The 1981 Baseball season started under a cloud of uncertainty. The players and owners were at a crossroads. I headed home to Montreal in June on vacation to catch the only Expos baseball I expected to watch that season. I also called the Expos media relations office to set up a press pass so that I could do some interviews for our local sports show. I arrived at Olympic stadium quite nervous.
As a sometimes sportscaster and full time country music disc jockey, I hadn’t had much of a
chance to do many interviews and the closest I had come to conducting one with a pro athlete was country music legend Charlie Pride who had been a Negro League sensation before hitting the big time as a singing star in Nashville.
I couldn’t wait to get the interviews started (and couldn’t wait to get them over with).
It seemed so surreal and it was a good thing I started with the glib Spaceman Bill Lee, who loosened me up sufficiently to get through my three other targets: “The Hawk” Andre Dawson, first baseman-outfielder Warren Cromartie and first baseman Willie Montanez.
Willie was fun even if I understood next to nothing he said in his fractured English.
Who knew that more than 20 years later I would have as my broadcast partners for a limited
time both the Spaceman and Cro and that I would interview Andre Dawson hundreds of
more times over the years. Unfortunately Willie Montanez and I never spoke again. Too bad though, perhaps I might have been able to understand what he was saying the next time.
All the same it was nice talking to him and he seemed to be having a good time.
After the interviews I left that side of the world behind. I felt out of place in the major league
press box and descended to the box seats to sit with the country club – my dad and his friends – and started to breathe normally once more.
That night I headed out to the excitement of downtown Montreal and the constant partying
atmosphere of Crescent Street. I stopped at the Longest Yard (actually on Bishop Street) for a drink and lo and behold, there in the flesh was the Spaceman himself. Talk that day centred on baseball’s imminent work stoppage so I asked Mr. Lee what the chances were of the Expos taking the field the next night. He said he didn’t know but if they did play he would emerge from the bullpen and be the starting pitcher because regular starter Charlie Lea was not going to be able to start that night. Bill Lee would not take the mound that night, or anytime soon.
Major League baseball stadiums would be dark for two months.
When baseball finally got it together and resumed that fractured season (after Expos catcher
Gary Carter had captured the All Star game MVP award in Cleveland), baseball went about
trying to fix what they had broken – the rest of the 1981 regular season. With rules that made automatic playoff teams out of the leaders when the game was shut down, it
was announced that winners of the “second half” would be the first half winners’ opponents in an extra round of post season play. The Expos were well on their way to the highest high in the club’s history, and the lowest low, though the next work stoppage thirteen years later would rank close in both areas. The circumstances of those two seasons would put in motion a slow death march that would eventually cost Montreal it’s baseball team.
The Expos captured the National League East’s second half crown and prepared to face the
Philadelphia Phillies in the Division Series. Back in Moncton, the Expos exciting run had caught on. The rest of the country had caught on too as the Expos’ radio network swelled to well over 40 stations across Canada and into the United States. That radio network included our very own Country 104, who were picking up selected games and were now ready to present some baseball playoff action to the Maritime provinces.
Country 104 was the areas top FM station, accessible from miles away thanks to cable television. As the Expos squeezed by the Phillies behind the pitching and as it turned out key hitting from Steve Rogers (series winning single off Steve Carlton), I was forced to make a key call on vacation time. Tickets for Expos playoff games would not be a problem of course, you didn’t think Manush was missing any of this did you ? The real problem was, with only so much vacation time, I would have to choose between the National League Championship Series and baseball’s fall classic. I took my chances and chose the World Series.
When Rick Monday’s 9th inning homer disappeared behind the right centerfield wall at Olympic Stadium they might as well have shut down the franchise. It was ‘killer ending number three’ and this time with just one inning away from the Fall Classic at Yankee Stadium.
The game was carried by our FM station thus pre-empting my afternoon show. There was an eruption in the newsroom next door that sounded celebratory. The AM side of the station was thrilled there would be no Expos World Series on the FM side because a ratings period was coming up. I was heartbroken and had a sportscast to do in a matter of moments, easily the toughest one I would ever have to read. As for that vacation back home in Montreal, why bother ? Blue Monday had forced a black cloud over my hometown, might as well stay in Moncton, New Brunswick.
I did stay but my time there was wearing out as well so I sent my audition tape all
over the land. By working both the afternoon drive, packing in a lot of sportscasts and representing the radio station at remote broadcasts here and there I had managed to double my salary in two years from the 8400 dollars to $17,600 but I was a big city boy and wanted to get closer to home. The last time I was there, my brother Jeff asked me why I hadn’t applied to any Montreal stations. I told him it was like a rookie baseball player who comes in and has all kinds of problems in one or more areas of his game. Reputations die hard in the big leagues and I wanted to make my mistakes where nobody would remember them. I wanted to be polished when I got home and I started feeling like I was getting there slowly but surely. However by the summer of 1982 all I got for my employment inquiries was a chest full of thank you notes and ‘we’ll get back to you’ letters on fancy radio stationary that I still have to this day.
