Joseph Claude Marc Raymond was born in St. Jean, Quebec, May 7, 1937. He started out his life in a very poor environment, spoke virtually no English, was small for his age and wore glasses, but to balance all of these odds out, what at the outset appeared to be rather stiff odds, he had a most remarkable arm, a rubber arm.“One-in-ten-thousand would not be right,” he states, “more like one-in-a-million.”

In St. Jean there was no television and very little money when Claude Raymond was a small boy looking to have fun with his friends playing baseball on the street whenever the group got together.

“As I recall it, I was about four or five years old when I first began to play ball because the guys on my street in St. Jean were playing ball and one day they were missing some players and I was sitting on the sidewalk and they were playing in the middle of the street which wasn’t paved and they asked me if I would like to go and play in the outfield so I went and the next day I was there, the day after I was there and the first thing I knew they started to let me hit. I caught a few fly balls and a good friend of mine helped me out catching and throwing. I remember after that maybe a year or two later when I was six or seven, my neighbor and myself had a vacant lot in front of our houses and we took shovels and rakes and cut the grass and made a baseball field with base paths. It looked big at that time and now it looks very small but nothing has been built on the lot. Later a house was built between left and center field but we still continued to play there. I was the first to hit a ball over this new house where left field was, so the others said that if I was going to play with them I would have to hit left-handed and in right field was our church. We were all uppercutters, and we used to hit balls over the house, church and everything and anything. We used any kind of a ball we could find and got broken bats from people in the Provincial League which we nailed and taped and glued together. One day I hit a big one that was heading for the biggest stained glass window, very expensive, but it finally hit a large wooden beam just below and it was a homerun. I could just imagine what my dad would have said.

Then I played juvenile ball which was supposed to be for ages 12-15 or 13-16 but I was much younger than this, about eleven, and the first thing I knew I was the manager of the ball club and whenever we had a player missing who played a position, if he was a catcher I caught, if he was an outfielder I went out in the field, if he was a shortstop I would play short, because I have always been a good hitter.

Then after that when I started to play junior ball, I played the outfield and I remember one game there were two line drives hit to left field and on one hop I caught the ball and threw the guy out at first base. So, there was a guy on the other team name André Petit who was a very good ball player and hockey player and he had his own team so the next year he asked if I would like to pitch for his team and I was just twelve years old, playing junior, and junior was, at that time, up to twenty-two years old. The first game I pitched was part of a double-header against a team that was one game ahead of them. That day I had to go out with my father because he had bought new furniture for the kitchen and I couldn’t be there for the first game, so I told them I could be there for the second game which began at 7:30 as the first game started at 5:30. Well, when we got home I ran over to the stadium from my house and the game was just over and we had won so our team was in a tie for first place. I started to put on my uniform and some of the other guys asked André Petit who was going to pitch in the game. He told them I was going to start. They all objected, stating they were now tied for first place and he couldn’t let a kid pitch in such an important game. But he said I was the one who was pitching. Well, in the first inning, the first two batters got triples and André Petit was catching me and he came over and said they had one run in but we haven’t hit yet so just keep him there and we will win the game. Finally, we won 2-1. Being behind 1-0 after the first two minutes was something to remember, I got out of it and started to pitch regularly for them but was also pitching in juvenile after that. I said to myself ‘this is fun’. So I was also pitching in the Border League, with two teams from the United States, against some guys who were 35-49 years old, real senior level, pitching three games on Saturday and Sunday every weekend all season. In this league I wasn’t the pitcher because the manager was the pitcher but then he had some kind of sore arm just a week before the playoffs so he said I would pitch. Well, I went in, I beat that club, then we went into the playoffs and after that we never lost another game, I won every game we played in.”

At fifteen he was only five-feet-nine and 155 pounds but felt he should move up another level so he set out for Montreal having already gone to Drummondville and now was ready for the outside world away from home. He hitchhiked to Montreal to have a tryout with the Ville Ray team but didn’t know it was over five miles to walk to Jarry Park or which direction to go in. People didn’t know he was walking nor that he had no money but he asked for directions and finally got to the field.

