Annakin Slayd, known best for his songs about the Canadiens (so popular they’ve been parodied) but also a die-hard Expos fan, has produced a music video honouring Montreal’s former baseball team.
The look back comes just as Andre Dawson is set to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame tomorrow as an Expo (even if he preferred a Cubs cap on his head).
And if that isn’t enough, here’s another video (well, it’s more about the song than the video) to remind you of the Team of Heartbreak:
And a preview of what might be the last Expos Hall of Famer someday, Vladimir Guerrero:
Meanwhile, The Gazette’s Andy Riga explores what to do with that giant monstrosity that the Expos used to call home, including what to do with the space around it, what to do about its roof, and what to do about getting events there. There’s also some numbers worth looking at, and his blog has a whole truckload of suggestions from readers about the stadium’s future (some serious, some not so much).
And the Bleacher Report has compiled a list of the top 25 Expos.
the preview for the first video has a picture of a guy holding a sign. that was a kid from plattsburgh, he had a weekend package for the seats for over 8 years. he came to every saturday game. sat at the back of section 107 and changed his sign every inning. great guy, wore wooden shoes.
myself i was down in double letter 107 for the last 4 seasons, i miss my summer family!
in the words of joe jammer:
lets go expos vers la victoire!
Seriously, screw Expos nostalgia. The city did not deserve a Major League Baseball team, it never once made the playoffs across a full 162-game season, Expos fans thought they got a raw deal when Delino DeShields was traded for Pedro Martinez and Expos fans couldn’t even figure out Tim Raines should be in the Hall of Fame, not Andre Dawson and his .323 on-base percentage.
Someone has to say it.
That lack of playoffs is because the strike happened. And no one says the Cubs or Tigers should be axed.
The people who loved the Expos loved them very, very much.
Also Steve fuck you so much now I have to keep the husband from reading your blog until this gets buried or deal with sobbing mess all night. Thanks. :-P
What? The city’s fans couldn’t figure out Raines deserved the HOF over Dawson? Do you even understand how HOF members are decided?
It’s baseball writers from *all over North America* who vote on who gets into the Hall, not Montreal baseball fans.
And as for the playoffs, you understand that getting there is up to the players, right? The fact that the Yankees make the playoffs every season while the Pirates don’t isn’t because of the fans, it’s because of the players on the field. The fact that the Oilers were terrible last year doesn’t mean the fans were too.
You don’t get it at all!
Seriously, how is it Montreal’s fault that the Expos never made the playoffs in a 162 games sched? How is it Montreal’s fault that the franchise’s best season turned out to be the only season in MLB history to be wiped into oblivion?
And at the time, most of MLB thought the Dodgers got the better of the Pedro trade. Nobody seriously thought Pedro J. Martinez was ever going to be a CY Young winner, and that surely includes Dan Duquette…
The loss of the Expos was one of the worst things to ever happen to Montreal. It is almost like we are becoming nothing more than a big Moncton, and we seem to be proud of it. There is no fight left in Montrealers it would seem, unless it relates to the Habs of course.
Funny parody of his Habs videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr9iwTFTsPA
Thanks for giving me an excuse to relive the glory days of Expos baseball!
… and the This Week In Baseball theme was a great touch, evoking memories of when the Expos clinching in 1981 was the final scene over the TWiB closing credits.
Aw comeon, it’s just a bunch of guys in tight suits running around (and scratching their balls*) a ball on a turfed ground like you can see in every city park during the dog days of summer all over the place in Coolopolis (and elsewhere, too).
* I suppose that if they’d were dogs, they’d lick’em…
First off, this is a sad reminded that the Montreal of today isn’t anywhere near the Montreal of 30 years ago. The 70s were a turning point that have slowly dragged us down.
As for the stadium, well, Andy Riga’s numbers are misleading (the number of actual PAYING days for the stadium being in service, rather than the number of setup and tear down days would say more – I think the real number is about 20 – 25 actual business days open. The sport center visits are fairly misleading as well, especially as they don’t need a huge 70,000 seat stadium to work out. They just built a new YMCA in Cartierville for a small percentage of what the new roof would cost, and it can probably handle 800 people a day, so why not address the main issue and just build a gym / pool complex nearby and get rid of the disaster?
As for the plan to turn Pierre Du Coubertan into a commercial street, I think that the professor needs to go look at Pie IX, and Hochelaga and even Ontario streets not far away. These are areas with plenty of commercial space, much of which is occupied by the “A VENDRE / A LOUER” company. You cannot forced business into existance, there has to be a reason, and for the moment, there is no reason.
The stadium was a mistake, a very expensive mistake, and I hate to think that, on average, Montreal home owners are going to have to cough up another $300 or so in the next year to replace the roof once again, prolonging the life of a building that makes no business sense at all.
As a long-time Expos fan, I feel like it’s pretty appropriate, in a lot of ways, that the two guys who played for the club that went into the Hall wearing Expos caps on their plaques had to be *forced* to wear those caps. Spit on, maligned and forgotten, the Expos fan is. So, yeah, it just feels right that Carter and Dawson would go in, against their wishes, in Expos caps.