Ottawa Titans

For the lacrosse team, see Ottawa Titans (lacrosse).

Ottawa Titans
Team logo Cap insignia
Information
League	Frontier League (North Division)
Location	Ottawa, Ontario
Ballpark	Ottawa Stadium
Founded	2020
Colours	Red, white, black
Mascot	Cappy
Playoff berths	2 2022 2024
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.com

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 North Division in the Atlantic Conference. 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 two times in franchise history.

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

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.

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 Ottawa Titans, Québec Capitales and Trois-Rivières Aigles to craft the base of 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.

On May 13, 2022, baseball in Canada’s Capital returned for the first time in 598 days with an Ottawa Titans decisive 10-6 road victory over the Joliet Slammers. With a season-high nine games on the road out of the way to begin the season, the team returned home for their much-anticipated inaugural home opener on May 24, 2022. Led by local standout Evan Grills’ eight innings of scoreless baseball, the Titans put a bow on their home opener festivities with a 2-0 victory over the Evansville Otters in front of a crowd of 3,458. Grills posted a single-season high 15 strikeouts in the win.

On June 11, 2022, Jake Sanford quickly emerged as a star on the expansion Titans by tying a league record with 10 RBIs in a 13-0 win over the Empire State Greys. A key contributor, Sanford led the 2022 edition of the Titans with 22 home runs and 73 RBIs.

Before the all-star break, the Titans had cooled off a bit but posted a respectable 35-23 record. The team sent an East Division-high five representatives to contribute to an 8-1 East win over the West all-stars at the mid-summer classic on July 17th at Wild Things Park. Jake Sanford, AJ Wright, Zac Westcott, Kevin Escorcia, and Evan Grills all represented the Titans proudly with the nomination.

At the end of the season the Titans won seven of nine during their final homestand to finish the season 56-39, including a franchise record crowd of 4,582 on Fan Appreciation Night against the Trois-Rivières Aigles.

On September 2, 2022, The Titans qualified for the playoffs for the first time in franchise history with a 4-1 victory over their rival , guaranteeing themselves a berth in the Wild Card round. On the road, the Titans slugged their way to a decisive 8-2 victory to advance to the Division Series on September 7th against the New York Boulders. Despite Tyler Jandron’s complete game shutout in Game 1 at home on September 9, the Titans bowed out of the postseason in a winner-take-all third game to the eventual champions from la belle province. The Titans finished their regular season with a total attendance of 112,727 for an average of 2,210 fans per game.

On May 12, 2023, the Titans brought a record of 4,777 fans on their home opener with a thrilling 17-7 victory against the Empire State Greys, seeing new faces and returning veterans start the season on a high note. The lopsided affair saw fan-favourite Jackie Urbaez belt the club’s first grand slam in franchise history apart of a 10-run 4th inning. The Titans then lost 15 of their next 21 games.

Following a trade in early June, Sicnarf Loopstok helped the Titans get back in the playoff hunt belting a walk-off grand slam in his first Titans at-bat on June 2, 2023 against the club’s fierce rivals Québec Capitales. Loopstok went on to post a .298 average on the season with eight homers and 41 RBIs, suiting up in North America for the first time since 2019.

The Titans finished 6th place in the East Division of the Frontier League, with a record of 48–48. Although missing the playoffs, the Titans grew their average attendance by roughly 30% from the inaugural season, with an average of 2,540 fans per game. The club put a wrap on 2023 with a new record of 5,602 fans on hand for Fan Appreciation Night against the Trois-Rivières Aigles, helping the team win a franchise-best 32 home games.

On April 17, 2024, the Ottawa Titans announced that their assistant general manager Sébastien Boucher will have his number 18 retired by the Québec Capitales on August 18th at Stade Canac as part of their 25th anniversary season of the team.

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, but however lost to the Capitales again in the divisional series 2 games to 1. By the regular season's end, the Titans received two post-season awards given out by the FL. AJ Wright was named the 2024 Frontier League most valuable player, part of the league’s all-star team, while the team's broadcaster Davide Disipio received the Robert Ford Award, given annually to the Frontier League Broadcaster of the Year. For a second consecutive year, the Titans increased their attendance by nearly 30%, for an average of 3,003 fans per game. The club saw crowds of 4,000 or more during several different occasions, shaping up for a strong milestone to enter the 2025 summer.

Rivalries

The Titans have developed strong rivalries with three FL 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. 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. 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

Ottawa Titans
Season	W–L Record	Win %	Finish	Playoffs
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
2023	48–48	.500	6th in East	Did not qualify
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
TOTAL	157-129	.549

Ottawa Stadium

Ottawa Stadium during a Titans game

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

Titans games can be heard on CKDJ 107.9 and 94,5 Unique FM, with all season games available on flobaseball.tv via the FloSports website. The play-by-play broadcasters are Davide Disipio in English and Mikael Lafleur in French. 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. After each Titans' home runs, the team’s DJ sounds the home run horn, which is a Nathan Airchime K3L from a retired Via Rail train. The same horn is also used by the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League.

Current roster

Ottawa Titans roster

Active roster				Coaches/Other
Pitchers 15 CJ Blowers 34 Matt Dallas 29 Jake Dixon 30 Shane Gray 35 McLain Harris 14 Tyler Jandron 20 Breyln Jones 51 Grant Larson 44 Bryan Peña 47 Erasmo Piñales 32 Scott Prins 36 Billy Price 22 Jose Torrealba  5 Kyle White Utility players 12 Taylor Wright 16 Michael Fuhrman		Catchers 33 Victor Cerny Infielders 10 Aaron Casillas 23 Evan Berkey 13 Christian Ibarra 26 Peyton Isaacson 11 Yushin Ohta 41 Jamey Smart  1 Jackie Urbaez  7 AJ Wright Outfielders 19 Lamar Briggs  9 Jake Hjelle 43 Brendan O'Donnell		Manager 25 Bobby Brown Coaches  8 Tom Carcione (pitching) -- David Peterson (assistant)    Spencer Segriff (clubhouse manager)    Landon Veenstra (trainer) Disabled list ‡ Inactive list § Suspended list  updated August 19, 2024 Transactions

External links

• Official website