“When I arrived I asked if they needed any pitching and the manager looked me over and told me to get dressed. When I got back they were taking batting practice but no one was taking any notice of me so I asked the manager if he wanted me to do anything and he sent me down to warm up. But there were no players to warm up with and I finally had to ask him for someone. They gave me a fellow who played third base and after throwing him five or six pitches, he yells out ‘Whoa, we need a catcher here.’ They got me a catcher and after watching me for awhile they signed me right away.”

Over the next two years he traveled between St. Jean and Montreal and pitched in a good number of important games which were attended by various scouts. He pitched two no-hitters and his pitching duels against Ron Piche, who was from Verdun, pulled in large crowds. Whenever they faced each other the final scores usually would be 1-0 or 2-1. With a lot of scouts watching him in 1953 and 1954 he had offers from the Giants, Indians, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves and others. He went to Delorimier Stadium where the Montreal Royals played and at that time had Roberto Clemente with them.

“They were trying to hide Clemente in Montreal because they (the Pirates) knew he was going to be great. I pitched batting practice and one of the catchers was Dixie Howell and the other was Tim Thompson, who later caught me in Toronto in 1962. Tim Thompson was catching me on one of the days the scouts were there and I remember I broke a lot of bats which he and I talked about again this spring in Florida. The Dodgers signed me to a contract to play in the PONY League in Hornell, New York but because I was only 17 and not out of school yet they needed permission from the minor league commissioner. This contract was voided, he declared me a free agent and the Dodgers were fined for signing me without permission. After this, the other teams began coming back to make me offers. I went to the office of the Pirates, in St. Jean, one afternoon and they offered me a contract. Well, the original contract with the Dodgers was for $160 per month plus a $250 bonus for signing, so I kept that bonus. Roland Gladu, a former Boston Braves third baseman and a Canadian, came over to our house that night and my Dad was there. He said he was offering me $160 a month, $250 if I signed right then, $250 on the first of June and $500 on the first of August if I was still with the team they would send me to. Roland asked me if I would like to play professional ball and my dad looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to play for St. Jean (the Pirates team in the Quebec Provincial League) or do you want to play professional ball?’ Well, I said I would like to play professional ball. So my father said to sign with the Braves because their team was in Quebec and I would be coming to St. Jean to play from time to time during the summer. That made a big fuss at home in St. Jean but I never made the Provincial League because in my first year they started me in West Palm Beach in 1955 where I was 13-12 with an ERA of only 2.60. In 1956, I jumped to Class ‘B’ at Evansville in the Three-I League where I was 9-3 with a 2.57 ERA. Then I played in Jacksonville in the South Atlantic League, in 1957 and had a 12-6 record and a 2.50 ERA. In 1955 I did well in West Palm Beach and had one game where I had a no-hitter going into the ninth inning and ended up with a two-hitter. I remember that was in my first game there. Our manager, Bill Steinecke, got me pitching relief between starts so I was in 37 games that first year and struck out 180 batters in 194 innings. In my second year at Evansville, I became a relief pitcher, was in 31 games, with 98 innings pitched. Bob Coleman, the manager, was the one who made a reliever out of me. In those days relief pitching was just starting and was scarce. There were a few well known guys like Joe Black, Lindy McDaniel and Elroy Face but we were a new breed then. I may have been one of the first relief pitchers in the minor leagues. Coleman, who was in his sixties at that time, had rather bad eyesight, but he knew whether the pitch was high or low. He told me, ‘Keep the ball down, keep the ball down.’ He’d sit on the bench and know if it was a fastball or breaking ball, by the sound hitting the catcher’s mitt. He’d tell us. In 1957, in Class ‘A’ ball at Jacksonville, I led the league pitching in 54 games and I was only 20 years old then.”

