The Montreal Expos’ Special Place in Cooperstown

This past Sunday, Vladimir Guerrero became the fifth product of the Montreal Expos farm system to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Guerrero joined Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Randy Johnson as the quintet of Hall of Famers who made their MLB debuts with Les Expos.

In addition, although he debuted with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pedro Martinez became a star in Montreal. Also, best known for his years in Cincinnati, Tony Perez is the 7th former Expo with a plaque in Cooperstown.

Although the Expos remain in the history books as the relocated franchise now called the Washington Nationals, the Montreal Expos are essentially a defunct franchise. The city of Montreal is the only one in North America that enjoyed Major League Baseball throughout the 1970’s, ’80’s and ’90’s that no longer has a team to call its own.

What follows is a brief history of baseball and Montreal and a tribute to the great players who played in the French Canadian city and whose deeds on the diamond keep the memory of Les Expos alive in the national consciousness.

Baseball in Montreal before the Major Leagues

According to the Hall of Fame website, professional baseball in Montreal dates back to 1890, in the International Association. Montreal also had a team in the Eastern League late in the 19th century before returning to the International League in the 1910’s. Future Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt, 17 years old at the time, was a member of the 1917 Montreal Royals.

After a couple of other iterations, Montreal was back in business with the International League starting in 1928. The Royals became affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers starting in 1939 and the Dodgers acquired a significant interest in the club in 1940.

Montreal quickly became the #1 minor league affiliate of the Dodgers and hosted seven future Hall of Famers, famously including Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella. I

In addition, it’s often forgotten that Pittsburgh Pirates legend Roberto Clemente was originally signed by the Dodgers. The 19 year old future Hall of Famer spent the 1954 season with the Royals before being lost to the Pirates in the Rule 5 draft after the season. One of Clemente’s teammates with the ’54 Royals was a 26-year old left-handed pitcher named Tom Lasorda.

Even though the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles following the 1957 season, Montreal remained a Dodger affiliate through the 1960 campaign. Geographically, however, this marriage no longer made sense and the Dodgers ended the affiliation. Baseball would not return to Montreal until the city was granted a franchise in the newly configured National League East at the start of the 1969 season.

The Expos Early Years

The expansion Expos played in a small field called Jarry Park which, even after being expanded for MLB baseball, had a capacity of less than 30,000. The Expos were originally only supposed to play in “Le Parc Jarry” for four years but wound up playing there for eight seasons due to delays and cost overruns of the domed stadium being built for the 1976 Olympics.

For their first manager, the Expos hired longtime Philadelphia Phillies skipper Gene Mauch, who had been let go by the Phils the previous summer.

As it has been with many first year squads, the 1969 Expos were awful, finishing with 52 wins against 110 losses. Their best player, acquired pre-season in a trade with the Houston Astros, was a red-haired outfielder from New Orleans named Rusty Staub.

Staub, quickly a fan favorite. Dubbed “Le Grand Orange,” Staub endeared himself to the citizens of Montreal by attempting to learn French and spending the off-seasons in the cold winters of Canada. Staub was far and away the best player on the team from 1969-1971 and represented Montreal at the All-Star Game all three years.

Shortly before the 1972 season, in an effort to improve a losing ball club, Staub was traded to the New York Mets for three young major league ready players, including switch-hitting outfielder Ken Singleton (the 3rd overall pick in the 1967 draft) and shortstop Tim Foli (the #1 overall pick in 1968). Le Grand Orange, incidentally, cried at the news of the trade but quickly became a fan favorite in the Big Apple as well.

Singleton could have become a cornerstone player for the Expos, but was traded after the 1974 season to the Baltimore Orioles in a one-sided trade. The key player in the deal coming to Montreal was pitcher Dave McNally, who retired after one mediocre season.

