Just another day dealing with the pandemic. The Ontario government and our fearless leader Doug Ford won’t let us play outdoors.
I rode my bike. Went for a walk. I took a few swings in the backyard, 7 iron, hybrid, 3 wood and driver. Trying to get used to a whole new swing without being able to actually hit a golf ball.
Back inside, I lit up a bowl and settled in for a whole bunch more baseball watching.
Since I am inexplicably in 11 National League-only baseball pools, I watch mostly NL games.
Started the day at Wrigley. Tuned in to watch the great Clayton Kershaw who would suffer through the shortest regular season start of his career.
My son Myles is finishing off high school remotely and catches moments here and there while working on his latest subject with the finish line for him so tantalizingly close. His attention diverted after an interesting scoring play so we start talking about baseball scoring.
At 18 he has never scored a baseball game. At 18 it was almost all I did. So I reach into a bin of old shit and pull out an old scorebook. Open it at this page and down a rabbit hole that took me to an unexpected stop:
Inside the front cover of the musty smelling scorebook are the team stats page for the 1996 season. It shows Vladimir Guerrero with 4 hits including a homer but on this night he had none. It was his first ever game in major league baseball and he got his first big league hit off Avery.
The Expos won the opener of a one time only Thursday to Monday 5 game series in Atlanta.
They rallied with 4 runs in the 9th, mostly against Braves’ close Mark Wohlers after tying the game 1-1 in the 8th on a Lenny Webster squeeze. David Segui’s 2-run single put the Expos up 3-1 and Moises Alou put the game away with a 2-run shot off Brad Clontz.
No Larry Walker, no Marquis Grissom, no Kenny Hill and no John Wetteland.
The Expos tie for the Wild Card on this Thursday night in Atlanta September 19, 1996:
The next night the Expos starting pitcher was Jose Paniagua. Followed by Omar Daal, Jeff Fassero and Mark Leiter.
Here’s who beat the Expos the next 4 days:
Tom Glavine
Denny Neagle
John Smoltz
Greg Maddux
National League standings on September 1:
Here’s what Jim Beattie added at the trade deadline:
MARK LEITER
The Expos post season dream for 1996 ended on the second to last day of the season. They finished 88-74.
This was the end of what should have been baseball’s team of the 90s.
1997 78-84
1998 65-97
1999 68-94
2000 67-95
2001 68-94
Once again shame on everyone that had a hand in killing this franchise and this group that deserved so much more.
C Darrin Fletcher
1B David Segui
2B Mike Lansing
SS Mark Grudzielanek
3B Shane Andrews
LF Henry Rodriguez
CF Rondell White
RF Moises Alou
F.P. Santangelo – Cliff Floyd – Lenny Webster -Sherman Obando – Dave Silvestri – Andy Stankiewicz-Tim Spehr – Vladimir Guerrero – Yamil Benitez – Raul Chavez – Rick Schu – Rob Lukachyk – Tony Barron
Jeff Fassero – Pedro Martinez – Rheal Cormier – Ugueth Urbina – Mark Leiter
Kirk Rueter – Jose Paniagua – Omar Daal – Barry Manuel – Mel Rojas – Dave Veres
Mike Dyer – Tavo Alvarez – Tim Scott – Jeff Juden – Dave Leiper – Derek Aucoin – Alex Pacheco
At least I got to see my one and only live NFL game that Sunday night when the Falcons played in a half empty Georgia Dome as the Falcons QB Jeff George and coach June Jones went at it on the sideline.
Kind of like Mike Lansing vs Jim Beattie down the stretch in ’96. Lansing was on the Melnick Show on CIQC Radio before a late September game in Philadelphia. He said if the front office had worked as hard as the players, manager and coaches did that season, they’d probably have the playoff spot locked up. Beattie heard about it and was livid.
Twenty five years later and the truth still hurts.
