Le Grand Orange was Expos’ first superstar
Rusty Staub dies at age 73
The Montreal Expos’ first year in baseball was a joyous time, and at the centre of it all was Le Grand Orange.
Rusty Staub, who died Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla. of multiple organ failures, was the Expos’ first superstar when major league baseball moved into Canada in
1969 with an expansion club playing out of a temporary stadium in Jarry
Park.
He power bat, the bright orange hair that gave him both his nicknames Rusty and - and his openness to francophone culture in Montreal made him the darling of a city getting its first taste of bigleague ball.
“Everybody loved Rusty,” said Claude Raymond, the pitcher from St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., who was Staub’s teammate in the Expos’ early years. “He was young. He was a redhead. He was always trying to help people.
“I remember when he came back in 1979, he was so happy. He really enjoyed Montreal and I think Montreal enjoyed him too.”
Born Daniel Joseph Staub, the New Orleans native would have turned 74 on Sunday.
The New York Mets issued a message confirming his death hours before the start of the baseball season.
Staub, a six-time all-star, played 23 seasons from 1963 to 1985 with Houston, Montreal, the Mets, Detroit and Texas. The left-handed hitter spent nine seasons with the Mets, where he is equally revered as a player and a humanitarian, but Canadians remember him most from the Expos’ first three seasons in the National League.
On a bad Expos team in 1969, he hit .302 with 29 home runs, while using his powerful arm to produce 16 outfield assists. For show, he would sometimes make spectacular-looking sliding catches on routine fly balls.
“One time he called time out right in the middle of the inning because he wanted to go to the bathroom,” said Raymond. “The umpires granted him the time out and he came back and the people gave him a standing ovation.
“It was hard not to like this guy.”
There are conflicting reports on why the Expos traded Staub to the Mets in 1972 for Ken Singleton, Mike Jorgensen and Tim Foli. One was that he wanted a $100,000 salary, the other that the Expos were tired of losing and wanted to shake things up.
Staub was a hit in New York, helping the Mets to an NL pennant in 1973.
He was dealt back to Montreal by Detroit in July, 1979, with the Expos in a pennant race with Pittsburgh. He went in as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning of the first game of a doubleheader against the Pirates and was given a five-minute standing ovation - before he popped up.
Staub debuted with the Houston Colt 45s, who became the Astros in 1965, as a $110,000 bonus baby. His trade to Montreal ahead of the 1969 campaign was blocked because Donn Clendenon refused to report to Houston, but commissioner Bowie Kuhn ordered the Expos to send two players and $100,000 to the Astros and the deal was completed.
Staub moved to Montreal that winter and immediately began to learn French.
“I felt I should be able to communicate with the people of Montreal in their own language,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1970. “After all, they were interested in baseball. I thought I should be interested enough in them to learn how to converse with them.”
It was a public relations home run for the Expos, who drew 1.2 million fans to Jarry Park in their first season, an impressive number at the time.
He was named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012.
The Expos, who relocated to Washington after the 2004 season, retired Staub’s No. 10 jersey in 1993. He recorded 2,716 hits with 292 home runs and 1,466 RBIs during his career. He was the only player in major league history to have at least 500 hits with four different teams.