TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Thursday, September 30, 2004

C'est Tout

I tuned into watch the Expos-Marlins games last night with a sort of car-wreck curiosity about how the fans would react. I thought I would be able to be detached, but this is one car-wreck I ended up witnessing from the back seat. My wife, another veteran of Le Grande O, thought there would be no on-field incidents because of the inherent politeness of Canadians. I pointed out the history of the perpetual-minority of the Quebecois might counter-act the tendency to be civilized with one final protest act. As it turned out, there was one incident with a golf-ball thrown on the field, a little debris here and there, but with only a dozen or so on-field security present nothing at all like the farewell Senators riot of 1971.

Instead the fans cried, and the club actually had the temerity to have a farewell ceremony on the field. It ended up with all the feel of a wake, or at least a funeral service. The difference, of course, is that the officiants at this funeral murdered the deceased, took his estate, and then thanked the rightful heirs for their cooperation.

I teared up when I thought that this indeed was really the end. No more smoked meat sandwiches, poutine, mais souffle, and Labatts with all the alcohol. No more hiding from Youppi! when he/she/it inevitably came trolloping by. No more talking baseball in English to the fan on one side and in French to the fan on the other. No more of the nicest ushers in organized baseball. No more wiling away the hour before the game at the botanical garden across the street, or taking the metro downtown for a nice dinner afterwards.

What's far worse is all the baseball memories that are bound to fade. Tales of Le Grand Orange, Andre, Rock, Gary, or Lar-ry Wal-kerrrr will not be passed down in the stands by one generation to the next. The team will fade and become a footnote, and with it the real living history of the club -- the fans' continuous experience -- will die off. Much has been written elsewhere about the disgraceful manner in which baseball was killed, but all too many of these stories continue to blame the fans of Montreal. The fans were there when the team won, the fans were there when the team lost but had hope. When it was run into the ground, then sold to out of towners, and the ownership and major league management kept telling Montrealers how worthless they were, the esprit, the elan, l'amour de jeu got squashed out, and everytime baseball jumped up and down on the corpse more remnants of life were stomped out until nothing was left.

Yet over 30,000 fans came to the wake, a record for the last day of a "dead" franchise by far. Those core fans will suffer the indignity of seeing their collective stream of baseball consciousness fade out. That's the one thing that unites us as fans, and the thing that binds a local community to baseball. MLB hasn't just taken a franchise out of Montreal; they've taken the baseball out of a community of fans. The community of fans that made Montreal the most successful minor league city of the first half of the twentieth century, the community of fans that was the first to welcome Jackie Robinson in 1946, the community of fans that embraced the sport in a unique way that will now be lost to baseball forever.

I went to one game at Jarry Park and dozens at Stade Olympique over the years. I have many great memories of the place despite its celebrated deficiencies as a playing field. The one series that sticks out the most in memory is the three-game set against the Pittsburgh Pirates in June, 1990, over St. Jean Baptiste day weekend. This is the national holiday in Quebec, and the city was in its usual festive mood for the occasion. But the Expos-Pirates showdown was the focus of the town's talk. The Expos were playing great, and entered the series two and a half behind the Buccos. We went to all three games, and all three games were sold out. The Expos played tight baseball, staged a come from behind win, won one game in extra innings, and on Sunday capped it all off by sweeping the Pirates and moving into first place. It was electric; it was unifying. It was everything a sports franchise is often fancifully imagined to be for a community. It was real.

Montreal was not a small market. It's a big market. Montrealers did not abandon their team. They supported it during the vast majority of its years in the town, even suffering through two of the worst ballparks ever played in (Jarry Park had the field of a 1940s minor league class B ballpark; there was a swimming pool in right field -- not like Bank One Ballpark, though -- it was the municipal swimming pool!) If nothing else, fans in other cities should take this cautionary tale: if it can happen to Montreal fans, it can happen to you.

I'll mourn and move on. The Expos weren't even my "main" team; they were New England's second team, and I am pretty sure the Red Sox are staying put. But I'll be leaving behind many friends in Montreal, and for them I know no words that will make this any better. I know many new fans will be made in DC, and old Senators fans like my dad are happy today. It's a minor tragedy in the grand scheme of life.

For the Expos -- c'est tout.

posted by The Crank 8:16 AM