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...

for radio transmission 5

Gotta keep expos on the minds of the sports fans.

I think this era that we are currently living in (2010 and beyond) is a crucial moment in the future of baseball in Montreal. I mean major league baseball has been gone for over 5 years now, there's sports fans coming up who have no idea that the Expos even existed you know? All the new kids these days, they don't know about it.

I think what should be done now is keep interest in the Expos alive, on the minds of this generation and following ones so that at some point....when the montreal economy gets better or some big Rich Guy with a lot of dough like Bronfman comes on the scene again at point in the next 25 years or whatever...the memory and the interest in the entity that was the Expos is still on people's minds, and the want or need to have the team return is still there in generations to come.

So I mean you gotta keep talkin' Expos even though there gone, cause if no one talks about it no one in the next generations will care at all. They'll care about soccer these kids, with the running, or the UFC with all the punching and mongoloid brutality. the great experience of baseball will be lost, the intricate tactical underpinning and grace of a game like baseball will be dissolved from the montreal sports atmosphere.

What I think should be done now by those who lived in the Expos era...is even exagerate the history into legend, to keep the spirit alive. When I tell kids about Timmy Raines, I talk about him like he was larger than life you know. Make them really want Major League Baseball here again. When I tell the younger generation about Dawson I talk about him like I'm talking about a Greek God or something...like Poiseidon or something eh.
-----------------------------------------
Andre Dawson
-----------------------------------------

-NICKNAME-

This data was retrieved from Warren Cromartie's great book "Slugging it Out in Japan"

The Old Cro says the name was derived and evolved from Dawson's original nickname which was the Cobra! He said, even as a rookie Dawson didn't take guff from nobody even veterans on the team like Tony Perez or Pete Rose....but he wasn't a violent guy though...he did it all with stares and the look in his eyes. He'd like hunch his shoulders up like a COBRA and HAWK you down with his eyes. It was a predatory style nickname for an intense guy. Dawson was a well respected dude, a real stoic and silent leader type.

A little proof here illustrate how intense Dawson was:

When the Expos played the Astros in the Eighties, they would sometimes run into a guy named Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan used to be pretty intense himself and he had this thing where if you'd hit a homerun off the great Nolan Ryan, he'd walk to third base and wait for the you on your homerun trot to round third and then GLARE at you to show his internal discontent over losing the pitcher-battle duel....but there was one guy he would never do it to.....he would never do it to Andre Dawson. Andre would just Hawk him down.

I think Nolan Ryan avoided it for same reason the Americans and Russians avoided using nuclear arms in the Cold War. Just Imagine the Electrons of Nolan Ryan's intensity bouncing off the Protons of Dawson's intensity during that staredown and ultimately culminating in an inevitable nuclear explosion.

Being Disrespected by the cops

It wasn't all roses for the Hawk in Montreal you know. In 1981 after getting to the post-season for the first and only time, Andre Dawson and Jerry White were mistaken for criminals in front of the Eaton Center downtown....

Here's a quote from Dawson's book:

"As we walked along, three men approached us from behind. Each had a gun. Two men came up behind Jerry and me, put their guns to our heads, and forced us, face first, against a wall. I was shocked and scared. I began to panic..." -A. Dawson & T. Bird, Biography (page 49)

To sum it up, the police said they matched the description of of two robbery suspects, threw them up against a wall and threatened to kill them if they moved, then opened their wallets and saw who they were and let them go. That's not good to treat the Hawk like that.

Collusion of 87

The owners got together and agreed that they would not sign any player for more than the contract he had at that time. So players who were deserving of a raise were being given contract offers of significantly less than what they warranted, and when they tested the free agent market for better offers it was the same thing. The owners agreed not to give any player any good contract. So Dawson's there in 87 going "why am i being offered 250,000 dollars when the highest paid guy in the league who was Mike Schmidt was getting over 2 million." The players didn't know about the collusion, the expos front office justified the offer by telling Dawson he was washed up and wouldn't get any more anywhere else. so Dawson getting this 250,000 chump change offer took it as a real insult.

-ERIC SHOW-

He was one of the most respected hitters in the league. Guys used to throw at him all the time. He lead the league in being hit by pitches 3 times. The worst was the psycho Eric Show of the Padres who was a nut case (he died of a overdose in the nineties)...he was nuts...he was in a branch off group of the KKK called like the John Birch Male Christian League Society or some crazy thing, and he hit Dawson in the left cheek bone with a pitch which resulted in a bench clearing brawl which at least showcased the wrestling talents of the great Rick Sutcliffe.