Then I noticed an advertisement in a Canadian radio trade magazine for a new radio station
opening up in Ottawa.They were hiring and with my fingers crossed I applied for a job that I hoped would put me within a two hour drive of home and my beloved Expos. They would once again be in the thick of things in the battle for a playoff spot. I finally received a positive response. CJSB Ottawa wanted to talk face to face about the possibility of hiring me as a full time sportscaster. I was finally going to take that vacation back home and at the same time meet with program director Bob Linney at their Montreal sister station CJAD. I had trouble concentrating that last week before heading out in the used car that I had just bought. On Friday morning I packed up everything for two weeks in Montreal. But just as the shift was ending I received a long distance call. Not from Ottawa but from Regina, Saskatchewan of all places. All the return letters I received from the stations that had rejected me said they would keep my audition tape on file but who knew these guys were actually telling the truth?
I was heading to Montreal at any moment and was going to talk to the people about the Ottawa job. I told The Regina news director that I was just about to head home and I would call him from there the following week. One thing seemed for sure, after three years, my time in the Maritimes was coming to an end.
The meeting in Montreal did not go as I had hoped. Mr. Linney explained to me that they had
decided to go with an Ottawa native for their sports department. He wondered, however, if I would be interested if something came up in Montreal. Oh yeah sure, thanks for coming and hello Regina. I guess they too would keep my tape on file. I called that Regina news director and told him I was ready to make the move to CJME-AM and the brand spanking new Z-99 Rock stations as the new sports director, the title you always receive when you’re the only sportscaster on site. It was explained to me that they were looking for someone who was going to hang around for awhile, since the previous sports director had disappeared in the middle of the night. I explained to them that that was indeed my plan but they would have to understand that Montreal was my home and that if something came up there that I wouldn’t hesitate to depart. We agreed on a starting salary of $19,200 plus one hundred dollars in moving expenses.
I got ready to head back to Moncton. There was a lot to do. I took my brother Franklyn with me to help pack and ship and gave my two weeks notice. Then I brought Franklyn back to Montreal. I enjoyed a week of Expos baseball next to Manush. I caught a five game home stand versus the Cubs and Cardinals and even caught some history.
Did you ever see a painted orange line on the roof way down the leftfield line at Olympic
stadium? During one of those games, the Cubs’ Dave Kingman clubbed one all the way up there. No way the umpires could tell if it was fair or foul. The orange line several hundred feet above the field was there for the next home stand. But I never got to that one. After five days, the Expos headed out of town and so did I.
It was a long drive (more than two thousand miles) but I was looking forward to heading out
west and finally becoming a full time sportscaster. I wasn’t supposed to start until the following Monday but when I arrived on Wednesday they figured on putting me to work right away. First however they made me sign a waiver that allowed them to dissolve our contract any time in the first three weeks if they were unhappy with my work, it was reciprocal of course if I was the one dissatisfied.
Thursday morning started bright and early with the morning sports run on both stations and a
chance to meet some folks that I would be seeing a lot of over the next who knew how long.
There is nothing bigger in Regina, Saskatchewan than the Canadian Football League. People
come from all over the province to make sure the league’s smallest city is well represented
attendance wise. The morning sports run was to be followed by my first Saskatchewan Roughriders press conference. You could see Taylor Field from the radio offices, so I walked over, taped some interviews and walked back. How was I to know that while I was out, my life was changing big time once more?
Manush had called while I was out. Somebody from CJAD radio in Montreal was trying to get a hold of me. I was to call sports director Bob Dunn at once. True to his word Bob Linney recommended me for the something in Montreal that did come up. I found out much later that he had lost my tape and Bob Dunn hired me without ever hearing me. We talked Thursday and Friday and although the best I could do was drag a pay cut to 15,000 dollars out of it since we both knew that there was no way I would be passing up this opportunity. We reached an agreement Saturday morning and indeed I too would be leaving Regina almost in the middle of the night. I had worked two days that I wasn’t even supposed to have worked yet and I was done. The good bye was a short telephone conversation.
“You’re joking right?” said News Director Bob.
“No, I got a call two days ago and I’m heading home today” I said.
“Great, don’t forget to leave that check for moving expenses under my door” Bob blurted.
Click!
I had never even unpacked the car, just turned it around.
The drive home was something special, I kept looking up at myself in the rear view mirror marveling at how long one person could keep a smile on his face. I really was going home and I felt ready.
Next – Chapter 2
Home at last, home at last
