Olympic Stadium, built for the 1976 Olynmpics, featured a retractable roof that would rise high in the air on the big spire you can see in this shot from a nearby hill. The roof, however, had stopped retracting years ago and was permanently stuck shut.
Toward the end of the Expos era the crowds were so sparse they just closed off the upper deck.
First game: April, 2000. I drove my daughters Caitlin and Kara to Montreal during April school vacation. They were both taking French in school and wanted to try out their accents on some actual French-speaking people. First night, we went to a decent restaurant on Sherbrooke Street, sat down and the girls ordered au Francais. The server reacted with a kind of smile/chuckle combo and proceeded to answer them in English. At least we tried.
Montreal is a fabulous place. Extremely cosmopolitan with tons of hotels, shops and restaurants connected by tunnels and skybridges. We toured the city, drove up Mount Royal to see McGill, and, of course, went to an Expos game at Olympic Stadium.
This was stop #11 on my World Ballpark Tour. It was also my first indoor ball game. Unlike other stadiums with a removable roof that either slides all the way to one end, or separates in the middle and slides open in two sections, this one was supposed to pull vertically up a big tower and fold like an umbrella. The reason I just wrote “supposed to” is because it didn’t work. Meaning it was stuck shut – and had been for several years. Better than being stuck open during Montreal winters.
It’s always fun going to a game in a different city, and that’s doubly true when it’s in another country and everyone’s speaking a different language. But everyone we encountered was frendly and welcoming. That’s Canada for you.
We saw Le Cubs de Chicago facing Les Expos. I got three excellent Terrace Box seats for I’m not sure how much. I gave the guy $20 USD and got three tickets and something like $18 Canadien in change.
The name Expos refers to Expo 67, the World’s Fair held that year at Ille (that’s actually a capital I and three lower case l’s) Sainte Helene in Montreal. All the Quebec license plates had Expo 67 on the front. It was a hugely successful fair, and at year’s end MLB announced that Montreal would get an expansion team starting in 1969.
The stadium is located a ways from downtown. There is no highway approach and the traffic on the local streets is very pokey. The field is fake, of course, and has lousy outfield walls that move to accommodate Montreal Alouettes CFL games. So few fans were at the game they didn’t even bother opening the upper deck. The scoreboard kept track of “balles” and “prises” and said AC (Arret Coure) to indicate the shortstop. That was kind of fun.
I chatted with a Japanese fan who loved Hidecki Irabu, the Japanese pitcher who came to the US from the Chiba Lotte Marines and who was traded from the Yankees to the Expos that year. He was 1-1 with a no-decision at this point. The man spoke almost no English, and I only know three words in Japanese (“hi” for yes, “mushi-mushi” to say hello on the phone, and “konnichiwa” for hello in person). The girls tried to interpret in French, but neither of us knew enough to make that work. No worries…we could both speak baseball. At one point catcher Chris Widger came up to bat for the Expos and people were booing. The Japanese fan asked me, “Why they boo?” I said, with appropriate hand gestures, that I think he asked to be traded (which he was later that year). So he said, “Oooh.” Then, “BOOOOOO!”
At the concession stand I tried to order hot dogs – two for me with mustard and relish, one each for the girls with just ketchup. Problem: at Olympic you didn’t put your on your own condiments – they would apply them for you. Just tell the guy what you want. But the man behind the counter, who was Pakistani, spoke no English and I knew only a few phrases in French, none of which made any sense when ordering ballpark food. And I certainly knew zero Urdu. So I wound up with mustard and relish on all the hot dogs. The girls asked, “Dad, why did you get us mustard and relish? We wanted ketchup!” I explained that the ketchup request was lost in translation.
Noteworthy, we saw Sammy Sosa homer (#4 for 2000). Joe Girardi, later the Yankees manager, was the Cubs catcher. An Expo pitcher who did not appear in the game was Carl Pavano, the guy the Red Sox traded to Montreal to get Pedro Martinez. The Expos won, 4-3, and a save was earned by UUU. That would be one Ugueth Urtain Urbina, who served as Red Sox closer in 2001 and 2002. In 2007 he was convicted of attempted murder using a machete and gasoline in his native Venezuela. He was released in 2012, but that really has nothing to do with Olympic Stadium. Oh, they lit off fireworks – inside the ballpark with the closed roof – to celebrate the Expos win.
Prior to the game on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 MLB announced that the Expos would move to DC for the 2005 season to become the Washington Nationals. This was the ‘Spos final game in Montreal after 36 years. 31,395 fans showed up, but Les Expos lost to the Marlins 9-1. Two nights earlier, before the big announcement, the Expos lost to the Marlins 4-1 in front of only 3.923 fans.
During the winter the equipment truck packed up and the team headed south of the border. The Nation’s Capital had been without baseball since 1972.
Second game: April 2, 2016. Recently there has been a lot of interest in bringing Major League Baseball back to Montreal. The last three seasons have seen exhibition games at Olympic Stadium right before the start of the regular season. In 2016 Kara and I drove to Montreal for a Red Sox de Boston-Blue Jays de Toronto game right before the actual 2016 season opener.
Not sure what Pair and Impair mean. Maybe a handicap entrance?
It was still very slow driving to Olympic, but we got there and parked in the underground garage (complete with dripping ceilings), and made our way to the seats. The place was rocking. Unlike our visit in 2000, Olympic was sold out (53,420) and completely alive. Fans with Blue Jays jerseys, Red Sox jerseys and a decent number of Expos jerseys with Carter or Martinez on the back.
It was a fun game, considering there would not be a home town win no matter what the outcome. The Red Sox had a big 5th inning, scoring 5 times. The Blue Jays were up, 2-0 when Ryan Hanigan hit a home run. You use the same words for a home run in French, but pronounce it differently (drop the h on home and out a long r on run. And add a le at the beginning). Le ohm rrron. C’est genial!! Jackie Bradley Jr, Travis Shaw, Josh Rutledge, Blake Swihart and Rusney Castillo also scored as Boston won, 7-4.
The scoreboard still has “balles” and prises.”
When we stopped at US Customs on the way home the Customs Official was quizzing me on why I was in Canada. I told him we went to see a Red Sox-Blue Jays game. To make sure I was on the up-and-up he asked me how Olympic Stadium looked. I told him it is due for some touching up, which it clearly was. Montreal misses baseball and gets 50,000-plus for every exhibition game. Compare that to 7,000 at a typical game at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay. If Montreal does get a new team – whether by expansion or someone like the Rays moving there – the team should be in the same league and division as Toronto to create a natural rivalry.
The other rumor that started in 2019 getting some traction is to have the Rays, who have a horrible stadium and embarrassingly low attendance, split the season between St. Petersburg and Montreal. As in…play in Florida for spring training, April and May, then in PQ for June, July and August, then back to FL for September. And fight it out for playoff dates. Evidently the powers-that-be in the Rays organization prefer that to losing the team outright.
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