Nationals’ success a bitter pill for Expos fans

Wins NL East title the same week its predecessor played its last game in 2004

This week marked the eighth anniversary of the final game the Expos ever played, an 8-1 loss to the New York Mets at Shea Stadium on Oct. 3, 2004.

And to rub salt into what remains an unhealed wound for many Montreal baseball fans, the Washington Nationals — who used to be the Expos — won the National League East title this week and are in the postseason. The Nationals finished the regular season with the best record in the major leagues at 98-64, breaking the franchise record of 95 wins set by the 1979 Expos, who finished two games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates that season.

For the Nationals, it will go down in the record books as the second division crown in franchise history, following the Expos’ strike-shortened 1981 title. That season also ended in heartbreak for Montreal baseball fans as the Expos lost the National League Championship Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Blue Monday.

Dave Kaufman, the host

STU

COWAN and producer of The Kaufman Show on TSN Radio 690, wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s Gazette under the headline: “‘Our’ franchise is off to the playoffs.”

Wrote Kaufman: “The Nationals seem proud to share in the achievements of the Expos. And yet I don’t know one Montrealer who is genuinely excited to see them make a playoff run.”

I know one: Steve de Montbrun.

De Montbrun is a 51-yearold Montreal truck broker and former Expos seasonticket holder. I wrote about him in a column in April 2005, after the Nationals played their first home opener in Washington. De Montbrun went to Washington for the game, which was on a Friday, but it was sold out and he couldn’t get tickets. So he stuck around for the weekend and went to games on the Saturday and Sunday. He has continued to make trips to Washington each year to cheer on the Nationals.

The question many Montreal baseball fans might be asking is: Why?

“They were our team. … I hated the way they left and the circumstances that were beyond our control with greedy owners, etc.,” de Montbrun said. “But I love baseball and I still like to watch the game. I look at it as though they’re called the Washington Expos instead of the Nationals. That’s the way I consider them.”

And de Montbrun was celebrating when the Nationals clinched the NL East title on Monday.

“Definitely,” he said. “It was awesome.”

De Montbrun understands how other Montreal baseball fans might hate the Nationals, and he still remembers the emotions he felt while attending the Expos’ final home game at Olympic Stadium.

“I was in tears ... seriously, I was in tears,” de Montbrun said. “They were streaming down my face. … I was very disappointed. But there’s nothing you could do. I was saying goodbye to my favourite sport.

“But this happens in base- ball, hockey, football, soccer everything ... there’s nothing you can do,” he added. “You either follow the team or fall off the wagon. I decided to stay on the wagon.”

Elliott Price, who was the Expos’ radio play-by-play man, still remembers the team’s final game at Shea Stadium.

“Myself and (Mitch) Melnick and my brother sitting in the booth crying in New York,” recalled Price, who is now part of The Morning Show on TSN Radio 690. “That was sad.”

But Price isn’t crying anymore.

“They were our team. ... I hated the way they left ...”

EXPOS FAN STEVE DE MONTBRUN

“The first f ew years i n Washington, I wanted them to lose … but now it’s so what?” Price said.

“It doesn’t matter. ... I don’t care one way or the other,” he added. “Good on them. I stopped living in the past. Doing Expos games for so long and being in that division you hated the Braves and the Phil- lies and the Marlins ... you hated them all. It’s not like now I’m going to hate the Nationals, too. I have no positive or negative feelings either way. It’s eight years already … get over it, people.

“If there was a story that said the Tampa Bay team was going to Montreal, all these (Montreal) fans would have no problem grabbing someone else’ steam.‘ Oh, awesome! We got a team … to hell with Tampa Bay.’ It’s not the people in Washington’s fault ... it’s not the players on the Nationals fault. There’s lots of fault to go around and we’ve done that for a long time.

“I was an Orioles fan before the Expos arrived in Montreal,” Price continued. “If (the Nationals) beat the Orioles, I’ll be disappointed. If they beat the Tigers, my son will be disappointed … he’s a Tigers fan, so I’ll cheer for his team, too.”

De Montbrun, meanwhile, will keep cheering for the Nationals.

And if they win the World Series?

“It’ll be a party, and I’m buying,” de Montbrun said. “You can quote me on that.”