There were so many memorable moments from the 1993 Expos season but it’s amazing how many of them came in the second half. The talent level suggested that this team could be special, especially after they had come together under Felipe Alou the previous season and caught fire to give the Phillies a run for their money.
It didn’t start out well as the team landed in Cincinnati and bused to the hotel to start the year.
A large contingent of players heading downstairs for pinball, a cold one and sports on the tube as they tried to relax the night before the season opener. Wandering into the hotel bar was shivering second basemen Delino Deshields who was clearly ill. I’m not a doctor but I do play one in Cincinnati hotel bars.The sickest I’ve been to this point was when I was seventeen and spent two weeks on my back with the chickenpox. Delino would eventually head back upstairs, once there, others with a better working knowledge of medicine than myself would agree with my diagnosis, ‘Bop” had chickenpox and was quarantined. As luck would have it, it afforded Mike Lansing a chance to play. Lansing was an Alou call and, as usual, he was right. Lansing was a scrappy infielder that caught the manager’s eye on an independent team in the Florida State League. He’d open up for Deshields and would open many more. The chance to play early on would later see him grab a lot of time away from Sean Berry at third base after Deshields returned to his position at second base.
The best part of this group was that they got along. It was not a shock to see a large contingent heading out together after a ballgame. A wild flight punctuated by raucous laughter and a popcorn fight on one that almost filled the cabin in back of first class. Alerted that manager Alou was being informed of the mess, one Delino Deshields hustled his way quickly up front to the press rows and pushed his face into a magazine, looking like a choirboy. Manager Alou crunched by to the back to scold the bunch about something the choirboy had a huge hand in kicking up. On the field however, the group sadly creaked along as the Phillies seemingly blew away everybody after busting out of the gate. While the Expos fought to stay above the break even point, the Phils jumped out to 23-7 by May 10th.
Felipe Alou’s best decision came on July 10, when he handed left-handed reliever Jeff Fassero
the ball as a starter after one hundred and sixty-one consecutive relief appearances. Three days earlier, another left-hander, Kirk Rueter, arrived from the minors and tossed eight and
a third innings of scoreless ball. He would not lose a game the rest of the season. And yet, on August 20, the Expos appeared to be dead in the water.
Three weeks earlier, at the trade deadline, it appeared as though the Expos had dealt starter
Dennis Martinez to the Braves. I was on the radio doing the game and the television broadcast flashed to the Expos dugout. There was Dennis walking past teammates, shaking hands.
There were reports that the team had acquired first baseman Brian Hunter but we had no
official announcement from the Expos. In the back of my broadcast booth the voices got louder until two men were screaming at each other. While I was trying to describe what was going on on the field, I had only one side of my headphones on, trying to hear what the fuss was all about. Our radio competition, CJAD (the previous radio rights holders) had already gone with the story. Yet as the flagship station that was currently announcing the game we had not been informed. Mitch Melnick, now a sports talk show and drive home host with us at CIQC was embroiled with Expos Vice president of marketing and communications Richard Morency. Many a bad word was bellowed and it was surprising that none of it managed to get on the air. In the end Dennis Martinez had indeed been traded to the Braves but nixed the deal. As a 10 year player having played at least five years with his current team that was his right. Dennis’s decision would turn out to be one of the best moves anyone associated with the Expos would pull off all year.
At that moment the Expos were 14 and a half games behind the Phillies, with less than a month and a half left in the season. My hopes for a late season race and extra broadcasts was also a dead issue. Then they forgot how to lose.Three wins, a loss. Nine more wins, a loss and then seven more wins. They had gained eight games in the standings in just seventeen days.
Nineteen wins and just two losses following a perfect home stand against Cincinnati and Colorado. They needed not to look past a series in St Louis with the shockingly now-in-their- crosshairs Phillies coming to Montreal for a weekend series. While the Expos had been nearly unbeatable, The Phils had become ordinary, playing three games under .500 over the last month. That’s when tragedy struck, as it seemingly always did late in the season.
In 1979 they lost future Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter to a thumb injury for the last week of September. Veteran Duffy Dyer was a capable back up but clearly no Carter in the line up hurt them badly. In 1980 they lost eventual stolen base champion Ron Leflore (a franchise record 97 steals) to a hand injury in September. The next year it was fellow future Hall of Famer and rookie of the year candidate Tim Raines. (They also lost speedy Rodney Scott until the NLCS against the Dodgers.) My broadcasting partner Bobby Winkles handled play by play in the third, fourth and seventh innings. On this night in St. Louis, in the seventh, I left him for a moment and headed to the main press box area to talk with Montreal Gazette beat writer Jeff Blair.
