EXPOS GREAT WAS SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN
Rusty Staub a fan favourite with a great sense of humour, former girlfriend says
Candice Laflamme will never forget the first time she met Le Grand Orange in person.
She was 18 and working at the Expos’ souvenir boutique in the downtown Dominion Square Building when Rusty Staub walked in. It was shortly after the conclusion of the Expos’ inaugural 1969 season, when they went 52-110, and “Le Grand Orange” had become the team’s biggest star and a fan favourite after hitting .302 with 29 home runs and 79 RBI.
“There was a poster of him in the boutique, so I’d see it every day and then all of a sudden he strolled in and came over to me … I just about fainted,” Laflamme recalled during a phone conversation Thursday afternoon from her LaSalle home after learning Staub died earlier in the day at age 73.
“He came strolling in and he was hard to miss,” Laflamme added. “He was Le Grand Orange and he was so tall. I was by myself working behind the cash and I was sort of mesmerized just looking at him and then he came over and started talking with me.”
Staub, who was 6-foot-2, told Laflamme he wanted to order a bunch of T-shirts and other Expos memorabilia to send to his nieces and nephews in the United States.
“I guess he fancied me and I fancied him,” said Laflamme, who later worked in seasonticket sales for the Expos at Jarry Park. “He lived in Westmount Square at the time — I still remember the apartment number, 1011 — and he said if I could deliver the merchandise to him that night he would treat me to dinner. I was flattered, of course, and I packed up all the merchandise and went over to his home and we had dinner. That’s how it started.”
The couple dated right up until Staub was traded to the New York Mets after the 1971 season in exchange for Tim Foli, Mike Jorgensen and Ken Singleton.
“He wasn’t my first boyfriend, but one of the first … it was quite a way to start,” Laflamme, who was called Candy in those days, said with a laugh. “He was really down to Earth. He was very kind … he was a southern gentleman (from New Orleans) with a southern accent when he spoke. I’m only 5-foot-3 and he used to call me ma’am and he was so polite and so respectful. He was funny and had a great sense of humour.
“We went out for dinners to some of his favourite restaurants, including Le Mas des Oliviers,” she added. “He knew all the chefs, but he also loved to cook himself. He was a fantastic cook and he was very domestic.”
Staub’s favourite meal to cook was Duck a l’Orange, which was so fitting.
Staub died in Palm Beach, Fla., due to multiple organ failure after spending eight weeks in hospital. He was initially admitted with pneumonia, dehydration and an infection after collapsing on a golf course in February. He would have turned 74 on Sunday.
“I was so sad … it hit me hard,” Laflamme said about Staub’s death. “But then I started thinking about all the good memories and all the wonderful people I got to meet like (former Expos executives) Jim Fanning and John McHale. Time flies so fast. I remember a lot of the things we did, the places we went and the meals we ate. It seems like it was only yesterday.”
Laflamme said Staub wasn’t really close off the field with his Expos teammates, who liked to drink and eat at the Bar-B-Barn and would sometimes make fun of the way Staub ran, his fondness for cooking and his favourite drink at the time, which was Tia Maria and milk on ice. Staub would later develop a taste for fine wine and became an oenophile.
Laflamme said Staub’s closest friend on the Expos was Ron Fairly and the three of them would often have dinner together.
Laflamme still kept in touch with Staub after the Expos traded him and they would get together as friends when he came to town with the Mets. She also visited him in New York after he opened his Rusty Staub’s on Fifth restaurant in the Big Apple.
Staub was never married or had children, while Laflamme later married and had two children before getting divorced in 1985 and remaining “happily single” since. She recently took early retirement after working as director of guest services for the Hyatt Regency Montreal.
When the Expos retired Staub’s No. 10 in 1993, he called Laflamme and she was his date for the night at Olympic Stadium and also for a private dinner with his family and friends after at Le Mas des Oliviers. Following dinner, the group of about 25 people — including his mother, who was in her 80s — walked back to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where Staubhadasuite.
“As we were walking on René Lévesque Blvd., there was a lot of traffic because I think it was a Saturday night and everyone started honking their horns because they recognized him,” Laflamme said.
“I was walking with him, holding his hand, and cars would stop and honk. They still remembered him ... he was hard to miss.”
He was Le Grand Orange.