Glew: More than 60 years later, Raymond still savours time in Milwaukee

Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Claude Raymond (St. Jean, Que.) spent three seasons with the Milwaukee Braves from 1961 to 1963.

October 27, 2026

By Kevin Glew

Canadian Baseball Network

In the city of Milwaukee, before the Brewers, there were the Braves.

And Claude Raymond can share some incredible stories about his time with them.

The 89-year-old St. Jean, Que., native pitched three seasons with the Braves from 1961 to 1963 and was the first in a line of Canadian closers to star in Milwaukee. Eric Gagne (Mascouche, Que.), John Axford (Port Dover, Ont.) and Jim Henderson (Calgary, Alta.) would follow with the Brewers.

But Raymond is the only one in that group who can share stories about going to the movies with Hank Aaron, having dinner with Eddie Mathews or coming up through the minors with Bob Uecker.

It has been more than 60 years since Raymond toed the rubber in Milwaukee, but his memories of the city remain fresh.

"Milwaukee was a clean city and the people were very generous," recalled Raymond in a phone interview last week. "People were very enthusiastic about the team . . . It was all new to me. I was in awe of everything that was happening to me. I was in the major leagues -- me, this little guy from St. Jean, Quebec."

Raymond remembers a man named Wally Rank, who ran a Buick dealership that loaned a car to every Braves player.

"I remember they had a gas station where you could go and fill up for free," shared Raymond. "Every week we got a free case of [Miller] beer. Every week we got a carton of cigarettes. We had free milk and free dry cleaning. We were spoiled by everybody in Milwaukee."

It was a level of star treatment Raymond couldn't have fathomed growing up in Quebec, where he played hockey and baseball.

By his teens he was one of the hottest young pitching prospects in the province. And it was Quebec baseball legend Roland Gladu who convinced a 17-year-old Raymond to sign with the Braves in early 1955.

Raymond was intrigued by the Braves who had transferred to Milwaukee from Boston two years earlier. He liked the idea of joining an organization that boasted stars like Aaron, Mathews and Warren Spahn.

He was given a $250 signing bonus and his contract was to pay him $165 a month.

"I also had two clauses," recounted Raymond, "I would get $250 on the first of June if I was still with the club and $500 if I was still with the club on the first of August."

In April 1955, Raymond boarded a train in Montreal for the Braves' minor league spring training complex in Waycross, Ga., along with fellow Quebecors Ron Piche, Yvan Dubois and Bobby Laforest who had also been signed by Gladu.

Raymond and Dubois, a catcher, were assigned to class-D West Palm Beach. Raymond was 17 and Dubois was 18, which likely makes them the youngest Canadian battery in pro baseball history.

When he left Montreal, Raymond spoke little English.

"When I went to spring training my first year, I bought a little dictionary and made it my duty to learn 10 new English words a day," said Raymond.

Soon he was conversing with his manager and his teammates in English. In that first season with class-A West Palm Beach, he went 13-12 with a 2.60 ERA in 37 games (27 starts), which earned him a promotion to class-B Evansville in 1956.

After another solid season – in which he went 9-3 with a 2.57 ERA in 31 appearances (four starts) - he was invited to Milwaukee by fellow Evansville right-hander Bob Botz, who lived in the city.

While they were there, the Brewers invited them to throw batting practice.

"Can you imagine? I was 18 years old and just finished a season in Class-B and I was pitching batting practice to Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Hank Aaron, Billy Bruton and Del Crandall," recalled Raymond. "That was my first trip to Milwaukee and County Stadium."

Over the next two seasons, Raymond continued to climb the Braves' minor league ranks, rising to triple-A in 1958. But he was also hampered by shoulder woes that season and that December, he was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the Rule 5 draft.

He made his MLB debut with the Sox on April 15, 1959 and appeared in three contests for them before being sent back to the Braves.

Right-hander Claude Raymond (St. Jean, Que.) was the Milwaukee Braves’ Rookie of the Year in 1962.

He spent the remainder of that season and the ensuing campaign in the high minors and started 1961 with the triple-A Vancouver Mounties before he was called up by the Braves in May. He proceeded to post a 3.98 ERA in 13 big league relief outings. But he was even better the following season when topped the team with 10 saves and finished with a 2.74 ERA in 26 games.

