There is no doubt that hockey is king in Canada and certainly nowhere more than the home of
the Stanley Cup. The Montreal Canadiens made it 24 championships when they knocked off Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings in 1993. I was shocked when the call came. My former boss Ted Blackman wanted to know if I was interested in changing sports. Baseball to hockey, Expos for the Canadiens. It would still be the number two job. Instead of sitting behind Dave Van Horne, it would be another local legend, Dick Irvin Jr. One big question in my mind was – who was more likely to move on first. Dave or Dick?
One afternoon I had brought Dave a coffee to his booth and kiddingly chided him that each day when I brought him a coffee, I put a little cyanide in. Dave laughed and responded, “No need for that, I won’t be here forever.” I was hoping that was true.
“What would the job involve besides hockey play by play?” I asked Ted. He informed me that I’d be moving from morning sportscasts to afternoons. Sadly, that would mean I wouldn’t be able to see my daughter Rachel every day as I had enjoyed for several years. In my mind that made it a non-starter. We never even got around to talking dollars and cents. It was a decision I would come to regret.
I was a rare individual indeed in these parts, someone who would choose baseball over hockey.
Stability and security alone suggested more thought on the subject. I had once had my finger on the National Hockey League, but that was no longer the case. And while re-immersing myself extensively might have brought it back, there is no comparison between the two sports on radio. Whatever you think of either sport, baseball’s got to win that war hands down. All the same, a refrain I would hear from my dad many times over the intervening years was, “You should have taken the Canadiens job.”
On April 5, 1995 the shit hit the fan.
Larry Walker was the first to go, The Expos never even made an offer and the Colorado Rockies
walked off with the best hitter Canada ever produced. In 24 hours, Expos ownership hurt their own product and crushed their own fan base harder than any baseball strike could have.
They gave up.
They took the best team in baseball already minus Walker and flushed it down the toilet.The sting of the Walker defection still lingered but the new body blows came quick and finished
with a knockout head shot the next day. Kevin Malone had been named general manager the previous January and walked into a young ready-built goldmine. Dave Dombrowski and Dan Duquette had built the 1994 champion-worthy Expos. Dombrowski had left for the Florida Marlins, Duquette to Boston. Both tiring of the financial restraints of baseball on a shoestring in Montreal. Malone could not have imagined what he would be ordered to do just over a year later. The orders were to do it NOW.
Closer John Wetteland was the first to go, shipped to the Yankees for first baseman Fernando
Seguignol. Starting pitcher Ken Hill was given to St Louis for relievers Bryan Eversgerd and Kirk Bullingerplus outfielder Darond Stovall. (There was some good news that day however as Luis Pujols was re-hired as first base coach.) Less than 24 hours later and the previous days shock still not digested, Marquis Grissom would go somewhere where he could and would win that world series ring. From the Atlanta Braves, the Expos pried away Roberto Kelly, Tony Tarasco and Esteban Yan. So, for Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, John Wetteland and Ken Hill the Expos received:
-One victory from the pitchers with a combined ERA of 5.70 in 28 innings pitched.
-The hitters combined to hit a total of 34 home runs.
-The only established hitter was Kelly who stayed for all of 95 at bats.
-The other three prospects all stiffed.
-The only prospect that would have any major league success at all was reliever Yan who was also the only one acquired in those deals that never spent a day in an Expo uniform.
The 1995 baseball season would start late as the game dealt with the mess that had been created with the first ever cancellation of a world series because of a work stoppage.
For many former Expos fans, the feeling was baseball might as well never come back again. They had been kicked and left for dead. There might be a resurgence down the line but the franchise would never be the same.
It didn’t help when Expos spring training opened with 105 “replacement players”.
It was Major League Baseball’s threat to the Players Association that the game could go on without them. But It couldn’t. The 1995 season was as you would expect. The team with the best record in baseball the previous season would finish just 66-78 in the shortened campaign. Although they were at 52-52 when both Moises Alou and Butch Henry went down with injuries on August 16. They’d go on to win just 14 of their final 40 games. Henry would not throw another inning as an Expo, needing Tommy John surgery to try and put his arm back together. And while he did eventually come back from the injury, he was never as effective before or after his time in Montreal.
I got along with Butch very well. He was one guy that I could talk with where the conversation didn’t start and end with baseball. We talked family and life and about what was really going on in the clubhouse behind closed doors. Information I promised never to divulge. A promise I intend to keep (at least what Butch told me). Butch had a tremendous run with the Expos and I thought I had a small hand in it. I had attended an Expo fantasy camp the previous off season and wore a pair of old red converse running shoes. At an Olympic stadium media day in which local announcers and writers played a game on the big league turf, I put the shoes back on. Butch thought he would poke some fun and shouted, “Hey Price, which shoes is your sister wearing today ?” I told him that I only wore them on days he was pitching and that was the reason he was so hot. Are ballplayers superstitious ? Believe it or not, next road trip Butch made me bring them to the stadium so he could pack them in his bag to take on the road. I haven’t seen Butch since the injury that ended the Expos portion of his career, but Butch if you ever read this, thanks for the hat you left for me before heading off to get operated on. My daughter Sophie wore that hat with pride as she and friends made their way to three provincial championships in girls fast pitch softball.