Le Grand Orange, the greatest player in the first half-decade in the history of the franchise, finished his 23-year career after the 1985 season with 292 home runs and 2,716 hits. It was a great career but not quite enough to earn a Hall of Fame plaque. Staub lasted for 7 years on the BBWAA ballot, topping out at just 8% of the vote in 1994. Staub passed away earlier this year at the age of 73.

Slowly Building a Winner

Although the big trade of Staub in 1972 didn’t produce dividends, the seeds of the great Expos teams of 1979-82 were planted in the draft that year. The team selected outfielder Ellis Valentine in the second round and catcher Gary Carter in the third.

In 1975, the team picked outfielder Andre Dawson in the 11th round and, in 1977, they nabbed a speedy young second baseman named Tim Raines in the 5th round.

The Expos also picked up two useful starting pitchers in the early rounds of that ’77 draft, Bill Gullickson and Scott Sanderson.

Carter emerged as an All-Star in his rookie campaign (1975) although he played more right field than catcher in his first two years because the team had an established backstop (Barry Foote). Carter was the N.L. Rookie of the Year runner-up, losing to pitcher John Montefusco.

After a cup of coffee in 1976, Dawson became the team’s everyday center fielder in 1977 and was the N.L. Rookie of the Year. As the team moved into Olympic Stadium for the first time, a new manager with two World Series rings (Dick Williams) was hired.

With three emerging young stars (Dawson, Carter and Valentine), a top of the rotation starter (Steve Rogers), and newly acquired first baseman Tony Perez, it’s easy to view the the ’77 Expos as a disappointment. They finished 75-87.

The 1978 Expos were equally disappointing, finishing with at 76-86 record. With an improved pitching staff, the ’79 Expos finally gave their fans a pennant race, finishing at 95-65, two games behind the N.L. East Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Baseball was flourishing north of the border; the Expos topped 2,000,000 in attendance for the first time.

In 1980, the Expos won 90 games, falling just one game shy of the Philadelphia Phillies for the N.L. East crown. Carter and Dawson were in their primes. Carter won his first of three Gold Gloves and finished second to Mike Schmidt in the MVP voting. Dawson also won his first Gold Glove and finished 7th in the MVP vote.

The Glory Years of Carter, Dawson and Raines

It was in Raines’ rookie campaign, the strike-shortened 1981 season, that the Expos finally made the playoffs, thanks in part to the split season format.

Raines followed in the footsteps of Carter and Dawson by authoring a superb rookie season. With a .304 batting average and 71 stolen bases, the switch-hitting outfielder was an All-Star and finished second to Fernando Valenzuela in the Rookie of the Year balloting.

In the meantime, Dawson was emerging as a major star. An All-Star for the first time, the Hawk won his second Gold Glove and finished second (to Schmidt, again) in the MVP balloting. Carter had another Gold Glove All-Star campaign and, after the long players’ strike, hit two home runs in the Mid-Summer Classic.

Ironically, the future Hall of Fame manager (Williams) didn’t survive to the end of the season with his future Hall of Fame players. He was fired late in the season, replaced by Jim Fanning, who guided the team to the 2nd half N.L. East title.

In the post-season, starting with the “Division Series” format (similar to the one used today), the Expos prevailed in a 5-game series over the defending World Champion Phillies, thanks to a Game 5 shutout from Rogers, who out-pitched future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton.

In the National League Championship Series, the Expos fell in 5 games to the Los Angeles Dodgers, losing the clinching game on a solo home run by Rick Monday.

Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines played together for four years, from 1981-84. All three were All-Stars every year except ’84, when Dawson didn’t make the squad. For a variety of reasons, the Expos never made it back to the playoffs with their three future Hall of Fame inductees, slowly dropping to 86 wins in 1982, 82 in 1983 and 78 in 1984.

While the team’s overall play was declining, the Expos attendance was declining as well. The ’83 edition drew 2.3 million fans (2nd best in the N.L.). The ’84 team drew about 700,000 fewer fans.

