Expos!

Time to finally turn the page on the last short story, which felt like I was writing that for so long. I really like it. I don't know how a reader would like that last story though. I mean, you'd need to be a fan of 70s TV detective shows to really wig for the nostalgia ... and even then ... without that ... it's so confusing. I re-read it for spelling errors the other day and, yes, it's confusing on purpose ... I did that on purpose. I mean, to me, the fact that a good chunk of the dialogue was going to be Kojak talking to Kolchak... was really the initial reason I thought it would be fun to write... but... it's confusing.

I like it though. I remember when the channel A&E first came out in the 90s, it was supposed to be about Arts and Entertainment.... just like TLC was supposed to be the learning channel when it started... A&E was going to be about operas and plays and smart people stuff... but it only had so many operas and plays to air so a good 60% of its roster of programming back then was 70s Detective shows! I watched them all, I really liked them, I leaned towards Columbo as my favorite... though the theme from Rockford I considered as being the greatest theme of any of them.

I did a bit of research, watching some Cannons and stuff, that was never on re-runs I watched back then... I like William Conrad... he's the narrator on Rocky and Bullwinkle too... so his voice is familiar to me.

Anyways, I have a feeling that story is considered craptastic by the literary world but it was soooo fun for me to write that thing. I loved doing it. I loved every second of writing it.

But, now its time to turn the page on that....


Any new readers to this blog who weren't on board in the past might not know that I am a gigantic Montreal Expos fan. Searching "Montreal Expos" in my blog will likely bring up dozens of articles. I've been on board with the Re-Rise of the Great Expos since... honestly... maybe even before anyone. I've been a die-hard not-switching-to-another-team Expos fan since they left in 2004 still. I never gave up being an Expos fan.

Every spring, I usually start a Baseball Mogul video game campaign, and by campaign I really mean it, I start as the Expos in the game in 1969 and play until 2004. I play with some caveats... any player who enters my roster at any point from 1969 to 2004 MUST HAVE played at least one game in an Expos uniform in real life to be allowed on my roster.... it keeps it historically much-more accurate and keeps the world feeling far-more real for me. Far more realer than if Tony Gwynn was signed as a free agent one year or I drafted Ken Griffey Jr. or Matt Williams one year.... doing stuff like that would take me out of the world I am creating in the game if Griffey was an Expo...it would no longer feel real to me.

I manage everything and tend to win many World Serieses... things often happen like in True History like trading Randy Johnson (Even though I know he will become a Cy Young caliber pitcher) because it makes it feel ever-more realer to me when I do that... but then again... many things don't happen as in History because this campaign really only exists in my computer... so obviously there's no 1994 play stoppage and the Expos get to finish the year and things like that. Since there's no Japan league simulations... I usually tend to keep Warren Cromartie as a life-long Expo since he can't leave for Japan anyhow in this game.

For me, its odd that this simulation, which thanks to my historical-based caveats for who is traded-for or signed onto my team over the course of 1969 to 2004.... can feel very real at times. Very much so.

I've seen Steve Rogers pitch a no-hitter in the World Series, I've seen Tim Raines hit a game winning inside-the-park homerun at Tiger Stadium to win a World Series... I've seen things that have made me lose-my-mind and I know they are not even real.

I have truly created a video game world in this game that is totally self-hypnotically believable to me. I really recommend to any baseball fan who hasn't played Baseball Mogul to try it...I've had it since I ordered the 1999 version more than 20 years ago! I've been playing this game for more than 20 years.

The Expos are very much being talked about in media, mostly Montreal region media, this week. We have gained a lot of ground on one day getting the franchise to return to MLB over the last decade... yes, this Return of the Expos is now over 10 years old. I have articles from 2011 about Cromartie's five-tool plan from his old "Expo Manifesto" on his old website. I've been emotionally-invested in this for over a decade....

...but, I know its a marathon and not a race. Many people in Montreal media have now given up Hope on the Return of the Expos... but not me. Just like Cro was saying on the radio today... people who chose to never stop believing in the Expos were always lauged-at and called crazy for a decade now.

If I haven't given up on the Expos as being my baseball team since 2004....I really doubt I ever will. I've been a supporter of the Return since the day they left... and that will never change.

You can bruise my insides... and I'll still be an Expos fan.
You can laugh at me for my silly dreams.... and I will still be an Expos fan.
You can say I'm out-of-touch with reality... well, yeah, that's true but.... I'm still an Expos fan.
You can tempt me with Blue Jays baseball but.... I'll still be an Expos fan.
You can pour the salt on the earth of Expos History and try to bury it but I'm STILL an Expos fan.

....and I will be an Expos fan... forever.

There's some things in a person's body that are too powerful to ever be removed. I don't know how it happened... but the Red n' White n' the Blue of that Expos team is too powerful a force to ever be removed from the inside of me. It's just how it is.

I remember having tickets to the Yankees spring training game in March 2020 at the Big O, me and my mom were gonna go.... and that's when the lockdowns hit for the pandemic. There was gonna be 40,000+ fans at Olympic Stadium again for baseball. It's strange to think that was two years ago now. It feels like nothing but only just Yesterday....

