April 13, 2021

By Allen Galley

Maritime Baseball Blog

Moncton’s Rheal Cormier passed away on March 8 after a battle with cancer.

There have been many tributes to the pitcher from across the baseball world. Cormier (Cap Pele, N.B.) was in the big leagues for 16 seasons, including a time in the late 1990s when he was one of three players from New Brunswick in MLB (Matt Stairs (Fredericton, N.B.) and Jason Dickson (Miramichi, N.B.) being the others). He never pitched in the same game as Dickson, but did face Stairs.

He would face Stairs nine times during their major league careers. The first seven occasions occured when Cormier was with the Boston Red Sox and Stairs played for the Oakland A’s. Their next matchup was in 2003, when Stairs was with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cormier with the Philadelphia Phillies. The final matchup was an interleague game when Cormier was still a Phillie, while Stairs was a Kansas City Royal. They were teammates with the 1995 Red Sox team that won the American League East.

Here is each batter vs. pitcher matchup between Rheal Cormier and Matt Stairs. Information is courtesy of Retrosheet.

-1999-04-30: Stairs struck out in the bottom of the seventh (Boston 9 @ Oakland 13)

-1999-05-03: Stairs popped out to third in the bottom of the fifth.

-1999-05-03: Stairs walked in the bottom of the eight (Boston 11 @ Oakland 12)

-1999-08-18: Stairs filed out to centre in the top of the eighth (Oakland 4 @ Boston 7)

-1999-08-19: Stairs singled to right in the top of the eighth (Oakland 6 @ Boston 2)

-1999-09-07: Stairs grounded out to first in the bottom of the eighth (Boston 5 @ Oakland 3)

-2000-09-06: Stairs grounded out second to first in the top of the fifth (Oakland 6 @ Boston 4)

- 2003-04-03: Stairs struck out in the top of the ninth (Pittsburgh 2 @ Philadelphia 0)

-2004-06-20: Stairs filed out to left in the top of the ninth (Kansas City 2 @ Philadelphia 8)

Stairs would go 1-for-8, with a base on balls and two strikeouts vs. Cormier. He would slash .125/.222/.125 in these nine plate appearances. To date, that matchup in June of 2004 is the last time two Atlantic Canadians have played one another in a MLB game.