The End of one Era and Beginning of Another

Three years after their ’81 playoff appearance, the Montreal Expos traded their most popular player (Gary Carter) after the 1984 season to the New York Mets. The team was struggling financially and were looking to rebuild. This wasn’t a giveaway trade; the Mets sent four decent players to Montreal but none would have a major impact with the Expos while Carter helped the Mets to a World Championship in 1986.

While the move of Carter represented a move towards re-establishing the team as a contender in the 1980’s, the Expos signed a 17-year old player who would become the building block of the contending teams in the early 1990’s. Canadian-born Larry Walker was signed in November 1984, just 17 days before his 18th birthday and less than a month before the Carter deal.

In June of the following year, the club selected a 6 foot 10 inch skinny pitcher from the University of Southern California by the name of Randy Johnson in the 2nd round of the player draft.

After a lackluster 1986 season, it looked certain that the Expos would lose their other two cornerstone superstars from the early 1980’s (Raines and Dawson) to the dollar green pastures of free agency. But the team caught a break: the ’86-’87 off-season featured the infamous collusion among all the major league owners to keep salaries down. Thus, all the teams agreed not to offer outlandish multi-year contracts to other teams’ free agents.

Dawson, insulted that the Expos asked him to take a pay cut after an off year and eager to save his aching knees from the daily toll of the Olympic Stadium turf, agreed to a one-year “blank check” contract with the Chicago Cubs.

Literally, Dawson’s agent (Dick Moss) went to the Cubs and told them to fill in the blank for Dawson’s services. The Cubs agreed (filling in half of what Dawson had earned with the Expos in ’86) and the Hawk rewarded the North Siders with 49 home runs and a MVP season.

Raines, coming off a 6th place MVP finish, received a decent offer from the Expos (3 years for $5 million) but, absent the owners’ collusive actions, would certainly have commanded a bigger deal elsewhere. So, he returned to Montreal and had perhaps his best season, leading the team back into contention. I attended Raines’ first game in 1987 (at Shea Stadium in New York), chronicling that day and his Hall of Fame career in this piece.

Ultimately the Expos finished with 91 wins, 4 games behind the first place St. Louis Cardinals in the National League East.

Another Future Hall of Famer Leaves Montreal

The New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals had dominated the East from 1985-1988 but, on May 29th, 1989, the Expos found themselves just two games out of first place and their 32-year-old second-year General Manager, a man named David Dombrowski, decided to roll the dice and go for it, trading for a hot young free-agent-to-be ace starting pitcher, Seattle’s Mark Langston.

The hard-throwing lefty, who had led the A.L. in strikeouts for the previous three seasons, was terrific in Montreal, posting a 2.39 ERA in 24 starts. Unfortunately, Dombrowski’s gamble didn’t pay off. The Expos finished 12 games behind and the key pitcher he dealt to Seattle went on to have a pretty decent career.

That pitcher’s name was Randy Johnson. With Raines still in Montreal, the Big Unit was the third homegrown future Hall of Famer to leave the Expos. Needless to say, this didn’t have remotely the same immediate impact to the fan base as had been the trade of Carter or the loss of Dawson to free agency. Johnson had only appeared in 11 games with Les Expos before the trade.

The irony about the Langston-Johnson trade (a five player deal in toto) is that, at the time, it looked like it was the Expos who were acquiring a future Hall of Famer rather than trading one.

But it didn’t work out. Langston was a multi-month rental. With the collusion era a distant memory, Langston signed a big free-agent deal with the California Angels after the season and the 6’10” Johnson went onto a Hall of Fame career, mostly in Seattle and Arizona.

The Montreal Expos of the early 1990’s

In that 1989 campaign, Larry Walker made his debut with the Expos and became a regular in 1990, the first of five excellent seasons. The British Columbia born Walker, who went by the nickname of Booger, was far and away the best Canadian-born player in the history of the franchise and, in a different economy, would likely have been a cornerstone for the franchise.

