Who’s Who in the England Team
Frank Cadorette—Yet another from the Halifax club. England's reserve catcher. Speedy between bases. One of the big hitters of the team. Ice hockey star.
French-Canadian François ‘Frank’ Cadorette (1913–2007) was one of the four players in the England team who played his baseball in Montreal (the others were Jerry Strong, Larry Marsh, and Snooker Ruvinsky). He was also one of the Canadian contingent who had travelled to the UK to play ice hockey. His long career in ice hockey included stints with the Montreal Columbus Club, Stade de Paris, and, in England, Manchester Rapids and Wembley Monarchs.[i]
In Canada, he played his baseball for St Jean B. in the Montreal City and District League alongside other notable future transfers to the game in Britain, Pamphile Yvon (Forest Freres), Abe ‘Happy’ Kasnoff (Montefiore), and Bill Turner (Forest Freres).[ii]
Cadorette’s English baseball career began as coach and catcher with Harringay in the inaugural 1936 London Major Baseball League (LMBL) season. He established himself early as a big hitter in a team that included fellow ice hockey stars Bob Giddens and Roland Desilets alongside Maxim Joubert, the grandson of Hiram Maxim. In a game against eventual league winners White City in July, he scored five hits and four runs.[iii]
He began the 1937 season still in London, playing for the Pirates alongside future England player Sam Hanna. However, early in the season, he moved north to Yorkshire, and in quick succession, signed first for the Wakefield Cubs and then the Sheffield Dons. At all these clubs, he carried on with his big-hitting ways. In the Dons, he played alongside ‘Happy’ Kasnoff, fellow graduate of the Montreal and District League, Eddie Gladu, another Montreal player and little brother of pro player and West Ham captain, Roland Gladu, and Joe Washington, African American star and captain of the Edinburgh University team.[iv]
The 1938 season saw Cadorette playing for a new team in a new league, Halifax, in the Yorkshire-Lancashire League. He was back playing for the same team as Sam Hanna, and future England player Danny Wright was their captain. Halifax was the strongest team in the Yorkshire–Lancashire League in the two years of its existence. With Cadorette as catcher for both the 1938 and 1939 seasons, it won successive league championships, and in 1939, swept the board, taking the NBA Challenge Cup, the league championship, and the Yorkshire Cup.[v]
Cadorette returned to Canada at the start of the Second World War and resumed his ice hockey career. He died in Montreal in 2007.
Cadorette was what a catcher needed to be: solid, dependable, with good situational awareness and a strong arm. He demonstrated the latter with his skills with the bat, too. If England did not have Snooker Ruvinsky available, he would undoubtedly have caught the England–US games in August 1938. As it was, he was there ready to swing for the bleachers
[i] https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/229268/francois-cadorette accessed 1 August 2025.
[ii] ‘Five Games Scheduled’, Montreal Gazette, 29 July 1933.
[iii] Harringay team roster: ‘To-Night’s Baseball’, Evening News (London), 13 May 1936; four runs: ‘Players Ordered From Field’, Evening News (London), 6 July 1936.
[iv] Pirates: ‘Baseball: Pirates May Steal Lead’, Daily Mirror, 5 May 1937; Wakefield Cubs: ‘Baseball Signings’, Bradford Observer, 5 June 1937; Sheffield Dons, Kasnoff, etc.: ‘Dons’ Fine Baseball Victory’, Sheffield Independent, 1 July 1937. Joe Washington: https://www.ishilearn.com/diamond-lives-washington-makes-his-bow, accessed 1 August 2025.
[v] ‘Halifax Baseball Champions’, Bradford Observer, 8 August 1938.