When I saw the Jets make their return to Winnipeg earlier this month, I have to admit there was a part of me that thought about the Expos returning to Montreal.
The Expos were as big a part of my youth as popsicles and Nintendo.
They pretty much meant everything to me.
I wasn’t old enough to be devastated by the Rick Monday home run, so my first heartbreaking Expos moment came on a December morning in 1984. I remember my dad waking me up to tell me that the Expos had traded Gary Carter to the Mets.
Even though I wasn’t quite eight years old, I could tell that a Gary Carter-for-Hubie Brooks and three other guys trade was totally one-sided. The next season, the Expos finished a distant third place in the NL East and I ripped apart my 1982 Topps sticker book that had Carter on the cover.
In that same summer of 1985, I watched the Blue Jays make the playoffs for the first time in their franchise history. And that’s when my real jealousy toward Toronto started. From that point forward, the Blue Jays had the upper hand on the Expos in the Canadian baseball landscape.
Sure Toronto had some hiccups – like their epic collapse down the stretch in 1987 – but it paled in comparison to the struggles of the Expos.
In 1989, the Expos management finally decided to go out and land a big-name star via a trade. Mark Langston joined the club during the season and pitched well – posting a 2.39 ERA in 24 starts with the club. But the Expos had no offense that season; it was one those classic off-years for Tim Wallach when he just didn’t produce for some reason. He was like the baseball equivalent of Stephane Richer in that city and Montreal finished exactly 81-81 and never seriously flirted with a division crown.
That same summer, the Blue Jays opened their new state-of-the-art stadium in downtown Toronto. And for good measure, they erased a 12-24 start to win their division on the final weekend of the season.
But at least we gave up Randy Johnson in that trade for Langston, right?
The next couple of years were a blur for us Expos fans.
It went something like this: Tim Raines was traded, Tom Runnells showed up to spring training in military fatigues and Spike Owen was the everyday shortstop. Our best moment came in July of 1991 when Dennis Martinez tossed his perfect game in Los Angeles.
“El Presidente, El Perfecto!” was an awesome call from Dave Van Horne, awesome because it was one of the rare games broadcast on English television.
Too bad our team finished in last place in the division with 91 losses that season. As for the Blue Jays, they won their division and made the playoffs again. Even when Dave Stieb got hurt, they had some hard-throwing, jheri-curled phenom named Juan Guzman step right in and they didn’t miss a beat.
It was sickening how lucky they seemed to be.
There was a little bit of promise for us in 1992 and 1993. The Expos played meaningful baseball games in September in both of those years, but the aforementioned Spike Owen made a critical error in a game at Pittsburgh that sunk our chances in 1992.
And fans packed the Big O to watch a big series with the Phillies the following September—but the Expos failed to pull off a much-needed sweep.
I don’t really want to talk about what happened to the Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993. It frustrated me that they solved all of their problems by opening up their wallets.
Need a starting pitcher? Here’s Jack Morris, and David Cone, and then Dave Stewart. The DH looking a little weak? Maybe we should sign Dave Winfield? And when he’s gone, let’s just go get Paul Molitor.
The Blue Jays were like the Yankees back then and to me, there was nothing lovable about them. If I ever engaged in any underage drinking, it certainly wasn’t with a Labatt’s product.
But it was all set to change for me in the summer of 1994.
I had just finished my last year of high school and was looking forward to watching as many Expos games as possible. My parents even ordered the high-end cable package for me so I could watch the extra Montreal games on TBS and WGN when they were playing Atlanta and Chicago (The extra episodes of Saved By The Bell were also a nice little bonus).
Of course, it all fizzled out with the player’s strike in August. We don’t know for sure if the Expos would have won the World Series that fall, but it sure would have been nice to be the ones in the October spotlight for a change.
I’ve had my favourite team play in the Super Bowl and my favorite hockey team play in the Stanley Cup Final. But there is nothing better than post-season baseball and I’ve never experienced it before with my team playing. And when the Expos left in 2004, I figured I would never get a chance to experience it for a first time.
My loyalties didn’t shift down to Washington. I don’t follow the Nationals closely, except to monitor the MRI results from Stephen Strasburg for one of my fantasy keeper leagues. I thought about picking up a new team, but everything else seemed hollow.
I certainly wasn’t going to jump on the Yankees or Red Sox bandwagons. And even latching on to a lovable loser didn’t feel right. You can’t just become a Cubs fan in your late 20s and expect to fully understand their torture and torment.
So it always kept coming back to the Blue Jays, because all of their games were on TV, but I had no interest in cheering for a strange collection of overpaid veterans.
The teams that had Lyle Overbay, Troy Glaus, Vernon Wells, Frank Thomas and A.J. Burnett just reeked of an organization trying desperately to keep up with the New Yorks and Bostons of the world.
And truth be told, even die-hard Blue Jays fans didn’t love those teams; they just seemed devoid of any attachment to a single player – unless Roy Halladay was pitching.
And then, something strange and wonderful started to happen. The Blue Jays slowly started morphing into the Montreal Expos. They picked up Jose Bautista off the scrap heap from Pittsburgh – eerily similar to how the Expos landed Moises Alou from those same Pirates.
Jays fans had to say goodbye to Roy Halladay, only to watch him win a Cy Young Award and pitch in the post-season the following year. We know exactly how you feel because we watched Pedro Martinez get traded away and do the same thing in Boston. And we can only wish that Kyle Drabek wins more than the 24 games that Carl Pavano won in an Expos jersey.
We had Larry Walker, and now you’ve got Brett Lawrie. I’m pretty sure the scouting report on Yunel Escobar and Wilfredo Cordero are pretty much the same. You now play in a domed stadium that many people argue is outdated. And just so you know, we pretty much invented that phenomenon in Montreal.
Your home games are sparsely attended – but on a few special nights of the season, the ballpark can still be packed. There is a baseball culture that is there under the surface, just waiting to come back and fill the Rogers Centre with 40,000 fans on a consistent basis. And that’s what it was like in Montreal; a few thousand hard-core fans who showed up to every game, with countless others waiting in the wings.
We just needed something to cheer for. And that’s what it’s like in Toronto.
It’s been almost 20 years since the team made the playoffs, but when they are a contender again, the stadium will fill up. And that’s why I’m making sure I’m jumping on the Jays bandwagon now, so I can experience the whole rise to the top.
Montreal and Toronto are usually polar-opposites – whether you are talking about politics, religion or sports. But on the baseball front, we now appear to be kindred spirits. This youngest generation of Blue Jays fans – the ones who don’t remember the two World Series – are just like me when I was growing up. They aren’t the entitled Blue Jays fans who expected their team to make the playoffs every year. They are every bit like Expos fans – waiting almost 20 years for their team to just play some meaningful games down the stretch.
And when the Blue Jays finally make the post-season again, I think I can finally experience what it’s like to have my team play some October baseball.