Claude was still only 20 years of age when he was promoted in 1958 to Wichita of the American Association (Triple-AAA) where he pitched in 33 games and despite having a 3-6 record had a respectable ERA of 3.84. Then in the Winter Draft in December of 1958 Claude was drafted by the Chicago White Sox and went to Spring Training with them. He made the club to start the season and Al Lopez told everyone that he had the best curveball in their camp, just like Carl Erskine of the Dodgers. His fastball was very good also but his curveball caught the attention of Lopez. In those years, teams would leave Florida with a 28-man roster and would then trim back to a 25-man roster a month later in early May.

“So, a month after the season started they cut me and wanted to send me to Indianapolis, but the Braves got me back for half the draft price and I began to go from Chicago to Louisville, Louisville to Atlanta, Atlanta to Louisville and then a funny thing happened because, when I returned to Atlanta, the Crackers had finished the first half of the season in last place and as they began the second half were so bad because no one was hitting and the Braves were calling up people again because they were heading for the playoffs and were moving players through their system to fill in openings so we ended up with only about 13 players. The manager then asked if I would like to play right field and I said sure I would. He put Ray Ripplemeyer, a pitcher at first base, with him batting 4th and me 5th. In the first game I got four hits in Chattanooga, hit the scoreboard twice for doubles and ended up the season hitting .375. I never went to the hill in the last month and in the last game of the season I made a driving catch in right center on a line drive by Steve Boros. Then Louisville called me back up for the playoffs and used me twice as a pinch hitter. By the way, when I was with Chicago I roomed with Nellie Fox, who was headed for the Hall of Fame. He wasn’t afraid to get his uniform dirty, or take a pitch if it would win a game. I was taller than he was, but he played without showing fear, was tough, and made me realize that I could, too.”

In 1960 Claude went to Spring Training with the Braves again in Bradenton and they sent him to Sacramento of the Pacific Coast League (Triple-AAA) where he appeared in 55 games, pitching 155 innings with a 9-9 record and 3.43 ERA. There, too, they were stuck for outfielders one week and he played three games in center field. In 1961 he was with Vancouver to start the season and after pitching well was called up to the Milwaukee Braves on Mother’s Day. He won his first major league game and appeared in 13 games, pitching 20 innings with 13 strikeouts and a 4.05 ERA. However, early in August the Braves bought Johnny Antonelli from the Indians and Claude was returned to Vancouver to finish the season but did poorly over the final weeks. He compiled a 3-5 record in 31 games, with 52 innings pitched, 37 strikeouts and an ERA of 5.37.

“After returning to Vancouver I finished badly and couldn’t get anyone out. Then with the Braves at Spring Training in 1962 they sent me to Toronto and we trained in Daytona Beach where I met Charlie Dressen and had a heck of a start with them and on June 15th the Braves called me up to Milwaukee and from that time I stayed in the big leagues.”

While with the Toronto Maple Leafs, of the International League (Triple AAA), Claude compiled a 2-2 record, in 14 games, 24 innings, 30 strikeouts and a 2.63 ERA. Because other teams had made overtures to the Braves to trade for him the Braves figured they better bring him up and get him started on his major league career. Birdie Tebbets, the manager, threw him into action immediately upon his arrival, much to the chagrin of veterans Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, both of whom were known as pitchers who like to finish their own games.

“A funny thing happened when I got to Milwaukee and went to see John McHale to talk over what my contract would be. When I was in Toronto I was getting paid $1500 per month and because the season was only five months that worked out to $7500 for the year. However, in the major leagues the minimum at that time was only $7000 for the season, which was six months, or about $1200 per month. So, John McHale asked me to sign the contract and when I told him about the difference in the figures he said, ‘Well, if you want to play in the big leagues you better sign this contract or I will send you back to Toronto, you’ll make more money.’ So I signed. Then after I signed he told me that if I did well he would give a bonus at the end of the season. I saved 12 games and that was big in those days, for maybe just over half the season. So, he gave me a $3000 bonus at the end of the season. I really appreciated that at the time. I remember the first game I came in after arriving from Toronto I was brought in to relieve Warren Spahn. Spahn and Burdette, all they wanted to do was pitch nine innings and Spahn was leading by a run or two and he had a couple of men on and was really mad when I was coming to the mound. I felt embarrassed for him but I saved the game, After the game he came over to me and congratulated me for saving the game and apologized for what he had said earlier.

