Expos’ fanbase remains loyal 20 years after team’s demise
April 8, 1969, was a day to remember. As writer Mordecai Richler put it in his report from New York, where the new Montreal Expos played their first-ever game:
“The Expos trotted out onto the field for their first major-league game, out of town. They opened at Shea Stadium in New York … and before 45,000 outraged fans defeated the Mets with rare panache. The ubiquitous Mayor Drapeau threw out the opening ball, and amiable Charles Bronfman sat with his heart thumping as his team, well ahead going into the 9th, wobbled, finally squeaking by, 11-10. Rusty Staub, as advertised, hit a homer”.
New York Post sportswriter Larry Merchant added, sardonically:
“Shed a tear for the Royal Canadian Mounties. Wear a black patch for the separatists of Quebec. A moment of silence, please, for the seal hunters of Hudson Bay. Send a word of condolence to the Indians … Apologize to George Chuvalo. …. The Montreal Expos are their new team and never will they know the joys and agonies of the Amazin’ Mets.”
That is, this new Canadian expansion team would not start life with a prolonged losing streak, as the laughable New York Mets had in 1962.
But that inaugural 1969 season was a laugher, anyway. The new Expos finished in the cellar of the National League East with a 52–110 record, 48 games behind the eventual World Series champion – the New York Mets.
No matter, Montreal loved its Expos. Their tiny, minor-league-caliber facility, Jarry Park, grew to become a mythical place for frenzied fans, even as major-league batters hit balls over the outfield wall and into the area of a nearby swimming pool.
Who cares, it was fun!
Gauzy past recedes
All that seems part of an increasingly gauzy past. Only the Boomers have any memory of Jarry and its excitement in the early 1970s. I never got there; the first Expos game I attended was at Big O in May 1978. Sadly, the last game I attended, 26 years later in June 2004, was also there during their final season in Montreal.
Many narratives compete to be the “real story” as to why the Expos left town.
People point to the team’s huge rise in the early 1980s, when they were actually called the Team of the Eighties. At their peak in 1983, Richler was interviewed by Toronto sportswriter Alan Abel, who asked the crusty observer whether the rising Expos might even surpass the Canadiens in popularity.
You can imagine Richler taking a long draw on his cigarette before he answered, in the affirmative: “If they keep winning”.
Well, they didn’t. A dispiriting period of mediocrity followed and attendance slumped, starting with the trade of their telegenic superstar, catcher Gary Carter.
The Expos eventually went on to other winning streaks, notably a decade later when in the early 1990s they again fielded “the best team in baseball”. That lineup, led by genial manager Felipe Alou, was loaded with young talent. Attendance rose steeply. But the boom was deflated by the players’ strike in mid-season 1994.
The carousel had to start turning all over again.
A recurrent problem was the lack of a committed, deep-pockets – read: billionaire – owner after founder Charles Bronfman stepped aside in 1990. This opened the door for charlatans, skinflints and carpetbaggers to move in. Jeffrey Loria, a moderately wealthy New York art dealer, managed to leverage his way into control of the franchise in 1999.
After the long wait for a solid owner, many fans quickly embraced this new saviour. Umm, me, for example. In late 1999 I submitted a satirical take on Expos skeptics to the National Post, making fun of those fools who had said Expos would “never” find a new owner. The Post splashed my piece atop its Sports page. I heard from readers across the country saying: Way to go! Attaboy!
Within six months, it was clear that Loria was a skunk. He was leveraging other people’s money to take control of a wobbly sports franchise, with every intention of moving elsewhere as soon as he could. After two lost seasons, Loria left for the Florida Marlins and the league took over the Expos.
A death spiral took hold.
Momentum hits a wall
Twenty years later, an amazing number of Expos diehards keep the flame alive. On Facebook today, the key Expos fan group, “I Miss the Montreal Expos”, has over 30,000 members and its discussion threads are informed and boisterous. Expos gear – baseball caps, T-shirts, memorabilia – still sells very well, at one point rivalling top MLB franchises.
Nor has baseball interest waned. From 2014 to 2019, six straight Blue Jays preseason series at Big O drew near-sellout crowds. Weekends with 100,000+ fans, many bedecked in Expos gear and cheering the team’s old stars, prompted MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to dispatch his deputy to assess the city’s potential for an expansion team.
That momentum hit a wall in summer 2022, when a signed agreement between the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays and a sports group headed by Stephen Bronfman to establish a two-city franchise – half the season played in Florida, the other in Montreal — was vetoed by Major League Baseball. The problems were obvious, and the concept looked shaky. –Yer out!
Hope springs eternal, in baseball as elsewhere. But it is paradoxical. The hockey diehards in Winnipeg got their NHL Jets back while Nordiques fans sit with an empty arena. Despite such mixed odds, many hope against hope that there is a baseball team in our future.
Meanwhile, we’re left with just our Expos memories. And frankly, that’s still a great thing.