The stadium would go silent as I raced back to help Mr. Winkles explain the horrific accident we had just witnessed. Moises Alou banged out another hit and made a big turn around first when his foot gave out, twisting his ankle into a grotesque mess of broken bones and torn tendons, the foot now attached merely by skin. As he writhed in pain between first and second, the play was still alive. Cardinals’ second basemen Geronimo Pena put his glove up in front of his face and turned away leaving it to first basemen Gregg Jefferies to run down the ball and grimly come over to put a tag on Alou so the process of dealing with this mess could take place. Somehow the Expos managed to win again but what should have been a celebratory flight home to continue the stampede on the falling Phillies had turned into a wake.
The previous home stand in which the Expos finished up with a prefect six wins and no losses had drawn an average of 23,000 fans but that really didn’t tell the story since it
started with over 40,000 to see local hero Denis Boucher make his first ever hometown start.
Would knocking on the Phillies door finally wake these people up? This was a franchise that had drawn two million fans a few times but even that great run earlier really hadn’t sparked them and it wasn’t expected to suddenly start now. But everyone was wrong. Baseball was alive in Montreal with the Expos having knocked nine and a half games off the Phils lead, whittling it down to five in less than a month. The game on Friday September 17 drew 45,757; On Saturday it was 50,438 and on Sunday 40,047 came out to watch. The somber mood of the night before became a weekend love-fest, touched off by a player who had never had a major league hit before.
Outfielder Curtis Pride arrived as the first hearing impaired player in the major leagues since
Dick Sipek in 1945. The Phillies’ seven run sixth inning had quieted the crowd, erasing a three run lead. But Pride’s pinch-hit two run double in the next inning pulled the Expos even again.
The hearing challenged Pride would have to know how everyone felt, a simple standing ovation
would not suffice. In a moment that produced hair standing on arms and necks plus goose bumps and tears in eyes, Olympic Stadium literally shook until the startled Pride could FEEL the magic and was forced to doff his cap, almost blowing the lid right off the place. That would happen when they won the game on the last swing of the night to pull to within just four games of first place.
Saturday produced another special moment and another thunderous ovation as young Cliff Floyd made his major league debut. Had he arrived just a little earlier, the season might have been different. The team went to spring training searching for a first baseman.
They looked at and cut veterans Franklin Stubbs and Lee Stevens. So they crossed their fingers and prayed that any one of 11 players that got a shot to play at first base that season would take the bull by the horns. It was a group that included such luminaries as Oreste Marrero, Frank Bollick, Derrick White, Archie Cianfrocco and even outfielder Lou Frazier. Years later, when he did play for the Expos, I would mention to Lee Stevens that he could have put them over the top that year. Stevens disagreed however saying he still wasn’t ready to hit in the majors, needing a trip to Japan to teach him more.
The Mitch Williams meltdown that baseball would notice in the 1993 post season was already in the burn out stage. It was no surprise to that big weekend crowd when he gave it up against Toronto in the World Series. After Philly won on Saturday, Williams coughed it up again late on Sunday. One more time on the last swing of a bat, this time a Wil Cordero two run double down the line in left field with two outs. From a 3-2 Phils lead to a 4-3 Expos win. From six games behind, to just four back with 13 games still to play. From a team standpoint the Cordero hit produced the most exciting ending to a ballgame I had broadcast. It was right up there with the Martinez perfect game. Listening to that game ending highlight still brings me chills.
The Expos would win eight of their final 13 games including, six of the last seven. But it wasn’t enough. Over the final 67 games the Expos went 45-22 to finish with 94 wins, one shy of the team record set in 1979. If you needed to lose hard to learn how to win, it was a sad case of mission accomplished. But for once, a season that came so close wasn’t all about heartbreak.
It was about what was right around the corner. This collection would start the next season on a mission, with the kind of arrogance, that carries a winner every night, the feeling that nobody could ever beat them and as it turned out, few would.
The Expos quietly had stolen lefthander Butch Henry in a minor league deal the previous July.
Few in baseball could have guessed how big that would be. On November 19 they picked up the last piece of the puzzle. But It didn’t go over that well in Montreal. Beloved second baseman Delino Deshields was shipped to the Dodgers for the tiny Pedro Martinez. The right-hander was deemed to be too frail by many, including Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, that
he was not projected to have the stamina to be a starter in the major leagues. He was coming off a sensational season as a setup arm for L.A. but the Expos had not traded their star second basemen for a reliever. The plan for Martinez was for him to start. Considering the compensation, he had better be special.
