. Robinson would famously go on to break Major League Baseball's colour barrier the following year in 1947, but during his season in Montreal Robinson led the Royals to the Governors' Cup, the IL championship, and became a beloved figure in the city. In Ken Burns' documentary film Baseball, the narrator quotes Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier: "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran