ButNothingButABlinkOfThePastime'sEyeVille
A wee Tweet from Tom Hawthorne reminded me that it was 30 years ago today that faux Expos manager Jim Fanning brought Steve Rogers in to pitch to the Dodgers' Rick Monday in the ninth inning of the deciding game of the National League Championship Series.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Which, in the end of course, turned out to be a very bad history for the Montreal Expos indeed.
But here's the thing....
If management hadn't fired the real manager of the Expos, Dick Williams, earlier that year during the pennant drive I'm not so sure starter Rodgers would have been brought in late in the game in a pressure situation instead of, say, Jeff Reardon, because Williams apparently knew what Mr. Rodgers wasn't made out of.
And if that had not happened baseball in Montreal might have turned out very differently.
Not to mention the fact that The Vlad might be still playing in the beautiful province, maybe even in a new downtown ballpark, so that he can go for his 500th next year where he belongs instead of shucking, jiving and playing out the string as a free agent vagabond.
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Anyway.
I remember Monday's home run trot on Rodgers back on Oct 19, 1981 like it was yesterday.
But as for what else I did on my 22nd birthday?
Heckfire.
I can't remember a darned thing about it.
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25 comments:
Thanks for reminding a lot of people about something they were doing pretty good forgetting. Have a good one.
This will make you smile ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRbwUnXDT5U
Beer--
Sometimes it's almost as if the Expos never existed.
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Felix!
Thanks for the Spaceman....
Stop buggin' my wife!
(and get some posts up, would'ya)
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Montreal Expos had the best logo in all of sport ... not many people i have encountered are aware of the encrypted francais in that logo.
My most memorable Jarry Park night was a twilight doubleheader which featured a fashion parade, in convertibles, of players' wives between games.
The Expos lost the first game. It was not a good idea to offer a fashion show to bleachers full of disgruntled fans with food to throw.
Felix--
Don't leave us hanging like that....
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Paul--
Never got to Jarry, but sure do remember the early games on TV...Funny how, back in those days, everybody wanted a cookie cutter like Riverfront or Three Rivers, while now (and rightfully so) they would kill for a JP.
As to the particular the day in question....
I sure hope nobody hit Madame Grande Orange with a hotdog bun slathered in mustard and ketchup...
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another expo oddity ... le grand orange and the hawk each have had their #10 retired by the expos ... the only other team i know have that has done that is the yankees #8 with dickey and yogi
dickey and yogi I can understand cause, as catchers at least, they weren't crazy different.
But le grand and le foucon were, essentially, polar opposites as players....
(although, I'm fairly certain that you have some arcane pseudo-sabermetric, colchicine-laced statistic that indicates they were quite similar on Tuesday day games when the wind blew Left to Right at Wrigley and all the hogs were in the tunnels up and down Waveland - or some such thing).
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nope. not me. on the contrary, i despise that kind of insignificant number spewing ...
you must have me confused with some other hack like, oh say ... tim McC or maybe buck ... man, those guys know how to ruin a game
as for leaving you hanging, i'm sure you can find the e, the d, the m and the b in the expo logo ... E D M B -- expos, de montreal baseball
i'm surprised you havent noticed that
on another note, wasnt right field in jarry park known as Jonesville, for right fielder mack jones?
i could be wrong ...
The Tyee has been baiting their readers for suggestion about just what the Occupy lads, lassies and inbetweenies ought to be demanding.
I don't know about everyone else but I demand the return of the Montreal Expos, or else. Seems to me it cannot be a mere coincidence that the world has gone to shit since they became the most unmagical franchise in baseball.
....And Mack Jones should be CEO with the Spaceman as GM.
That would re-balance the Karma considerably.
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also, ron hunt should be enshrined and given his due respect ... i mean come on jeez, the guys holds the major league record for being hit by a pitch 243 times in his career, and season record of 50 times in 1971 (including 3 in one game once) ... my favourite Ron Hunt quote? "Some people donate their body to science, i donated my body to baseball".
But what, exactly, should Mr. Hunt be enshrined in....Maybe whatever the heckfire the anti-matter version of a Louisville (i.e. not a real) Slugger is?
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(and no, I refuse, absolutely refuse I tell you, to go home and open my papyrus paper bible/encyclopedia to see what Hunt's career OBPS was so that I can then work backwards to figure out what it would have been without all those HBP's...not gonna do it...no way...I would never, ever.....ahhh geez, here I go...Ha!....How many guys have career OBP numbers that are better than their SLG aggregate?....That's the ticket...Anti-matter...Heckfire, even JSchaefer never worked in a bizarro world like that)
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Never mind all that, what about Nolan Ryan? He's looking more and more like Jabba the Hutt all the time ... perhaps its time to render him an intracellular, matrix-loosening colchisine treatment.
It most certainly would appear that Mr. Ryan may have been taking more than Advil back in his late-innings-on-the-mound given the way his connective tissues seem to have let go since...
Remind you of the tone and texture of any other late-in-the-game heater thrower, perhaps?
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Goose?
I don't think Goose juiced.
At least not much, because he actually shrank as he aged.
Sorry - I meant late in the game as in end of career.
Link was to EK's daughter's former favourite RSox.
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yes, you're absolutely correct
i dont think the Goose was using 'Rocket boosters' ...
*wink wink nudge nudge*
thanks Ross,
I too was a rabid Expos fan and was totally convinced that the guys in the mysterious ball caps (what did that logo represent?)would be the first series winners based outside the lower 48. The eventual conquerors, the Jays were a complete joke back in that day. Tim Raines and the guy they got out of jail in Michigan were two of my favs, cuz I've always enjoyed that running, stealing bases style of baseball - maybe because I am a little guy that always had more speed than power! And who can forget the Spaceman?
Your are most welcome koot--
You thinking of Ron LaFlore?
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Apparently Ron LaFlore stole a lot more than bases in his youth ...
Incidentally Koot, had a good laugh over your AGT blog article Rubbish without a Pause
hahahahaha
Yep Ross, Ron LaFlore, that's the guy. The Expo organization actually went to the admin at the pen in Jackson, I think it was, and promised to be his guardian kinda and get him out of jail and on base. Tim Raines was like a non-criminal version of Ron. Maybe Tim Raines didn't have to grow up in Detroit, or at least he did manage to beat the odds and grow up black in America without acquiring a criminal record. That in itself is almost a great an accomplishment as his successes on the diamond.
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