Freelance writer and author Danny Gallagher and Bill Young have teamed up for another baseball book that will be available about Dec. 10. The 400-page book is entitled “Ecstasy to Agony: The 1994 Montreal Expos How the Best Team in Baseball Ended up in Washington 10 Years Later.
There was ecstasy because the Expos were steam-rolling toward a playoff berth and there was agony when the season was truncated by the players’ strike and cancellation of the remainder of schedule.
This team was deemed the best Expos’ team ever assembled in their 36 seasons of operation. There are many in the game who believe that the lost season was a turning point that led to the Expos departing Montreal in 2004.
When it was announced that the season wouldn’t continue, Expos manager Felipe Alou took a drive in his car from his Boynton Beach, Fla. home.
“The season was lost and I was at Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach to get my stuff and I ran into Tom Glavine of the Atlanta Braves,’’ Alou revealed. “Glavine told me, ‘I feel bad for you guys. It was impossible to catch you guys. You guys were dominating the league.’ ‘’
With a Foreword by Toronto Sun baseball columnist Bob Elliott, the book delves into highlights of that season, including Pedro Martinez’s near-perfect game April 13, Cliff Floyd’s golf-shot homer off Greg Maddux June 27 and Marquis Grissom’s inside-the-park, walk-off homer Aug. 1.
Close to 100 people were interviewed for the book, including 26 of the 32 players, who donned an Expos’ uniform that season. Key figures interviewed included commissioner Bud Selig, former players’ union executive director Donald Fehr, Blue Jays president Paul Beeston and executives such as John Schuerholz of the Atlanta Braves, Stan Kasten of the Los Angeles Dodgers and David Montgomery of the Philadelphia Phillies.
National League batting champ Tony Gwynn, American League batting king Paul O’Neill and New York Yankees’ great Derek Jeter, who was passed over by the Expos in the 1992 draft, also have a voice in the book about the 1994 season.
The book deals extensively with the anatomy of the controversial trade that brought pitcher Pedro Martinez to the Expos from the Dodgers in the fall of 1993, a transaction that produced many dividends in 1994.
Ecstasy to Agony provides an exhaustive insight into the troubled labour relations that have taken place in the game since the days of Marvin Miller and touches on what transpired in the months and days leading up to and following the players’ strike that began Aug. 12.
“There are probably people who didn’t grow up in that generation who don’t realize how good an Expos’ team that was in 1994,’’ Gwynn said in an interview. “They had great players, great coaches, a great manager. They were as good as any team that season. They were going to the playoffs. They were that good. They were loaded, no question.’’
Ecstasy to Agony goes into detail about Larry Walker, the greatest Canadian to ever play for the Expos and Canada’s top position player ever. Walker was almost traded early in the 1994 season to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for pitcher Armando Benitez and outfielder Alex Ochoa.
“Orioles owner Peter Angelos nixed the trade,’’ Montreal sportscaster and talk-show host Mitch Melnick said.
The book takes the reader behind closed door — even into the trainer’s room which is off-limits to anyone but club employees — where the playful side of Walker is shown.
“If a player was getting a rubdown by trainer Ron McClain, Walker would take a spray can and spray the player on the left leg or shoulder and it would be painful,” said teammate Sean Berry. “McClain would set it up. Walker was be doing it all the time. He was a practical joker.’’
National League standings
East Division
(As of Aug. 12, 1994)
Team W-L W-L% GB
Montreal Expos 74-40 .649 –
Atlanta Braves 68-46 .596 6.0
New York Mets 55-58 .487 18.5
Philadelphia Phillies 54-61 .470 20.5
Florida Marlins 51-64 .443 23.5
Toronto freelance writer and author Gallagher, a frequent contributor to the CBN, and Young, of Hudson, Que., also produced the highly popular Remembering the Montreal Expos which was published in 2005 and spent seven weeks on the Montreal Gazette’s best-seller list.
Ecstasy to Agony will be available in many bookstores in Ontario and Quebec. Those in other provinces can pre-order a copy by calling 289-200-8448 or 416-535-7738. The cost is $40 for a shipped copy, including postage and handling, making for a great Christmas gift indeed. Alternatively, you can request a copy by emailing expos94book@yahoo.ca. This review first posted by the Canadian Baseball Network.
