EXPOS FOREVER!
by David McGimpsey
OCTOBER 6, 2004 dick crepeau's expos column
I saw the very first Expos home game, and now, the very last. It's hard to put into perspective what all those games in the middle meant to me. Now that there will be no more home openers in April (when Montreal could most use a nudge into summer), part of me wants to ask "Was it just a dream? Was there really baseball in Montreal?" I know I saw a lot of great games and so many significant milestone performances at both Jarry Park and the Olympic Stadium, but it was the time spent at the games themselves, scorecard on lap, beer in my hand, with a simple wish that my team might win, that's most precious to me.
I simply can't believe I'll no longer be phoning my brother Mike to say "hey, wanna go to the game tonight?" When I look back at all those games, the majority of them spent in the bleachers, perhaps I think more of the forgettable teams--the Vance Law Expos, the Barry Foote Expos--as they now seem to best emblemize my own dedication to a team that remained unaccomplished in ways that could make an Astros fan feel superior. For an Expos fan, I'm afraid pathos may be the emotion we share best. The pride of endurance. We die-hards know the echo of a near-empty stadium, we know the whole concept of "middle relief" is a cruel joke.
So now the end is here; adieu nos amours.
The demise of the Montreal Expos has been tirelessly compared to that of a terminally ill patient--you know the end is coming, but when the end finally comes it is still very sad. Those of us who loved the franchise know this melancholic comparison is off target--the once healthy patient was clearly the victim of malpractice. The Expos are gone today not because Montrealers only know snow, hockey and cheese, but because of a catastrophic failure of team ownership. Ever since Charles Bronfman sold the Expos, the team could never find imaginative and dedicated new directors and, in professional sports, that's all a franchise is worth. Fans of the remarkably successful Florida Marlins certainly know how good a team can get when ownership is in more of a spending mood. When the defining gesture of Montreal was letting go of phenomenal talent they developed but could not afford to sign (even letting go of B.C.-born Larry Walker who would have played for less money to stay in Canada), it was clear that MLB was pointing the franchise out of Montreal. As the team was dismantled year after year, as the Toronto Blue Jays commercially established themselves as "Canada's Team," as the Canadian dollar sank in value, as a plan for a downtown stadium fell through, fan interest in the Montreal Expos waned. Why would any city be interested in a team that was, at best, de facto minor league team within the majors?
There are always a few groans here and there but I'm surprised at how serenely content Major League Baseball is with its system of haves and have nots. Just as the old Kansas City Athletics were meant to develop talent for the Yankees, so it will come to pass that all B-level teams will have to get used to seeing "their" players finally make it on other teams. Maybe there should be A and B leagues, like they have in soccer. But, nobody in New York or Boston is complaining and, let's face it, few people will miss the Montreal Expos.
That is not to say Montreal had great fans. The fans who showed up for last night's farewell bash were the worst ever. They booed the American national anthem, they halted the game to the threat of forfeiture for hurling golf balls onto the field and everywhere, people carried banners that generally eschewed nostalgic farewells for angry imprecations directed at the barons of MLB. "There's a place in hell for baseball owners" one banner proclaimed, "Fuck Loria!" read another. Nobody, as far as I could see, shouted out to the great players we all had the pleasure of seeing here: Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Tim Raines, Pedro Martinez or Vladimir Guerrero. None, as far as I could see shouted out the names of quintessential Expos: Larry Parrish, Warren Cromartie, Rusty Staub, Bob Bailey, Chris Speir, Tim Wallach or Bill Stoneman.
I do feel glad for the current roster of players on the Expos. Washington may be a new beginning, the start of something better for some pretty good ballplayers. I just hope they're called the Washington Expos--I may keep up with them if that's the case. Still, I know that no kid learning to play baseball is ever thinking "One day I'm gonna be an Expo!" just as no kid in Lac St.-Jean is thinking "One day I'm gonna be a Phoenix Coyote!"
Being so choked up about it myself reminds me of the triviality of my own enthusiasms. Cities with much stronger fan support have lost their franchises and those cities have gone on. Nothing bad has happened to Brooklyn in the last 50 years has it?
I like hockey and the Montreal Canadiens, of course, but it was baseball, the very first Montreal Expos team, that captured my imagination and it was baseball, in some way, which helped me see a world that extended beyond the east end Montreal neighborhood I grew up in. Last night, as I sat in a left field grandstand with my brother for the last time, I was more tearful than I care to admit, thinking of all the time we spent (or lost) there. I wasn't sad for the memories of the great teams in '79 and '81, not lost trying to remember where the last pop-out popped out to, but for the youth that had passed around the efforts of our lovable team.
When we were younger and would spent our gametime in the affordable bleachers, we were always trying to come up with scams that would get us into the empty boxseats we spotted from the outfield. With great fun and constant ingenuity we tried to escape those $2 seats and, now, there's no place I'd rather be.
Expos forever!