Guerrero Jr. back where it all began
Olympic Stadium crowd welcomes top prospect, whose superstar dad made it big in Montreal
MONTREAL — Among the very cool items up for bid in a silent auction at Sunday night’s Expos Fest Celebrity Gala in Laval, Que., was a framed, autographed photo of Vladimir Guerrero sitting in the Expos dugout at Olympic Stadium with his young son beside him, wearing a batting helmet a few sizes too big.
The very cute photo was taken on Sept. 29, 2002 — the final game of the season for the Expos, who would beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-2 in front of 25,178 fans wondering if it might be the final major-league game in Montreal with reports the team could be leaving town for the 2003 season.
Guerrero went 1-for-5 and a blown call by the umpires gave him a double instead of a home run as the future hall-of-famer finished one homer shy of becoming only the fourth player in major-league history with 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in the same season.
After the game, Guerrero took to the field with his son while waving his cap to the crowd before leaning down to talk to the boy, who then doffed his batting helmet. The fans loved it.
That boy — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — was back at the Big O Monday night as a 19-year-old member of the Toronto Blue Jays, who are visiting Montreal for the fifth straight year to play a couple of exhibition games. Guerrero Jr., wearing the same No. 27 as his dad, didn’t get into the game until the top of the seventh inning at third base, receiving a standing ovation. He went 0-for-2 at the plate, flying out in the seventh and grounding out in the ninth as the Cardinals beat the Jays 5-3 in front of 25,335 fans.
The Expos didn’t leave town until after the 2004 season to become the Washington Nationals, but Guerrero’s final season in Montreal was 2003 before he became too expensive for the Expos and signed a fiveyear, US$70-million deal with the Anaheim (now Los Angeles) Angels. When Guerrero is enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer, he will be wearing an Angels cap, yet another blow to Montreal’s long-suffering baseball fans.
Before Monday night’s game, Guerrero Jr. — who like his father needs a Spanish interpreter when he speaks with the media — was asked what memories he has of the Big O.
“The ice-cream machine … he was looking for it because he remembered that,” the interpreter said. “And he found out that it isn’t there any more.”
Added Guerrero Jr., who is listed at 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds: “The first
thing every day I came here with my dad before or during or after games was to go eat ice cream at that machine.”
When asked what memories he has of Montreal besides the Big O, Guerrero Jr. said: “I do not remember much about places, but I do remember a lot about food. The first thing I got yesterday when I got in was a poutine because I remember that.”
Guerrero Jr. isn’t going to start the season with the Blue Jays and will instead be sent down to the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats. He is ranked No. 3 on Baseball America’s list of Top 100 Prospects this year.
Tim Raines — one of only three players in the Hall of Fame wearing an Expos cap along with Gary Carter and Andre Dawson — is now a roving outfield and baserunning co-ordinator for the Blue Jays and likes what he sees in Guerrero Jr.
“He’s not that far away from the majors. He’s going to be a great player,” Raines said. “A little different from his dad. His dad was an outfielder with a great arm in right field. He doesn’t have the speed that his dad had, but the raw power? He has that. He might even be a better hitter than his dad. He knows the game and he’s a leader, too. That’s something his dad really didn’t have.”
After five years of these Blue Jays pre-season games, the talk they generate about whether the Expos might ever come back to Montreal has become tiresome. Either the Expos will return with a new downtown stadium that someone will have to pay for or they won’t and I’m still betting on the latter. But it was certainly nostalgic to see the son of a former Expos great in a majorleague uniform, which was also a reminder of just how long the team has been gone.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger Expos fan than Perry Giannias, who organizes the annual ExposFest Celebrity Gala, which
on Sunday included former players Ellis Valentine, Larry Parrish, Chris Speier, Darrin Fletcher, John Wetteland, Ken Hill and Jose Vidro, raising more than $75,000 for the Kat D DIPG Foundation at the Montreal Children’s Hospital in memory of Catherine Demes, Giannias’s niece who died when she was five from inoperable brain cancer. Giannis admitted it’s strange seeing Guerrero Jr. in a Blue Jays uniform.
“I won’t lie, it is weird,” he said. “But what are you going to do, right?
“Better the Jays than the Nationals.”