Au Revoir, Nos Amours!

Au Revoir, Nos Amours!
October 11, 2004
The Expos played 36 seasons in Montreal, and perhaps it was a fitting tribute to the way they were treated by Major League Baseball that in their final game, the Mets put up a graphic on the Shea Stadium scoreboard that said "Adieu, Les Expos!" presented by a company called Waste Management. Maybe it's because the Expos were in Canada, but MLB gave up on the team. They never tried to build on a rabid fan base, never pushed for a new ballpark the way that they did in other cities that needed them. And yes, the fan base was rabid. There might not have been many showing up at the end, but they all cared, and every Expos fan I ever met in Montreal had a great knowledge of the team's past, painful and checkered though it may have been. Last year, they were tied for the wild card lead on September 1, but the ownership refused to pay for September call-ups, and thanks to a dastardly schedule that consisted almost entirely of road games, the Expos fell apart in the final month, allowing the Florida Marlins to win the wild card and eventually the World Series. Oh, the cheapskate ownership, in case you didn't know, was the other 29 teams. That included the owner of the Marlins, the nouveau riche prince Jeff Loria, an art dealer who came to Montreal promising to restore the team but instead left it at the first chance he got to take over another team. Why did he get that chance? Because Marlins owner John Henry found a better opportunity for himself owning the Red Sox. I never want to hear owners complain again that there's no business sense in owning a ballclub. If there isn't, why are these guys jumping to get control of different franchises? Loria and Henry can both rot for their devious roles in the destruction of Montreal baseball. So, the lasting image of baseball in Montreal is a 1994 season short-circuited by a strike, a 2003 season short-circuited by idiocy and Tony Batista pointing at the sky. Yes, at the last Expos home game, it was fan appreciation night, and after Batista came out of the game, he was shown on the big screen in center field. He received a standing ovation and came out of the dugout, strangely looking up at the roof of Stade Olympique and pointing with both hands towards it. Batista hit 32 homers this season, the most ever by an Expos third baseman. I guess that record will stand for quite a while, because the Expos are going to take a new name in Washington. What will it be? They don't care. They just don't want to be associated with the Expos, I suppose, and who can blame them? The franchise's existence has been a travesty for the last 10 years, ever since the players from the 1994 team started to leave in droves when the team couldn't or wouldn't pay them what they were worth. So, at the end, there was Batista, cast aside by countless other teams to waste away in baseball Siberia. Only he didn't waste away. Sure, he was on a last-place team, but he led all 30-year-olds in the majors this season in homers and RBI. Then there was ace pitcher Livan Hernandez, the 1997 World Series MVP, leading the majors in complete games. There was Brad Wilkerson, hitting leadoff for some reason and the most unknown 30-homer man around. Chad Bentz, the pitcher with the claw, teamed up with Joey Eischen, the lefty with the funky delivery. The Expos also had guys named Terrmel Sledge and Val Pascucci in the outfield on their final day, not to mention a behemoth of a pitcher named Jon Rauch, a failed closer called Rocky Biddle and a strangely dependable infielder, Jamey Carroll, who wasn't quite good enough to crack even this lineup on a regular basis, even if his average was always around .290 and his picture on the scoreboard could shatter a camera lens. These were the Expos at the end. Jose Vidro had long since been on the disabled list. Nick Johnson, too. Carl Everett was traded. There were others, too, others who will be just as forgotten by me as they were by Major League Baseball, which sold out the fans in Montreal, the players on the team and the integrity of the game itself by conducting a cruel charade. And I'll still only believe that they're not playing in Montreal next year when they actually take the field at RFK Stadium on opening day. Previous Writing: Baseball 2004 Review Return to jessespector.com Archives
(c) Jesse Spector, 2004
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