Then the very next day I ran into the same situation with Lew Burdette. He wasn’t too happy leaving the mound but I saved the game and he came over and congratulated me and we became friends. Spahn then started to room with Ron Piche and I roomed with Lew Burdette. They were rooming together before that but I heard that their wives wanted to break them up. The four of us would go out together everywhere, and those guys were great to us. They were making so much more money than we were, so they always picked up the dinner tab and paid for almost everything else. They were a lot of fun and we had a lot of laughs together. Piche and I learned a lot about the mental points of the game because these two guys were always talking about the game and how to improve yourself and so on. Today you can walk into any clubhouse and the players are lounging about, playing card games, talking on their personal phones or just eating.”

In 1961 and 1962 Claude had two good years for the Milwaukee Braves. He was 1-0 with a 3.98 ERA and 2 saves the first season and followed that up with a 5-5 record, a 2.74 ERA and 10 saves the next campaign. After falling to 4-6 with an ERA of 5.40 in 1963 he was traded to the Houston Colts where, over the next three years he went 5-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 1964; 7-4 with a 2.90 ERA and 5 saves in 1965; and 7-5 with a 3.13 ERA and 16 saves in 1966. It was in 1966 that he led the National League in ERA at the All-Star break and he was selected to represent Houston in the summer classic, at the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

“Fastball, slow curve, slider, fork ball. Talk about striking out the side. It was probably the best year of my career as I consistently had great stuff. I don’t know how many times it happened but I did it a lot. I’d get in there and one, two, three . . . fastballs, curveballs, and sliders, all as perfect as you could be and down the batters would go. On a number of occasions I came in with the bases loaded or at least with two men on and got out of it without them scoring a run. You’ve go to take all of these experiences and hold on to them, cherish them, because it doesn’t work out that way very often, those years are scarce, really scarce. So one of my career highlights was receiving a telegram from Walter Alston stating that I was invited to participate in the All-Star game. I felt I just wasn’t there because I was from Houston, but because I was producing at that point. I had the best ERA of any pitcher on both sides plus they seldom picked relief pitchers for the All-Star games at that time. That will stay with me for the rest of my life because people say, ‘Well he did make the All-Star team,’ and even though it might not sound like much now it was wonderful to me. We received some really nice gifts and they treated us very well while we were in St. Louis. By the way, many people might not remember but it was probably the hottest game ever played, being about 117o on the field just as the game got underway that day.”

In 1967, Claude moved from Houston to the Atlanta Braves and his ERA for the split season was a very respectable 2.89 followed by an ERA of 2.83 in 1968. In both of those years he had ten saves. However, in 1969 Claude, now age thirty-two, started to feel time was beginning to catch up with him a little. His best years were now behind him and he knew it but felt he still had something to offer and kept himself in top shape. Pitchers leave a lot of their arm just throwing out in the bullpen plus he had made so many appearances over the years throwing as hard as anyone could for so many innings.

“Before, I had always gotten a good number of strikeouts on high pitches because my ball was moving, it was sneaky fast, it was quick. The batters used to foul some off and miss others. Now they were starting to foul it off sometimes and hit it sometimes. They could adjust quicker than I could as I know I had lost a couple of feet off my fastball. The coaches didn’t call you in the bullpen and tell you to get warm, it was automatic, you were up and getting ready at the right times. You used up a lot of your arm just warming up down there but our endurance was incredible. It didn’t really matter how many batters or innings we faced or for how long we were out there, because our arms were always sore and hurting anyway.”