Walker’s official rookie season (1990) was Raines’ last in Montreal. The Rock of the Expos franchise for a decade had an off season and the team had younger outfield options, including Walker and Marquis Grissom. So Raines was traded to the Chicago White Sox.

With the Raines era over and the Walker era just beginning, 1991 was a forgettable season in Montreal. The team won just 71 games and drew under a million paying spectators for the first time in the history of Le Stade Olympique.

Things turned around in Montreal in 1992. Gary Carter was back for a swan song, his final season in the majors. Young stars (outfielders Marquis Grissom and Moises Alou, 2nd baseman Delino DeShields and closer John Wetteland) were emerging. The team had two solid starting pitchers (Dennis Martinez and Ken Hill). A new manager (Felipe Alou) was hired in May and the team started winning. Attendance rebounded to 1.7 million.

The ’92 Expos finished with 87 wins. Walker made his first All-Star team, won his first Gold Glove and finished 5th in the N.L. MVP voting.

The 1993 Montreal Expos were full fledged contenders, finishing three games out of first place with 95 wins.

Another Strike Season, a Potential Dynasty Dismantled

1994 should have been the greatest in the team’s history. Dennis Martinez (El Presidente) was gone, having signed a free agent deal with the Cleveland Indians but he was replaced by another Martinez, a skinny 22-year old Dominican named Pedro.

The younger Martinez was acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers for DeShields, arguably the worst trade in Dodger history.

The ’94 Expos, led by Walker, Grissom, Alou, Hill and Pedro, had the best record in baseball before the players’ strike that would ultimately end the season and cancel the World Series.

After the strike-shortened ’94 season, General Manager Kevin Malone was ordered to cut payroll dramatically and so the Expos gutted their powerhouse team.

Grissom, Hill and Wetteland were traded and Walker was allowed to walk away as a free agent. In an effort to gut the team’s payroll, he Expos didn’t even offer their Canadian-born star arbitration and made no effort to re-sign him. Booger went from a dome with artificial turf in Montreal to the grass and Mile High air in Denver in the Colorado Rockies’ brand new stadium, Coors Field.

Two Dandies from the Dominican Republic

For the next couple of years Expos fans had little to be excited about with the singular exception of the developing ace pitcher Martinez. In the last of his four seasons in Montreal (1997), Martinez won the first of his three Cy Young Awards with a magnificent 17-8 campaign, sporting a 1.90 ERA, with a 0.93 WHIP and 305 strikeouts. But again, the Expos were a small-market team and, with Pedro’s free agency looming a year later, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox for the immortal Carl Pavano.

Martinez’ last season in Montreal was the first full campaign for Vladimir Guerrero, an exciting young rookie right-fielder with a bazooka for a right arm and an uncanny ability to cover the entire strike zone with the bat. In Vladdy, the Expos had a bigger, badder version of Andre Dawson, who was in his final MLB season (with the Florida Marlins).

Guerrero was tall (6’3″) like Dawson. Both players had long arms and the ability to make long, accurate throws from the outfield. Guerrero, though, is listed on his Baseball Reference profile as weighing 235 pounds, compared to Dawson (180 pounds).

As Dawson had been in 1977 (20 years earlier), Guerrero was an instant star in Montreal and became one of the best players in the game in his 2nd full season (1998) in which he hit .324 with 38 home runs and 109 RBI.

Unlike the Dawson years, which featured contending clubs and a post-season berth, the Guerrero years in Montreal, which ended after the 2003 season, were not good overall for Les Expos, who never even sniffed the post-season. Vladdy was the team’s only superstar during those lean years.

Another Expo Heads to Greener Pastures

As Dawson had done before him 17 years prior, Guerrero left Montreal as a free agent for the greener pastures of actual grass instead of the artificial turf which was wrecking his knees. Those pastures led him to Anaheim, where he signed a five-year, $70 million contract. Again, just as Dawson had in 1987, Vladimir rewarded his new team in 2004 with an instant MVP season; he would finish in the top 3 in two of the next three seasons as well.

