by Barry Stagg
September 1994
Bob Bailey first base, Gary Sutherland second base, Bobby Wine shortstop, Coco Laboy third base, Rusty Staub right field, Adolfo Phillips centre field, Mack Jones left field, Bill Stoneman on the mound and John Bateman behind the plate. This was a typical starting line-up for the Montreal Expos in 1969. This was the first year for the Expos and they compiled a totally expected 52 win, 110 loss season to finish dead last in the National League East Division. These players, particularly right fielder Staub, became heroes to both Montreal and Canadian baseball fans that year. The Expos were Canada's first major league baseball team and in fact the first Major League Baseball team outside the United States. Expo games were a regular feature on CBC Television and whether the fans were from Newfoundland or British Columbia or downtown Toronto, they were all Expo fans waiting for those rare moments when their heroes would crash through the arrogant posturing of the older American teams.
Nowhere was this pride more evident than during the first game of Expo history. In snowy, miserable Shea Stadium in New York the Expos behind the heroics of relief pitcher Dan McGinn defeated the team that was to go on to win the World Series that year. The score was a very unartistic 11-10 but relief pitcher McGinn was the winning pitcher while also managing to hit a home run. Like so many other early Expos, McGinn went on to an obscure and short major league career, but in those early glowing days of Expo history he was a figure on a par with present day Canadian baseball idols like Joe Carter and Robbie Alomar.
That two Toronto Blue Jays are today's Canadian baseball heroes instead of a couple of Montreal Expos is a story in itself. The Expos put together a great minor league system and broke the hearts of their fans regularly in the early eighties. The Blue Jays put together a profitable and winning team in Toronto.
Now the Blue Jays' two year run at the World Series appears to be over, whether or not major league baseball players go on strike. The Blue Jays languish seventeen games behind the lead in the American League East with a pitching staff that draws parallels with the throwers that the Expos put on the field in 1969.
It is the Expos of 1994 who are once again the story. Where Bob Bailey once held on runners at first base now Canadian superstar Larry Walker rests his sore shoulder and plays first base and manages to lead the League in doubles and hit .325 while doing it. Wisps of memories of slick fielding Bobby Wine at shortstop surround budding young superstar Wil Cordero as he leads all National League shortstops in offensive categories on his way to an all-star season. Right handed pitcher Ken Hill leads the National League in wins while his 1969 counterpart Bill Stoneman counts money in the Expos head office.
Twenty-five years after the Expos made Jarry Park in Montreal their new home, Montreal has produced the best team in major league baseball. At this time they hold a six game lead over the Atlanta Braves who merely boast the best pitching staff in the world. The Expos are young, they are talented and they face the spectre of being broken up and scattered around the majors unless baseball fans start coming out in droves to see the team at grey, old Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
Of late, crowds at the stadium have been bottoming out at around thirty thousand per game which gives some hope to Expos management that the franchise will generate enough cash to pay the huge salaries that talents like Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom and Moises Alou demand.
This Expos team is a team for the ages with tremendous talent up and down the roster and with many of the players like shortstop Cordero and right fielder-first baseman Cliff Floyd in their early twenties with ten to fifteen years of baseball superstardom ahead. This team, in terms of talent and potential, is a lot like the great Montreal hockey teams with talent of every age through the roster and with a minor league system bursting at the seams with talented young players ready to make the jump to the big time.
This is an opportunity in Montreal. It is an opportunity to keep a franchise that will be a power in baseball for the next ten years. At the same time there is a very real possibility that this team will be sold and moved to the United States. The value of this team after this season will be at a peak and the Montreal owners of the club would have every economic right to cash-in and sell the team for a tremendous profit. If so the new purchasers will be getting a baseball bargain at any price.
Let us hope that Canadian baseball fans realize the wealth of baseball that lies in this great Montreal franchise. Fan support, both at the turnstiles in Montreal and from a distance, through radio, television and newspapers like the Downhomer is a must if Montreal is to stay a baseball town.
Until next month be proud, be prosperous.