Claude was extremely proud of all he had done in professional baseball up to this point in his career but was now faced with somewhat of a dilemma. Having always wanted to pitch at home in Quebec he was very happy when Montreal received an expansion franchise for 1969 and he began to hear rumors and talk that the new Expos might be interested in having him joining their organization to close out his professional baseball life. But now, having lost some of his best stuff, he felt that it might not come about as he had dreamed for so many years since those days on the street in front of his house in St. Jean. But then a great day arrived, May 16th, 1969. The Atlanta Braves were in Montreal, and Claude was called into the game. “When I came into this game on Friday night, May 16th, 1969, there was a tremendous ovation that seemed to go on and on and on. There were only 20,872 at Jarry Park that evening but it felt like so much more to me. It represented every Quebecois fan to me as they yelled, screamed and roared as I arrived on the hill. I know I had tears in my eyes and they ran down my cheeks. I even remember that I dropped the ball on the mound. This isn’t what you are supposed to show in front of your teammates who are expecting you to come in and do a job. At this point a couple of fellows, one was Tito Francona, came over and told me to settle down and get a grip on myself. They told me to stop crying, and after all, wasn’t this what I had always dreamed about? They said, ‘Show them what you can do Frenchy. We know you can do it now, so let’s go, do your job.’ Always having dreamed of playing in my home town, I knew deep down that this was great and what it could mean to me from that point on, but in other words, it would be equally tough on me because there was now a lot of pressure on me and all the fans were expecting great things from me. Well, it was the ninth inning as I arrived in this game with a couple of men on base and the score tied. I ended up winning the game when Francona hit a home run off Elroy Face in the twelfth inning. I had become the first French Canadian ever to enter and win a game on home ground. After that night many Quebec fans would stop me to tell me what that meant to them and how when I was pitching after that they felt like they were part of me and were out on the mound too. That was really great.” Then it happened, Claude was moved to the Montreal Expos for the last part of the season where he appeared in 15 games, pitched 22 innings, had 11 strikeouts and an ERA of 4.09. Then in 1970, the Expos finished in last place again with a record of 73-89, and Claude had a 6-7 season with a 4.43 ERA. It turned out to be the sixth best ERA recorded by the seventeen various pitchers used that year with all of them working at least a few innings out of the bullpen. The Expos had thirty-two saves and Claude had twenty-three of them himself.

“There was a pretty big weight on my shoulders now because there weren’t too many Canadians playing in the big leagues at that moment in time. Coming to Montreal I now had to prove myself to the fans at home that the reason I was pitching for the Expos wasn’t because I was a Canadian but was with the team because they needed me. I worked really hard and saved twenty-three games in 1970 when they were real saves. There were only three guys with more ahead of me, Wayne Granger led the league with 35, Dave Giusti had 26, and Jim Brewer finished with 24. But, I didn’t pitch the first or last month and the team improved from only 52 wins in 1969 to 73 in 1970 so I have a lot of good memories from that season because the people were proud of me being Canadian and producing because every time they gave me the ball it seemed like I did the job. You know the organist at Jarry Park, Fernand Lapierre, every time I came in, used to play “He’s got the whole world in his hands’’ and I was there on the mound with the ball in my hands with all the fans behind me. So, in 1993 when Denis Boucher arrived, I felt for him because it’s not an easy job no matter where you are playing, and then you are in front of everyone you love and all the people who love you, your friends, fans and the whole country. If you aren’t in your home town and have a bad day you can hide, but if you are in your home town, you have to answer to people, no one will leave you alone. You really have to feel it. But it was great for me to play for the Montreal Expos and I now think that if I hadn’t played for them something would have been missing. My career when I first started I had five things in my head. I would like to play pro ball, after that I want to get to the big leagues, after that you want to get your five years in for the pension fund, at that time you say, well the All-Star game would be nice and, of course, the World Series even though I have televised and broadcast them on radio but it’s really not the same as being involved as a player. Maybe the Expos will get into the World Series and then I will feel right into it then. I’ll feel like I’m there. It would be a lot of fun if the Expos did play the Blue Jays. I was talking with Cito Gaston about this in Spring Training and he thought it would be great. The country would be turned upside down. Both of our stadiums would be packed solidly. The people in the United States would really miss having the World Series then. It would then be a truly Canadian Series.”