"At the banquet after the season, I got my first ever trophy as a professional baseball player," said Raymond. "I was named their rookie of the year. The best pitcher was Warren Spahn. The best hitter was Hank Aaron and then there was me as rookie of the year. So, I have a picture of the three of us together from that banquet."

Raymond would register five more saves in 45 games with the Braves in 1963.

During his tenure in Milwaukee, Raymond forged a strong relationship with the fans; so much so that a 12-year-old boy and his sister developed the Claude Raymond Fan Club.

Raymond also befriended some of his legendary Braves teammates.

"When I got to Milwaukee, one of the first guys that came to meet me was Eddie Mathews," said Raymond, who can recall going over to Mathews' house for dinner.

In an early conversation with Mathews, the power-hitting third baseman told Raymond that the team's top hitters were getting knocked down by inside pitches too often and he encouraged Raymond to throw inside to protect them.

"And he said, 'If you protect us, I'll be there all the time to protect you,'" recalled Raymond. "So every time I threw inside to somebody or hit somebody, Eddie was always next to the mound . . . Nobody ever decided to come and get me."

Raymond also became friends with Aaron who he'd go to the movies with.

"I remember one game [May 3, 1962] and the Phillies had a screwball pitcher named Jack Baldschun on the mound . . . I'm sitting on the bench next to Hank and Hank said, 'I hope I get up. I want to hit that screwball out of here.' He said, 'I'm going to look bad on the first two pitches and then he's going to try to throw me a good one and I'm going to hit it out,'" recalled Raymond. "He came up and he looked very, very bad on the first two pitches. He swung at balls in the dirt . . . and I'm sure Baldschun thought 'I got him.' And he tried to make a better pitch and he hung it and Hank hit a home run."

Raymond counts Spahn and Lew Burdette as two of the biggest influences on his career. When Ron Piche was with Raymond in Milwaukee in 1963, they hung out with Spahn and Burdette after games.

"We were always talking baseball," said Raymond. "In those days, we didn't have cellphones or computers and music in our ears all the time, like they do today . . . I learned so much from those guys when I was in Milwaukee."

Spahn and Burdette emphasized the importance of looking the batter directly in the eye to Raymond when he was on the mound. They also taught him not to throw the same pitch too many times in a row, regardless of how it foolish it might have made the hitter look. That point was driven home when he tried to throw five consecutive sliders past Dodgers slugger Frank Howard in the bottom of the ninth inning of a game on April 23, 1963.

"The fifth pitch, I hung it. And Frank Howard hit it so far it hit the palm trees in the back of the bullpen in left field at Dodger Stadium. I think those palm trees are still shaking from it," joked Raymond.

After that game, the Braves had to fly to Houston to play the Colt .45s and Raymond had a seat between Spahn and Burdette.

"They gave me hell the whole way for that pitch," said Raymond. "That flight seemed to take about seven hours."

Raymond also forged a strong friendship with Bob Uecker.

"I was raised with Bob Uecker. I played with him for many years," said Raymond. "The first three years I was in Waycross, Georgia he was there with me. And I played with him in Jacksonville, Wichita, Louisville, Milwaukee and Atlanta. We had a lot of fun together."

Uecker made a career out of his self-deprecating humor, but Raymond knew better.

"He'd make you believe he wasn't that good, but he was a heckuva catcher. He had one helluva an arm," recalled Raymond.

Following the 1963 season, Raymond was selected from the Braves by the Houston Colt .45s in a special draft. He pitched parts of four seasons with them before returning to the Braves who had relocated to Atlanta.

He completed his professional career with three seasons with his hometown Expos and then embarked on a successful broadcasting career.

Claude Raymond (St. Jean, Que.) was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. He is shown here speaking at a more recent induction ceremony in St. Marys, Ont. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

According to Baseball Reference, Raymond is one of just 25 Milwaukee Braves players still living.

"I went back to Milwaukee about five or six years ago. They invited me because they always have a great [Milwaukee Braves] banquet during the winter," said Raymond. "I talked to Eddie Mathews' son who was there. He is still a baseball fan and we talked about Eddie a lot."

And for the record, Raymond is cheering for the Brewers in the World Series.

"I'm a National League fan," said Raymond. "It's going to be a good series, but I'm going to pull for Milwaukee."