As for his former team, the Expos played their 36th and final season in Montreal in 2004. They had a Hall of Fame player (Frank Robinson) as their manager but no future Cooperstown inductees on the field. The 2004 Expos, a 95-loss team, finished dead last in the majors in attendance with just 749,550 fans going through the turnstiles.

After the season, the Expos franchise was relocated to Washington and re-named the Nationals and baseball in Montreal has ceased to exist. It’s a shame, really, because the fans of Montreal, despite never having a halfway decent stadium, supported the teams well for years. From 1979 to 1983 the team was in the top four in National League attendance and only one team outside of the Los Angeles metro area outdrew the ’83 edition.

But as the team struggled, attendance plummeted and, even in the early 90’s resurgence, the franchise had a hard time attracting fans to the stadium. The ’94 team, which had the best record in baseball before the strike, was just 11th out of 14 teams in N.L. attendance.

The Expos Live on in Cooperstown

With the induction of Vladimir Guerrero into the Hall of Fame, the Montreal Expos now have six former players who have plaques in Cooperstown. Guerrero’s plaque does not bear the logo of the Expos. He preferred to go in as the first player bearing the logo of the Los Angeles Angeles, a controversial choice that I discussed in this piece I authored in February.

Still, the Expos, gone from baseball for 14 years, live on in the great Hall of plaques through the great players who played in Montreal. Gary Carter was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003 (the 2nd to last year of baseball in Montreal) as the first player enshrined with an Expos logo on his cap.

Seven years later, Andre Dawson was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Hawk at the time preferred to bear the logo of the Chicago Cubs (where he won the N.L. MVP in 1987) but the Hall overruled him. And so, a second Expo logo entered the Hall. Sadly, less than two years after Dawson’s induction, the original Expo Hall of Famer (Carter) passed away at the age of 57 after a losing battle with brain cancer.

In 2015, five years after Dawson entered the Hall, two more former Expos were inducted into the Hall of Fame, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. The Big Unit, of course, didn’t get a chance to thrive in Montreal but Pedro had the first of his Cooperstown-defining seasons (the 1997 N.L. Cy Young campaign) while pitching in Le Stade Olympique.

The Bond of Brothers: Raines and Dawson

Two years later, in 2017, Tim Raines finally had his day and his plaque was unveiled with the logo of the team that had ceased to exist 13 years ago. In his Hall of Fame induction speech, Raines paid tribute to the franchise that he grew up with, and the Expos’ teammates who helped him along the way.

Gary Carter, God bless him. I know he’s looking down, as well, saying, “You did it, kid.” He taught me how to play the game. He taught me how to be prepared each and every day. He was a catcher, but this guy played the game the way it was supposed to be played, and thank you, Gary, because you taught me that about this game.

— Tim Raines (Hall of Fame induction speech, July 30, 2017)

It’s well known that Rock Raines struggled with substance abuse in his early playing years and the player who took on the role of big brother and helped set him straight was Dawson:

Without Andre Dawson, seriously, I think there’s no telling what would have happened in my career. There was a point in my career that I felt like I needed someone to guide me in the right direction, and that guy was Andre Dawson. 

Thank you so much, Andre Dawson, for making me the player that I became.

I wish I had his arms. I think he wishes he had my legs. But together, me and him played the game, I’ll tell you, the six, seven years we played together, there wasn’t a dull day, regardless of win, lose or draw. I was just happy to have him on my side. Thank you so much, Andre.

— Raines (Hall of Fame induction speech)

The Hawk, Rock’s elder by 5 years, was Raines’ surrogate big brother. As a tribute to his mentor, Raines in 1983 named his second son “Andre” and conferred upon him a nickname of great respect, “Little Hawk.” Dawson is Andre Raines’ godfather.

The Bond of Brothers: Martinez and Guerrero

Just as it was with Raines and Dawson, the two great Montreal Expos of the 1990’s are bonded through friendship and brotherhood.