Despite tossing away four of the best players in the game, the Expos were not devoid of talent.
Besides what they had at the major league level, both Kevin Malone and Dan Duquette had done a nice job of stocking the organization while they were in charge of the team’s minor leaguers. Ugueth Urbina, Carlos Perez and Mark Grudzielanek would debut. Meanwhile, Pedro Martinez continued to head in the direction of the game’s elite. Another run at immortality came on June 3 in San Diego. The Expos were chasing a fourth consecutive victory that would push them seven games over .500 at 22-15. As Pedro rolled through the Padres batting order, it was clear that this had a chance to be a special night. Inning after inning peeled away without a Padres base runner and when Tony Tarasco made a highlight reel catch against the right field fence to record the 27th consecutive out, all the announcer could say, for the second time in his life was,
“And now we go to the 10th, scoreless.”
Unlike Mark Gardner’s no hit bid four years earlier, the Expos this time were on the verge of
wasting a perfect game. And unlike that game at Dodger Stadium, this time they scored in the tenth. Sadly, Bip Roberts led off the Padres half of the inning with a double. No hitter, perfect game and Pedro all gone at once. Mel Rojas finished up, 1-0 Expos. What a shame, though having done the Dennis Martinez perfecto took away some of the sting but lets face it, as few games as I worked, how amazing would it have been to have worked two perfect games? How many play by play guys could claim that on radio other than Vin Scully himself who called four of them?
It was hoped that Cliff Floyd and his buddy Rondell White would emerge and it’s not like the
team had nothing left at the major league level. Not only that but GM Malone made two significant trades that would be huge come the next season. It started with another horrific injury when Cliff Floyd shattered his wrist in a collision with Mets catcher Todd Hundley in New York on May 15 A week later Malone acquired outfielder-first baseman Henry Rodriguez and infielder Jeff Treadway from the Dodgers for pitcher Joey Eischen and Roberto Kelly. Nine starts into his Expos career however and Henry was done for the next 83 games with a broken leg.
Against the wishes of his own ownership group, Malone went out to replace Rodriguez by sending top pitching prospect Reid Cornelius to the Mets for first baseman David Segui.
It didn’t seem real big until all three – Floyd, Rodriguez and Segui – were key regulars in 1996.
Not listening to his boss on the Rodriguez trade was one strike against Kevin Malone, not getting enough in the pre season trades, though he had a gun to his head, was certainly strike two and the fact that Malone simply talked too much and told the truth was strike three.
On October 2, Malone was fired, Bill Stoneman was to take over on an interim basis before hiring Jim Beattie as their new general manager later that month.
While Malone enjoyed the 1994 season as GM on the back of the work done by Dombrowski
and Duquette, he would have to watch from a distance the team that he had a major hand in
building actually vie for a playoff spot. There was no indication that the 1996 season would carry this team into the final days with a chance for a post season appearance, but that’s what transpired. Not only was it an exciting year on the field but for the number two play by play guy as well. It looked as though there might be a chance to join Dave Van Horne the following season as a full time Expos broadcaster. FOX-TV had acquired rights to baseball and started searching for new analysts for their regional coverage.They found a good one in Dave’s partner Ken Singleton.The Expos, however, were not enamored with Singy’s new schedule that had him away some Friday nights to prepare for his Saturday game and then hopefully he would fly back in time for the Expos game on Sunday. Singleton would be handed an ultimatum and in the end he would opt out of Montreal. I Think it’s safe to say he made the right move, eventually flourishing with the Yankees in New York.
The 1996 Expos not only got off to an amazing start but from an offensive standpoint it was the best in team history, setting some league records in the process. First however was the aborted Opening Day at Riverfront Stadium. Eight pitches into the affair, the home plate umpire pointed toward second base and fell to the ground. I pride myself on preparedness and yet on this day of all days I had been remiss in jotting down the names of the umpires. I looked over at my partner, the former Expos player and Harvard grad, Mike Stenhouse, with terror in my eyes. I tried to carry the moment while Stenny dashed off to the press box. When he returned we both knew that something very bad was transpiring before our eyes. Now we knew who it was happening to.
Umpire John McSherry suffered a heart attack and died on the field.
The traditional opener was postponed, prompting Reds owner Marge Schott to do what she did
best, cover herself in sewage. “How could this happen to me?” she opined. You don’t need to know much more on the subject of why the old boys network of major league owners wanted her out of their league.