Just like other moments I witnessed at the Big O.... they feel like they happened only yesterday... they're still inside of me as powerful memories. I think that's why when I play Baseball Mogul sometimes and its game seven of the NLCS and my computerized Expos come from behind to win and advance to the World Series... it feels very real. I feel like I'm back at the Big O and Curtis Pride just doubled to center and almost 50,000 people are standing and cheering... because its a very powerful memory that is still inside of me.

Expos fans, we've seen hard roads before. If you're like me and still an Expos fan after almost 20 years of them being gone.... I don't think this latest development will finally be the moment you switch over the the Jays or another team. If you've made it this far with the Expos fires still burning inside of you... I doubt anything will ever quench them.

We're rounding third now, heading home.....but we're in a run-down with the catcher and the thirdbaseman. Both sides like crab pincers... clamping down on us from both sides... home is right in front of us... but the catcher now has the ball and wants to tag us out.

We've been here before... so close to the end......is this really the Final Chapter on the Return of The Expos? I don't know... all I know is...

....I'm Still an Expos Fan.

Has Expos Fever Reached its Crescendo ... It's Fever Pitch?

Montreal is a festive City, it is a City of Festivals galore.

But last weekend that festive nature was transported to a small hamlet by the name of Cooperstown, New York. A total of four tour buses came to see the great man Tim Raines elected to Baseball's most Respected of Shrines ... The Baseball Hall of Fame.

I've written every winter time over the last six years on Tim Raines' Hall of Fame candidacy and now I can finally retire that tradition now that Tim Raines has a plaque in Cooperstown and will forever be enshrined in the temple of the immortals of Baseball. It's no secret that my childhood idol was the one and only Rock Raines.

There was about 3,000 Montreal Expos fans there in full Expos Regalia (I see this couplet of words used sometimes and I think I was one who invented the cool term of "Expos Regalia"). Judging by the news that surrounded it ... it looks like people noticed.

Many national American and Canadian media outlets did stories on this, for example:


ESPN: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20204017

NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/sports/baseball/tim-raines-expos-hall-of-fame.html

CBS: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/look-raines-dawson-bring-expos-flavor-to-cooperstown-with-help-of-guerrero/

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/tim-raines-hall-of-fame-montreal-expos-nation-fans-1.4225928

NewsDay: https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/tim-raines-baseball-hall-of-fame-induction-brings-out-expos-fans-1.13861669

CTV: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/tim-raines-inducted-into-baseball-hall-of-fame-1.3525197

RDS: http://www.rds.ca/baseball/mlb/mlb-cooperstown-est-assaillie-par-des-partisans-aux-couleurs-des-expos-1.4592524

USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2017/07/29/tim-raines-hall-of-fame-induction/523005001/


.....Lots of news. Lots of news.


As a LIFE LONG Expos fan, this media attention for the city is so good. But as someone who's been following the "Journey" as Cromartie calls it of getting the team back, I knew that the last Expo going into the Hall of Fame with an Expos cap might be the crescendo-ing Fever Pitch of this Movement. Where will the Momentum come from after this?

What's next? Maybe I wrote all those articles about this moment because I knew it might be the last time ever we Expos Fans really have a moment like this. A moment of the entire Baseball World giving us shout outs and stuff.

But something tells me it 'aint over. Something tells me this isn't the last hurrah ... this is not The End to this Journey .... something tells me this is only the Beginning.


The Fever

Lots of Expos things are popping up left and right these days it seems.

1. The Cro is down in Japan and he's decked out in FULL Expos Regalia!
See: https://www.facebook.com/mtlbaseballproject/videos/1443391762410061/ 

2. Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) has billboards ALL OVER TOWN selling Beer with Expos Names on it (Rock's 30, Vlad's 27, and Alou's 18). Check it out:

Merci Montreal | Thank you Budweiser pic.twitter.com/CnemoEHlB7

— Vladimir Guerrero (@VladGuerrero27) July 24, 2017

Budweiser? That's a big big company man ... and all their Beers have Expos names on them! Vlad's speaking in his native Spanish with French subtitles in that above video ... it translates to English as him thanking Montreal fans for cheering him on.

3. Mr Batting Stance Guy has an Expos Hat on:

All-Star? MVP? Hall of Fame? 125 win season? Tim Raines, you have climbed every mountain. pic.twitter.com/CsmUWp2pHO

— Batting Stance Guy (@BattingStanceG) July 29, 2017

4. Oh Snap. Look at this one. A Very Popular Journalist is in Full Expos Regalia, getting full of emotion over Expos related matters. Wow, look at this:

Here are the couple of minutes @TimRaines30 spent talking about @jonahkeri: pic.twitter.com/M4eQ3JpAfe

— Ryan Thibodaux (@NotMrTibbs) July 30, 2017

5. Oh man. This is too much .... too much Exposness for me in one sitting. Oh man, if I hear a Rap Rock n Roll song about Tim Raines and the Expos right about now I might just lose it myself:

Oh my gosh. Yo, I was in the grocery store the other day buying my frozen Jamaican Patties and my sundries and whatnot .... and I saw FIVE people in Expos t shirts one after another in there. I haven't seen five people with Expos shirts in a public setting since like 1997, man. Like, this Regalia is EVERYWHERE!! I thought I was in a Twilight Zone episode seeing people in every aisle of the grocery store with Expos shirts ... I thought I was dreaming and that Rod Serling threw me back into like 1993. Expos stuff is everywhere I look right now. I cannot honestly believe it. The whole place is getting all Expofied.

