MONTREAL – Alternating waves of nostalgia and déjà vu kept hitting Mike Mordecai on Monday as he watched the Toronto Blue Jays take batting practice at Olympic Stadium.
Twenty years ago, he signed with the Montreal Expos as a free agent and first called the Big O home. During four-and-a-half years with the club, he lived through the constant relocation talk and a whole lot of losses. Two years after he was traded to the then Florida Marlins as part of the Carl Pavano salary dump, he recorded the final out in the final home game in Expos history, settling under a Termel Sledge popper in short left to secure a 9-1 win.
The winning pitcher that night was, somewhat fittingly, Pavano, who allowed a run on seven hits in seven innings to collect his 18th victory of the season, at the time a franchise record.
All these years later, what did Mordecai feel as the memories came flooding in?
"Old – older," he replied with a wry grin. "This is really where I became a big-league ballplayer. I played three years in Atlanta, we went to two World Series, but I played sparingly. Here I got to play a lot more, so I became a big-leaguer here. I have fond memories of this place. I enjoyed it here."
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Though the Blue Jays are in Montreal to play exhibition games for the fifth straight spring – a five-year contract with promoter evenko expires next year – Mordecai is back at his old stomping grounds for the first time. The 50-year-old from Birmingham, Ala., was promoted to the big-league coaching staff in January as the replacement for departed quality assurance coach Derek Shelton after working in the club’s player development system since 2010, most recently as assistant field co-ordinator.
When the Blue Jays first came to Olympic Stadium in 2014 for a pair of wildly successful exhibition games against the New York Mets, Mordecai remembers feeling good for Montreal fans, whom he came to appreciate as he and his Expos teammates played through constant uncertainty.
"You never knew what to believe so we just came out and played, we didn’t listen to any of it. When it finally was happening it was sad," said Mordecai. "I wish they would have gotten a downtown ballpark here. I think it would have helped. I don’t know if they’ll ever have another major-league club up here. I hope they do. The big thing about this place is that when the team was winning, they supported the club. Then they ended up selling off all the pieces (after the strike in 1994), I was here right after that.
"It was tough sledding here at home for a while."
The dream of an Expos rebirth has picked up in recent years, particularly as the Blue Jays exhibitions games drew two-game total crowds of 106,102 in 2016 and 95,382 last year. In all of those years, however, the contests were played on the weekend making it enticing for road-trippers from Ontario and the Maritimes.
A crowd of 25,335 took in Monday’s 5-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, during which Marcus Stroman looked sharp while allowing two runs, including a Marcell Ozuna homer, in 4.2 innings with six strikeouts.
On a more macro level, things have changed, too, with Denis Coderre, who stumped aggressively for baseball’s return, losing the November mayoral race to Valerie Plante, who pledged to hold a referendum before contributing public funds in pursuit of a team.
During the GM meetings in November, commissioner Rob Manfred reiterated that there would be no expansion until the stadium situations for the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics were settled, and added, "I do know that it will be extraordinarily unlikely for baseball to return to Montreal without some concrete plan as to where a team would play. We’re not going back to play at Olympic Stadium."
Organizers have tried to dress up the aged venue as much as possible, but if it was unsuitable for baseball at the turn of the century, there’s certainly no retrofitting it now.
That doesn’t mean Olympic Stadium is without its finer points.
Mordecai spent plenty of time in the afternoon telling old stories about the place, from the third deck seat painted Pirates gold to honour Willie Stargell’s 535-foot homer on May 20, 1978 to Darryl Strawberry’s drive April 4, 1988 that struck the roof.
"Some of these younger players," said Mordecai, "they’re not very familiar with the history up here."
Mordecai owns a small piece of that, himself, having caught the final out of the final real game at the Big O, coming in as a replacement for Mike Lowell in the bottom of the seventh inning and closing things out.
"I’m probably the last guy who should have caught that ball, but it happened the way it happened," said Mordecai. "It was weird walking off the field, because I’m thinking, ‘Man, I really grew up here as a big-league ballplayer and now that’s it, they’re moving.’ It’s nice to come back here."