Both born in the Dominican Republic, Pedro Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero, while just teammates for one full season (1997), are bound together in each others’ hearts forever. Pedro is the godfather to Vladdy’s first son, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is now the #1 prospect in all of baseball.

Interestingly, both Pedro and Vladimir Guerrero had older brothers who also played in the major leagues. Pedro’s older brother (Ramon Martinez) had already become a star two years before Pedro made it to the majors. Ramon emerged as one of the top young hurlers in baseball, winning 20 games while finishing 2nd in the 1990 N.L. Cy Young Award voting with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Martinez brothers pitched together with the Dodgers for just one season (1993) before the trade that sent Pedro to Montreal.

Wilton Guerrero, actually Vladdy’s half-brother and older by a couple of months, made his MLB debut in September 1996 with the Los Angeles Dodgers while Vladimir was debuting in Montreal. The Dodgers traded the much smaller Guerrero (5’11” 145 pounds) to the Expos in July 1998 and the two half-brothers got to spend the rest of ’98 and all of 1999 and 2000 as teammates in the major leagues. While playing in Montreal together, the two brothers lived together in an apartment with their mother.

With Guerrero’s induction into the Hall last Sunday, the Hall of Fame now has two pairs of former Expos bound together by lifetime friendships and the older “brother” playing the role of godfather to one of the younger’s sons.

Les Expos et Cooperstown

This statistical nugget will be a surprise to most people: with five Hall of Famers who made their MLB debuts with the team, the Expos have the most “Hall of Fame debuts” of any team in baseball, dating back to 1969, the first year of the franchise.

Here are the teams with the Hall of Famers that debuted wearing those teams’ uniforms since 1969:

• Montreal Expos (5): Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Randy Johnson, Vladimir Guerrero
• San Diego Padres (4): Dave Winfield, Ozzie Smith, Tony Gwynn, Roberto Alomar

That’s it. The two N.L. expansion teams of 1969 have had more future Cooperstown-enshrined rookies than any other franchises.

If you take it back to MLB debuts in 1960 or later, the Expos are still on top with their 5 home grown Hall of Famers.

• Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (4): Rickey Henderson, Rollie Fingers, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter
• Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (4): Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Phil Niekro
• Chicago Cubs (4): Greg Maddux, Bruce Sutter, Lou Brock, Ron Santo
• Boston Red Sox (4): Wade Boggs, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Carl Yastrzemski

When forecasting the likely Hall of Famers who will be inducted into Cooperstown in the upcoming years, it’s certainly possible that the Expos will add a 6th organizational product if Larry Walker gets the call.

The Canadian-born right fielder, in his 8th year on the BBWAA ballot this year, received 34% of the vote. That’s far short of the 75% needed to get him into the Hall of Fame but he has a great shot to get above 50% by the end of his 10 years of eligibility. If Walker manages that, he’d be a top candidate for the 2022 “Today’s Game” Veterans Committee. You can read about Walker’s compelling Cooperstown case by clicking here.

Will Baseball Return to Montreal?

In 2004, the last of 36 seasons of Montreal Expos baseball was played. It’s bitterly ironic that it wasn’t until 2006 that the province of Quebec finally paid off the financial money-pit known as Le Stade Olympique.

There’s talk in baseball about expanding back into Montreal or perhaps a relocation of the Tampa Bay Rays, one of only two teams left in baseball with a stadium equally as bad as Olympic Stadium (the Oakland Athletics have the other). In 2012, former Expos outfielder Warren Cromartie (teammate to Carter, Dawson and Raines) founded the Montreal Baseball Project, an organization dedicated to bringing baseball back to the city.

With a population of about 4 million, Montreal has the most populated metro area in the U.S. or Canada that is without a baseball team. In fact, there are 12 cities in the U.S. that have a smaller population base than the City of Saints. It’s a fun city to visit and has proven that it will support a winning team, even while playing in a stadium utterly lacking in charm.