Finally, in 1971, Mike Marshall became the closer for the Expos and Claude Raymond exited from the game he loves so much – his arm was tired out. Among his many memories the following are those which stand out prominently. “My first game in the big leagues, in Detroit, on Opening Day with the White Sox when we lined up along both lines and there I was in a big league uniform that was a dream come true for me even though I didn’t get to play much for them. But that was the dream. After that I would have to say the 1966 All-Star game in St. Louis. That will stay with me for the rest of my life. They gave us some really nice gifts and it was a lot of fun. For my all time memories, also, I go back to May 16th, 1969, when I came in against the Expos for the Braves and we won on the home run. And, also, looking back over all the years, I have no regrets and have many good memories even through to the current day. I enjoy being part of the game still and look forward to the day when the Expos make it into the World Series. That would really cap it off.”

Since retiring from the game, Claude has been with the Expos in a number of different capacities and has just completed his 14th season as analyst on their French-language television games. Previously he had fulfilled the same duties on radio for a period of 12 seasons from 1973-1984. He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 and into the Expos Hall of Fame in 1994. He and his wife Rita have two children, Nathalie and Claude-Marc, and reside in St. Luc and Mt. Orford, where he enjoys golf and skiing.

He is still involved in clinics and baseball camps and lectures and talks all over the province of Quebec. He always dreams of other young men who are coming in the game just as he did.

Claude Raymond – Quotes

"I had always dreamed that one day I would pitch for a major league team in my home province and now I was going to play for a new team in Montreal." – August 1969

"In August 1969, when the Braves sold me to the new Montreal Expos we were in first place. I went to Montreal and we were in last place. It was a big let-down in a way; but I was happy to go back home. The next year, I was in really good shape and I wanted to prove that if I was in Montreal, in wasn't because I was a French-Canadian, but because I could pitch. That was my most satisfying season, 1970, when I saved 23 games and won seven." – 1993

"When Walter Alston sent me the telegram saying I was invited, (to the 1966 All-Star Game in St. Louis), that was quite a thrill for me. Joe Morgan was with us in Houston. He broke his kneecap and couldn't go. I wasn't there because I was from Houston, I was there because I was producing. I had the best earned run average of any pitcher on both teams. They seldom picked relief pitchers for the All-Star game, but Walter Alston picked me and Phil Regan of the Dodgers." – 1993

"Quebeckers used to come to me, it was a very emotional thing. They'd say, 'Claude, when you're pitching, it's like we're out there on the mound with you.'" – 1988

"I always thought it was just a good as whoever I played against. That's the kind of attitude you have to have, that you're just as good as the other guy. You can't think negatively. If you think negatively you're in deep stew.: – 1988

"Today what gets me is you have these leagues that say you can only pitch so many innings a week. When we were kids we pitched all day. The more you throw, the stronger you get." – 1988

"I loved that name. It meant people knew what I was, and they liked me." – 1988, talking about his nickname of FRENCHY

"Sparky Anderson was playing second base, Rocky Nelson was the first baseman, Ted Kazanski was the shortstop and Steve Demeter was the third baseman. The catcher was Tim Thompson, and the outfielders were Lou Johnson, Lou Jackson, and Ellis Burton. So we had a pretty good ball club, plus that's beside the guys that were on the bench, who were pretty good too. – 1994, talking about the 1962 Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League

Canadian Baseball News – 1 March 1998