John Bateman

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This article is about the baseball player. For the Victorian civil engineer see John Frederick Bateman

John Alvin Bateman was born on July 21, 1940 in Killeen, Texas. He died on December 3, 1996 in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. He was signed by the Houston Colts .45's as an amateur free agent in 1962.

Bateman still hold the Astros record for home runs by a catcher with 16 in 1966. He also led the Colt .45's in home runs and RBI in 1963. He was selected by the Montreal Expos as the sixth pick in the 1968 expansion draft. In 10 seasons he compiled a .230 lifetime batting average, and ended his career with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Bateman had a unique, if not trivial, place in Canadian history. He played for the Montreal Expos in October of 1970, the same time the October Crisis was happening in the city. This was one of the most notorious and tense time in recent Canadian political history. On November 6, the hiding place of one of the FLQ terrorist cells was discovered. John Bateman loved hanging out with the police, and being a star on the new pro team in town, the Montreal police also loved his company. As retold on a television documentary about the history of the Expos, the manager Gene Mauch was watching these events with his staff on TV, and the camera focused on the hiding place in the house. And what do they see, on national TV, but John Bateman's bulky frame coming out of the hiding place. Evidently the police let him have some fun. Mauch was not amused.