When MLB inevitably expands to 32 teams (eliminating the necessity of inter-league play every day because of the odd-numbered 15 teams per league), Montreal will certainly be a top candidate to land that franchise. If the city saw fit to finance a new baseball stadium, I’m certain the game would thrive there again.

In recent years, the Toronto Blue Jays have played exhibition games there before the start of the regular season. And even in the old white elephant, the joint rocked.

Personal Reflections on Baseball in Montreal

Finally, as I reflect on baseball in Montreal, you might enjoy a personal story about a couple of visits I made to the city. Or you might not, but I’m writing about them anyway.

I attended my first Expos game in 1976. At the age of nine, I was on a family vacation in Montreal to attend the Olympics. No, we didn’t get to see Bruce Jenner, Nadia Comaneci, or Sugar Ray Leonard but we saw a lot of different events. None of them mattered more to this young baseball fan than the New York Mets and the Montreal Expos game that we went to on a Friday at Jarry Park, the Expos’ original “stadium.”

I didn’t realize it at the time but I had the pleasure of watching the best pitchers in the history of both franchises on the hill; it was future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver vs. Steve Rogers, the longtime Expos ace. Tom was Terrific, throwing 9 innings of 2-run ball and Rogers matched him, tossing 10 innings and also giving up just two runs. The Expos won the game in the 11th when Del Unser hit a solo home run off Skip Lockwood for the 3-2 win. The game took just 2 hours and 27 minutes to play.

My family and I attended a few events at the brand new Olympic Stadium, a soccer match and a couple of track and field events. I can’t remember any details about any of them.

However, I remember very well returning to Le Stade Olympique in 1987 at the age of 20. It was a road trip with my best friend from high school (Adam Behar) and two of his NYU fraternity brothers, which included future sportscaster Kenny Albert (the son of Marv). Adam and I were rabid Mets fans and attended over between 40 and 60 games per season from 1985 to 1988 and decided that Montreal would be a fun place to spend the weekend.

And fun we had. It was a summer weekend, the roof was open and we had good seats behind home plate for all three games of the series (thank you Marv Albert). The Mets, who were the defending World Series champs, won two out of three games. I don’t really remember the games at all; I had to look them up on www.baseball-reference.com. However, there are three specific things from that trip that I remember distinctly.

The first was that, despite its bad reputation, Olympic Stadium was fun! After the game, there was a live band and a big public party in an atrium at the stadium. Adam and I were used to seeing games at Shea Stadium in New York, where there was nothing to do but drive or take the subway home. In Montreal, there was a big post-game party followed by a metro ride downtown before a night of reverie on Crescent Street.

The second memory that is forever seared on my brain is how difficult it was to pick up the ball off the bat in the stadium for a night game. Simply put, the lighting was poor. In the Marv Albert-provided seats, we were sitting right under the press box so we had the same view as the announcers. The four of us were aspiring broadcasters and not used to having a tough time following the ball because we had all attended lots of baseball games. Before our night out on Crescent Street, we popped into the hotel bar where the Mets were staying and, lo and behold, longtime Mets radio announcer Bob Murphy was sipping a cocktail at the bar.

Adam and I both worshiped Murphy; we really loved listening to him call a game. For us as New Yorkers and Mets fans, Murph was our Vin Scully. (Murphy, incidentally, who was the voice of the Mets for 42 years, is enshrined in the Hall of Fame as a Ford Frick Award winner). Anyway, we came up to him and asked if he too, as a professional, had a hard time picking up the ball off the bat in Olympic Stadium. Murphy’s answer was priceless. With his trademark Oklahoma drawl Murphy replied, “oooooh, it’s murder.” For the rest of the trip we all kept saying “oooooh, it’s murder” and we also had to make fun of Kenny while doing it because his dad was fun to impersonate as well.

Our entourage then proceeded to revel in the exciting night life that Montreal has to offer. We’ll leave it at that.

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