FOND EXPOS MEMORIES
Hall of Famer appreciative
The number of former Expos in the Baseball Hall of Fame will double on Sunday when pitchers Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson are inducted in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Unfortunately for Montreal baseball fans, neither of them will be wearing an Expos cap, bringing back more memories of what might have been.
Martinez (in a Boston Red Sox cap) and Johnson (Arizona Diamondbacks) will join outfielder Andre Dawson (Chicago Cubs) and catcher Gary Carter as former Expos in the Hall of Fame. Carter, who died in 2012 from brain cancer, was enshrined in an Expos cap — a decision made by the Hall of Fame — but would have preferred to go in as a New York Met, the team he helped win the World Series in 1986.
Two buses carrying about 100 Montreal baseball fans will be making the trip to Cooperstown on Sunday for the induction ceremonies that will include former Houston Astros infielder Craig Biggio and former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz, marking the first time since 1955 that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America has voted four players into the Hall of Fame in the same year.
Matthew Ross, the president and founder of ExposNation, which organized the bus trip, was asked if he will be disappointed not to see Martinez in an Expos cap on Sunday.
“I don’t think of it that way just because he only played four years in Montreal,” Ross said. “But you just think he shouldn’t have been traded in the first place.”
The Expos traded Martinez to the Red Sox on Nov. 18, 1997, after he had posted a 17-8 record with a 1.90 earned-run average to win the National League Cy Young Award. In return, the Expos received pitchers Carl Pavano and Tony Armas.
When the Expos had acquired Martinez from the Los Angeles Dodgers on Nov 19, 1993, in exchange for Delino DeShields, he was expected to replace another pitcher the club couldn’t afford to keep, Dennis Martinez.
In his autobiography, Pedro, written with Michael Silverman, Martinez notes: “I also heard the cracks that the Expos wanted me as Dennis Martinez’s replacement because they wouldn’t have to spend the money to buy a new jersey for me. That one had the ring of truth to it.”
The Expos avoided salary arbitration with Pedro before his Cy Young Award season in 1997, signing him to a one-year deal worth $3.615 million.
“With my success in 1997, I became the face of the Expos franchise, but the franchise was not equipped to keep my mug around,” Martinez notes in his autobiography. “As good as my starts were, they were not translating into bigger crowds at Olympic Stadium, where the last game I pitched drew just over 12,000 fans.”
He adds: “There were no surprises left for me in Montreal by the time I finished my 1997 season. I reached my goal of becoming as good as any pitcher in the game, and when I got there, I had to go.”
Martinez would have preferred to be traded to the New York Yankees, who were his first choice. When Expos GM Jim Beattie called Martinez to let him know he had been traded to the Red Sox, the pitcher hung up on him.
But things worked out just fine for Martinez in Boston as the Red Sox made him the highest-paid player in baseball with a six-year deal for a guaranteed $75 million.
Martinez would earn two more Cy Young Awards with the Red Sox and, in 2004, helped Boston win its first World Series in 86 years. After stints with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, he retired following the 2009 season with a 219-100 record, striking out 3,154 batters and leading the majors in ERA five times.
In his autobiography, Martinez describes how he learned to love Montreal after arriving in the city for the first time following the trade from Los Angeles in January 1994 wearing nothing warmer than a short-sleeved shirt, saying it felt like “walking into an ice locker and having the door slam shut behind me.”
“In Montreal, I never had a problem being a person of colour,” Martinez says. “A blend of everyone lived there — blacks, Caribbeans, Greeks, Jews, Asians, whites — and everyone lived peacefully with one another. Sports-wise, Montreal was a hockey town. The Expos never drew a large crowd to Olympic Stadium, whether or not I was pitching. The fans who showed up were very vocal and loud, but baseball was a sideshow. Besides hockey, there were too many other things for people to do in Montreal than for a critical mass of them to show up to watch baseball.”
Martinez also describes French lessons he received from Expos teammate Larry Walker, who suggested a good icebreaker when meeting a woman was to say: “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”
Martinez’s biggest regret from his days in Montreal is the 1994 season, when the Expos were the best team in baseball with a 74-40 record before a players’ strike wiped out the season on Aug. 12.
“We were on top of the league, we felt like we could beat anybody in the league, or either league, and I felt like a champion,” Martinez told TSN Radio on Wednesday.
“Even though I don’t have anything to show for it, the memories are equally as good and I feel like a champion. I feel like I was a Montreal Expos World Series champion and that has never gone away from my mind.”
He added: “Montreal is in my heart just like Felipe is. Because Felipe had faith in me and had faith in the things that I could do. I got nothing but respect and love and appreciation for Montreal as much as I do any other city.”
Even if he’s wearing a Red Sox cap.