July 1, 2002

(This article was printed on Major League Baseball's official website July 1--MLB.com/perspectives/your opinion/montreal magic)

MEMORIES OF EXPO TIMES PAST   

      It was 1969.  I was eight.  I lived in hockey country, but a new sport had come to town.  I was too young to know anything of Montreal’s baseball past—that the city had played an integral part in an important time and welcomed Jackie Robinson with open arms.  To me baseball was new.  I remember looking in the newspaper before that opening game with the Mets, reading the listed positions, and thinking…“Catcher?  How is it possible for one player to catch each and every ball?”  And I remember sitting in Jarry Park on brisk evenings, watching baseball, and being entranced by the skills of the players and the pace of the game.  Renovated from a tennis facility Jarry Park had two engaging aspects about it; a swimming pool beyond the right field fence that proved to be an exciting target for home run hitters, and a monstrous black scoreboard that seemed too big and too far away. 

      One particular warm summer night arrived like so many others, but that night I saw greatness, and the image of it is frozen in my mind to this day.  I can see him standing in the box, twirling the bat in his hands like it was a toothpick as he waited for the pitch; a Giant in both stature and uniform.  Baseball defenders would say that when Willie McCovey made contact you flinched—nobody in the game hit the ball as hard—and that night McCovey took a powerful swing and connected.  It wasn’t long before the ball took on the appearance of a star, a small white light in the sky.  It cleared the scoreboard and, like the ending of a fairy tale, disappeared into the night.     

      I was hooked.  Next came Jonesville, Le Grande Orange, John Boc…ca…bel…la, Coco, Mudcat, two Stoneman no-hitters, a litany of losses, and a whole lot of heartbreak.  The years passed, I grew up, and the names changed.  Now there was — Rock Raines, the Kid and the Hawk, the Crow, the Old Goat, and an ever-loving Spaceman.  The wins came more often.  The team moved from its initial intimate setting into a cavernous concrete circle that resounded many nights from the noise 50,000 screaming fans made as the games became exciting, and vital.  For years the team competed, and for years the team failed to make the playoffs.  Each of the team’s stars took their share of the blame.  But then a labour impasse served to split a season in half.  Baseball decided to award separate division championships for the first and the second halves.  Now a team could play well for a short span of time and win a playoff spot.  This proved to be the final push the Expos needed. 

      That October turned out to be the peak for the Expos and their fans, as the Expos beat the Phillies in the divisional playoff.  The scent of a World Series appearance was in the air.  It’s ironic how little I remember of that championship series against the Dodgers, but I remember every detail of that fateful final inning in the fifth and final game.  Fanning ignored his star closer Reardon and instead brought in his tiring ace Rogers to pitch the ninth inning of the tie game.  If only an inning had two outs.  Then Blue Monday never would have happened.  A fence-scraper separated us from the Series.  We never got that close again. 

      The feeling of hope was extinguished when the man, who had been seen occasionally catching baseballs in the outfield during batting practice, decided that the business dealings being exhibited by his fellow owners were so undesirable that he felt obligated to sell the team.  Some corporate boys took over with the intention of making money, not the playoffs.  The Expos were now about positive money, not positive play.  The money grew tighter as the play decreased.  Like a prisoner being led to his executioner the Expos began the slow march toward death. 

     I had left Montreal by that point.  I had moved to Toronto.  For me the Expos had died; the Blue Jays were exciting and competitive and seemingly on a ladder to success.   My allegiances changed.  I was rewarded with two consecutive championship seasons.  The image of Blue Monday was no longer a dark and painful one.  I had been given a measure of baseball satisfaction.  And I watched from a physical and an emotional distance as the Expos turned themselves into a farm team, a precedent too great for Montreal sports fans to endure.  They had sipped the wine of major sport success too many times with their hockey team to accept surrender from a secondary sport.  They turned their back on the team.  The Expos grew desperate.  They were talked into joining the hard-line stance by the influential owners, whose lust for power was far greater than their ability to get it, and who believed that the business of baseball should be run like a nineteenth century Georgia plantation.  And so…Another labour impasse. 

      Be careful of the friends you choose. 

      This one ended only when grand Marshall Reinsdorf surrendered and bought the most expensive player for his team.  The Expos turned out to be mere pawns in the battle and were left clinging to life.  Millions were lost-- the millions the team would have earned that year from a pennant race and from likely playoff and World Series appearances.  Any hope for future survival was also lost as the battle plan proved worthless; the labour impasse had gained the owners nothing.  The Expos suffered the most; they lost the money, and they lost the support.  The indignity was too great for Montreal’s sports fans.  Like Scrooge the Expos had pinched their pennies and earned their dollars, and turned a deaf ear to everyone else.  Unlike Scrooge they chose not to listen to the ghosts. 

     This year is a fairy tale.  A band of misfits, given up for dead by everyone else involved in baseball, come together and fight back against the establishment.  They are making one final Expos run at the playoffs, and their story resounds across North America.  Publications, radio stations, magazines are all throwing their support behind the Expos.  The Expos have a solid team with enough experienced veterans around to complement the young talent.  The enthusiasm emanating from the team is contagious, and if it continues this season will provide an exciting final chapter in the Expos annals. 

     The excitement has reached me here in Toronto, and with the Blue Jays dry-docked for the season, I can proudly say, for one last time, that I am an Expos fan. 

      And once again I can cheer emphatically… “Go Expos”.