A. J. Hartman’s first recorded appearance on the tenpin scene in Toronto was an inauspicious one, when he rolled a 427 series on the opening night of league play in the 1906-07 season at the age of 28. Two years later he became the manager of the Brunswick Alleys in Toronto.

In 1916 he put together a rather formidable team which challenged for and won the McCallum Challenge Trophy, emblematic of the 5 man team tenpin match game championship of Canada, defeating the Strathconas of Montreal. In addition to himself, Hartman’s team included two other member of the future Saunders team of 1921, namely Herb Gillis and Sam Schliman. Over the next five years the team, as Brunswicks, Glidden Varnish and finally Saunders defended the McCallum Cup 19 times and were successful on 18 of the 19 occasions. Only once in all those matches were Schliman and Gillis not there but Captain “A. J.” appeared in every match. A fourth member of the 1921 Saunders team, Herb Penoyer bowled for the opposing team in one of the McCallum Trophy matches and the next time they defended the cup Penoyer was bowling with them.

A. J. Hartman’s most important contribution to our history and his own bowling achievements was captaining the Saunders team of Toronto to the American Bowling Congress Team Championship in Buffalo, New York in 1921. This team was the first Canadian team and the only Toronto team ever to win an ABC Tournament Championship. Their score was 3066, to which Hartman contributed 560 and had an entering average of 185 at age 43.

Performance on the lanes was not A. J. Harman’s only “Claim to Fame”. He also was elected to the ABC Executive Committee in 1919 and served 3 years to 1922 and was therefore Toronto’s second ever ABC Executive Director.

As in the case of Ed Sutherland it is reasonable to believe that A. J. Hartman also held some high offices in the Toronto Association, but there is no documented proof of this.