I liked the deal. It allowed Mike Lansing to step in at second, thus letting Sean Berry to play everyday at third base. I was panned along with the deal. The popular theory was that as an Expos broadcaster It was in my best interests to call the deal a winner. Safe to say this one would bring on a host of mea culpas.
Left-handed hitter John Vander Wal was traded to Colorado just before the start of the ’94 season. He was part of a group that hung together that included Mike Lansing and Larry Walker. Interestingly all three would end up as teammates in Denver. Despite being as young as he was, Vander Wal would become a premier pinch hitter, setting records in the process.
I missed Vandy, who was a guy that might even send over a drink or two to a broadcaster and/or journalist should he be out past curfew at a drinking establishment in New York.
The 1994 Expos could very well be the franchise’s best ever team, only there was one bothersome aspect to the coming season, and it frightened me. I warned fans during the winter several times that the upcoming labour war would be like none they had seen. The owners hadn’t won a battle with the players in, well, almost forever. They were tired of losing and determined to make that change. To my way of thinking that meant to do whatever way they could. All the same, waiting for any new season to begin was a slow torture.
Opening day was like my own Christmas morning and I could hardly wait to unwrap 1994. For me, the winter was just a time to endure, counting time. My work schedule was simple but not very exciting. Early morning sportscasts and done by 8:30. Baseball season, on the other hand, left almost no free time at all, especially when the Expos were at home, and it was glorious, because an off day was just more time to endure. Up at 4:45 AM, sportscasts until 8:30. Home for a nap. Shower, dress, three hours with my daughter Rachel, who I no longer lived with, and then it was off to the ballpark. After the game it was back home to write sportscasts for the next morning, hopefully asleep by 1 AM and awake again less than four hours later.
For the Expos in 1994, everything was in place, there wasn’t much this team lacked. Still, they spun their wheels out of the gate, winning just four of their first 13 games. They had just been swept in Colorado and dropped the first of a series in San Francisco. They had won one of seven but what a night that had been. It always amazes me how few games I actually broadcast out of the 162 and how many of them were the ones I’ll always remember. That was the case on April 13. Young Pedro Martinez was unhittable and almost untouchable as he whisked into the eighth inning with a perfect game against Cincinnati. The perfecto came to a close when the equally young Reggie Sanders was hit by a pitch. The Reds’ outfielder took exception and charged the mound. What could he have been thinking – that Pedro was trying to hit him with a perfect game on the line ?
It would start a pattern of constant complaint of Pedro as a head hunter. Weeks later, Derek Bell of the Padres took exception to a close pitch. After he had struck out, Bell headed toward the dugout, turned quickly and went full bore at Pedro. Though Bell had his path blocked, it was diminutive Bip Roberts that banged into Martinez with a full body blow. But Pedro shook it off as he always would.
So Martinez wasn’t perfect the night of April 13. And Brian Dorsett ended the no hit bid to lead off the 9th inning. Pedro didn’t pitch a shutout and didn’t even win the game. Thomas Howard homered off John Wetteland to tie it, but Pedro was serving notice that after a sterling first year as a starter he was not only going to be an effective major league pitcher, he was going to be something special. And after that 4-9 start so were his teammates. They won five in a row, lost one, and followed with six more wins. That second streak made it 11 of 12, well on their way, never to look back. Seemingly there was no team that could stop them. And no team did, but sadly they would be stopped and there was nothing they could do about it.
The return of outfielder Moises Alou was miraculous. He was the Expos player of the month in April after an injury that could have ended his career. Certainly one that should have forced him to miss a good portion on 1994. But he was a machine and would win player of the month honours again in June.
By the end of June it was clear that this was going to be a two team race. The Atlanta Braves were once again in a spot they would hold every year for more than a decade. It was time for the Expos and their fans to put up or shut up. It was a classic showdown. Monday and Tuesday nights and Wednesday afternoon. Braves leading by two and a half games. The home stand had started with three games against the Florida Marlins with attendance averaging a little over 25,000. That was better than the early portion of 1994 but hardly what this team deserved. The Marlins series was a weekend set and traditionally it dropped off during the week. The Braves were coming to town and wouldn’t that “super station” television crew have a field day. Especially when it appeared that just a few would show up for the Wednesday afternoon game and advance ticket sales showed it was a distinct possibility.
But Montrealers just love to be where’s it’s happening and where it was all happening at the moment was Olympic Stadium. It was clear early in the day that this was going to be something special. Players from both teams had to push their way past lines at ticket windows to get into the stadium in the early afternoon. Fans were still filing in as Greg Maddux and Ken Hill battled through the middle innings tied 1-1.