Another young team was being built and it would be led on the mound by Pedro Martinez.
The slender right-hander had power that belied his slight build, pitching wisdom beyond his
years, a repertoire to match anyone in baseball and the moxie to make you not want to dig in too deep. He would turn the corner and become simply the best. Good news in the short run but for Expos fans who now viewed ownership with suspicion after the last fire sale, it was scary indeed. The city of Montreal loved Pedro and he loved them but he’s a smart guy and could read the writing on the wall, even in an eye opening season with another group of young talented teammates.
I settled into my seat at the Chinese restaurant around the corner from the Crown Plaza hotel in Cincinnati, ordered my meal and opened the sports page. In walked the skinny right-hander. Pedro sat down and we talked. While his brother Ramon had been a star with the Dodgers but never really learned to speak English very well, Pedro was different. He arrived in the United States at a much younger age and worked at it, and like every thing else he worked on, he became proficient. Pedro admitted his love for the city he was toiling in but assured his lunch mate that when his contract was up he would flee. First off he didn’t think they would ever be able to afford him when the time came and if they could, he couldn’t bear to watch as they dismantled team after team following the fire sale that had set the tone the previous spring.
The Expos were to open another season in Cincinnati and were once again gathered in the same establishment at the same hotel in which Delino Desheilds discovered his chicken pox would deny him a chance to open at second base a couple seasons before. Once again the group was focused on March Madness on televsion. It looked like the team’s tournament pool had come down to young lefty Kirk Rueter and veteran righty Wally Whitehurst. Whitehurst appearing as though he may have had one too many was busy trying to be funny. His latest verbal attack settled in on Rueter who was now trailing him by plenty in the final game
of the NCAA basketball tournament. Whitehurst with a constant flash of thumb and forefinger outstretched to signify the letter L on his forehead. He was calling Rueter a loser.
His next attack was a career comparison on how Rueter had been more about luck than talent.
“How come we both have career earned run averages of four and yet my record is 19-36 and
yours is what?” asked Whitehurst.
“20-6” shot back Rueter.
“Why is that?” yelled Whitehurst.
Rueter just flashed an L on his forehead and disappeared back to his hotel room.
Later that night Whitehurst would win the team’s basketball pool. The next day he was the team’s final cut as they reached the 25 man opening day limit. The 32 year old would pitch only a handful of games that season with the Mets and never pitch in the majors again.
All Rueter would continue to do was win although his time as a member of the Expos
strangely was running short.
That ’96 Expos started quietly at 8-7 but then ran off eight wins in a row, moving to 16-7 to
announce their arrival in late April. Henry Rodriguez had begun his career year and Oh Henry! chocolate bars started to rain down at Olympic Stadium.
The Expos had rewritten the team’s first month record book with 39 home runs, including six
grand slams to set a National League record. They finished the month leading the league in every offensive category en route to a team record for wins in April with 17. The next day Pedro once again showed the form that would win him a few Cy Young awards. A two-hit shutout ran his career record to 8-0 against the Mets. Henry kept on bashing homers, setting a record by becoming the first National leaguer to hit 20 before June 1.
Expos fans were being warned about tossing those Oh Henry! bars onto the field after Rodriguez homers. On May 12, manager Felipe Alou was ejected by umpire Harry Wendelstedt.
Felipe’s transgression ? Being manager of the team that lcouldn’t stop fans from littering the field with candy bars. Happy 61st birthday Felipe.
Once again injuries would help keep this team from a post season berth. Two significant injuries to be exact. Rondell White was lost for three months in late April when he bruised his spleen and kidney after crashing into the outfield wall in Denver. On July 3, David Segui broke a bone in his thumb reaching for a pickoff throw. Still this team not only hung around but were leading the wild card on July 30. While Pedro Martinez was showing he would be a huge star, it was left hander Jeff Fassero that was carrying the team on the mound. He was named National League pitcher of the month for June and July. With an opportunity at hand and especially after the debacle of the fire sale after the 1995 season, Expos management had a shot at redemption. What would they do to augment a hard working group that desperately needed help to push them over the top ? They would acquire Mark Leiter from San Francisco for Rueter and reliever Tim Scott.
Leiter was 4-11 at the time with a 5.19 E.R.A.
That’s it. That was the extent of what management provided and the clubhouse grumbling reached a fever pitch. The lead was one and a half games the next day. They won five of six and led the Padres in the wild card battle by three games. But ultimately it was the late Ken Caminiti who would will and fuel San Diego into the playoffs. Another heartbreak ended 10 minutes before the Expos’ 161st game. Less than 24 hours before the end of the regular season, the Expos were eliminated and the post season dream slowly slipped away.
To be continued in September
