MONTREAL HAS ALWAYS BEEN A BASEBALL TOWN
That
joyous song of spring you hear rolling across Montreal these days can mean only one thing. Major League Baseball is returning to Olympic Stadium — for the first time since Sept. 29, 2004.
Some day, that return might be permanent.
But for now, we gladly greet the New York Mets and the Toronto Blue Jays who will be playing exhibition games at the Big O this coming Friday night and again on Saturday afternoon, their final tune-ups before opening the 2014 season for real on Monday.
Crowds of 40,000 or more are expected per game where each promises to become a celebration steeped in Expos’ charm and goodwill.
On Friday night, pre-game festivities begin with a tribute to the late Gary Carter, Montreal’s favourite Hall-of-Famer. At last, Expos’ fandom will have a full-blown opportunity to express its gratitude to “The Kid” and his family. His spirit lives.
And on Saturday afternoon, the 1994 Expos’ will also be fêted. This team, which saw its singular opportunity of going to the World Series vanish when the season was cancelled due to a bitter players strike, will finally get its day in the sun — albeit under a domed stadium.
All told, the weekend blowout will afford a welcomed antidote to the baseness of the current provincial election campaign.
For by its nature, baseball is a gentle game, as anyone who ever experienced the block party that was Jarry Park will attest. Unique, unchanging and boundlessly complex, it satisfies both heart and mind.
“You should enter a ballpark like you would a church,” Expos’ legend Bill Lee insists.
Theologian David Bentley Hart holds a similar view. “Until baseball appeared, humans were a sad and benighted lot,” he claims, “lost in the labyrinth of matter, dimly and achingly aware of something incandescently beautiful and unattainable …”
Hart believes the game has no equal in all of sport. “Comparing baseball to even the most complex versions of the oblong game (referring to football, hockey and the like) is like comparing chess to tiddlywinks.”
And this is the depth of passion that keeps those now working toward the return of baseball to Montreal so highly motivated.
Undoubtedly, if the Montreal Baseball Project’s Warren Cromartie and company, and the ExposNation collective headed by Matthew Ross and Dave Kaufman have any say in the matter, the weekend’s clambake will serve as just a first step in the renaissance of baseball here, big-time; full-time.
Their goal might seem fantastical, but it’s far from impossible. Montreal is in every way a major league city, far too important a player on the North American economic landscape not to be an active participant in the doings of its equals. Some day, that realization will take root.
And contrary to popular myth, Montreal is a baseball town. In fact, the game has been played in these parts since the mid-19th century, and throughout history, Montreal has had a major influence on its evolution.
Significantly, the racial integration of the game, unquestionably the most enlightened step forward the game has ever taken, occurred right here in 1946, with Jackie Robinson wearing a Montreal Royals’ uniform.
But there is a new spanner in the works, prompted by the confused and divisive social policies now germinating in Quebec. Without question, if these are ever brought into law, prospective ownership partners will quickly head for the hills.
Baseball abhors instability. Consequently, until we as a multi-faceted community can resolve our social conundrum, hopes for the game’s imminent return might have to be put on hold, at least for the time being.
But not forever. Never forever.