The Expos plan with 22 year old Cliff Floyd was to bring him along slowly. Hit him down in the lineup and have hitting coach Tommy Harper work with him to have him hit down on the ball.
Get your base hits for now, was what Harper preached, and eventually the home runs would come. Well, Floyd’s third home run of the season left the park on a rocket to right field as 45,291 fans lost their minds. The three run shot propelled the Expos to 7-2 victory and the gap in the standings was cut to a game and a half.
The next next, 40,623 more came through the turnstiles. The Braves lit up Kirk Rueter early. But the fans were rewarded for never giving up and hanging around as the offense rallied after nemesis Tom Glavine departed. The Expos scored three runs in the 8th inning to tie the game. The Braves went back up with a run in the ninth, but the Expos scored two more and won it, leaving Atlanta with not only just a half game lead up but stuck on the field
to watch the wild celebration with time to contemplate that they were now overmatched, even as they still owned the top spot in the NL east. Maddux and Glavine were supposed to be money in the bank but they had been beaten. Now came the afternoon affair, the one that would embarrass us all, after two huge, crazy crowds, surely people were back at work.
The TBS broadcast would show Montreal up as the non-baseball city the folks outside of
the city believed it was becoming. On this point many of the baseball experts in Montreal were of the same mind. But by early Wednesday afternoon the fans were arriving in waves, as if they had never left the night before, and apparently had invited friends. It was as electric as Olympic Stadium had ever been and would ever be. The fact John Smoltz bested Butch Henry did nothing to dampen the spirit of the 45,960 that showed up for this one. A normally clear path to Dorval airport seemed to joyously take forever as all roads out of the “Big O” were jammed with cars that weren’t supposed to be there.
The rest of the country had noticed too.
A radio network that once boasted more than 40 stations had dwindled to less than 10. Suddenly, there was interest again and the phones were ringing. Better still for me, the team had found a way to get around the maximum allotment of over-the-counter games into the country’s richest and most populous region. The Expos’ communications department was busy setting up pay-per-view for the month of September. Dave Van Horne and Ken Singleton would move over to television almost full time, and for the first time I would have a chance to feel what it was like to be the voice of a major league baseball team. Not just any baseball team but with maybe a chance to scream: “The Expos win the pennant!!! The Expos win the pennant!!! The Expos win the pennant!!!”
It was hard not to let the mind go there but it was just as hard to completely let yourself go with a potential players strike in the near future. Montreal couldn’t bare to go there.
They were in a state of full denial, because there was no way baseball would cancel the really big games in October and everyday it looked more and more that their team would be there.
The Expos finished off their west coast trip with five straight wins and a one game lead on the Braves. The next home stand brought back the old feelings of inevitable letdown for Expos fans. They were swept by the Giants and attendance dropped from an average of 32,000 for San Francisco to under 20,000 for game one of the Padres series on Monday night. It was that night that jump started the best run in franchise history, and as good a lengthy run as any team has ever had. They won 20 of the next 22 games and pulled away from the Braves. They would not draw under 20,000 again. In fact, after the San Diego series, they would not draw under 30,000 again. After the latest six game streak put them seven games up in the National League East, The 1994 Expos couldn’t have known they would be playing their final game of the season in Pittsburgh on August 11. Realizing however that their momentum was about to be crushed by at least a temporary shutdown, for the first time in a long time there was no fire. They were shutout by the Pirates that night.
The flight back to Montreal was not out of the ordinary. There was none of the somberness that would have accompanied knowing the truth of what was to come. Not only would the team with baseball’s best record and best winning percentage not play again that season, they would never play together again, period. Not only did Montreal baseball’s fans get cheated out of the one year that could have set up the franchise for years to come, they’d be cheated of a second or third chance with this young group of dominant and up-and-coming stars. Perhaps the best team of the decade would never get to find out just how good they were.
Without taking a chance on spending a little money and recouping by believing in what they had while allowing the momentum of what was building once more in Montreal, the ownership group led by Claude Brochu – the one that grabbed dollars hand over fist from major
league baseball – simply decided their own money was too much to risk. With a minimum payroll and baseball’s handouts, they could still turn a profit without worrying whether their fans would return after baseball had turned it’s collective back on them. They had shut it all down in the one year the franchise could least afford it. Only five members of the ’94 Expos earned more than a million dollars. All four earning more than $1.5 million had played their final games in an Expos uniform.
To be continued