Conclusion

Has the Fever hit its High Note and will start receding from here on? I don't think so. I don't think so. I got so much Expos Fever right now I'm rightly breaking out into a Cold SWEAT! HA! A COOOOLD SWEAT! HA! I GOT THE FEVER! OOOOOOH! I GOT THE FEVER!

OOoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW! 

I was worried this would be the last Expos Hurrah. That Rock making the Hall would be last time we'd be tippin' these caps. But, it's not. At least I don't believe so.


Bill Boards talking about Expos, Rappers are Rappin' 'bout Expos with a rip rock n roll sorta sound, and people are in the grocery store DECKED OUT IN EXPOS REGAAAAAAAAALIAAAAA!


OW!


This is not The End of This Story .... This is only the Beginning.

After 34 years the Serious Heart Attack Fires still Burn Strong...

Mr. Expo

The Spaceman Bill Lee called him "The Moderator of the Conclave," and the leader of the Montreal Expos teams of the glorious era of the late seventies and early eighties. This man in 1979 proclaimed that the Montreal Expos were "for real" and "as serious as a heart attack."

Who is he?

The legend...Warren Cromartie. Who else?

Today on April the 4th of 2012, almost 34 years after proclaiming to the world that the Montreal Expos are for real, he's back to let 'em know that even though they are gone...they are certainly not forgotten and may one day live once more. The Cro came back to Montreal to announce that he is heading a group who's purpose is to revive the Expos.

(press articles: 1. Video from the Gazette.com, 2. TVA Article, 3. TSN article)

Why do I care? Because baseball reminds me of a simpler time. When April came around in the old days it used to mean that I got to play baseball all day, watch Expos games at night, then read the boxscores in the mornings and absorb all those wonderful numbers into my brain. Now, I work all day long and don't have time to play baseball, the Expos are dead, and in the morning there's nothing to look at the in paper except boring political and business articles...no more boxscores. To each his own, you know? It reminds of a simpler time and it gave me something to believe in.

Circa 1979.....for real

Cro stated in his press conference that this has got to start at the "grassroots" and that it's gonna take a "unit" of people with a positive attitude. It's a baby-step but everything has to start somewhere...and if I may say, this baby-step is as serious as a heart attack!

The Montreal Baseball Project will be holding a charity golf tournament on June 15th, 2012 for the Cedar Cancer Institute and the MUHC in memory of the Great Legend Gary Carter who passed away earlier this year from brain cancer. The game will feature many of Carter's teammates of the 1981 Expos (including the Great Legend Tim Raines and the Great Legend Andre Dawson).

My Thoughts

People are saying that Montreal is too accustomed to big league attractions and will never support a minor league team, but I'm not sure about that. I think a minor league team could work here. Personally, I would use some Bill Veeck-ian gimmicks to sell the game. I would keep open 4 of the 25 roster spots for the following:

A) Two Quebec born players in order to have hometown players on the team for the fans to support.

B) Two women players in order to break some ground (this gimmick will get some headlines for sure)

The 21 roster slot system won't fly with the MLB players union, so a triple-A team (or any other MLB affiliated team) is not in the picture. The best idea would be a Can-Am team, where the Quebec Capitales play and thus a rivalry can start between Quebec City and Montreal. With a Can-Am team the 4 reserved roster slots for seat-filling reasons will be able to fly.

Who is the prime candidate to be the female star of the Montreal's hypothetical Can-Am team?

Eri Yoshida

Yoshida is a side-arm knuckleballer from Yokohama, Japan. She has pitched professionally against men on several occasions, including as a member of the Kobe 9 in Japan, and the Chico Outlaws in the U.S of A.

She has trained extensively with knuckleball sages such as Tim Wakefield and seems to have perfected the technique at a very young age. Some claim she has mastered 36 divine deception techniques and 72 earthly ones, giving her more than enough deceptive notes in her pitch sequence to fool almost any batter.

Would Yoshida sign on to pitch for a Cromartie led Montreal minor league franchise? Yes, she would in a heart beat. The Cro is a MUCH BIGGER legend in Japan than he is in North America and is a baseball icon over there.

I think women would flock to see her throw and make men look foolish with her deceptive knuckleball, I think she would be an instant-star in Montreal.

Montreal was where the first black player gained confidence to smash the color barrier in Major League Baseball...could it be the place where the first woman player gains the confidence to strike out men in Major League Baseball? I don't know...I think it would sell tickets though.

I want to catch baseball fever again...