Montreal mayor Jean Drepeau with (from left) John Bateman, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, and Maury Wills on Opening Day in New York, April 8, 1969 (COURTESY OF THE McCORD MUSEUM, MONTREAL)

When the International Olympic Committee chose Montreal as the host city for the 1976 Winter Olympics, Jean Drapeau, the mayor of Montreal, told the press that the Olympics could no more have a deficit than a man could have a baby. As it turned out, the Olympic debt ballooned into the billions and was not paid off until 2006; the problems associated with the Olympics caused Drapeau to feel sickness not just in the morning, but noon and night as well.

Seven years prior to that debacle, Drapeau was a midwife of sorts for the rebirth of Montreal’s great baseball tradition. Montreal had had professional baseball right up until 1960, and the city’s Royals were the Triple-A affiliate of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1939 until the franchise moved to Syracuse for 1961. Jackie Robinson played his first professional season in a Montreal Royals uniform and many Hall of Famers, including Roy Campenella, Duke Snider, Roberto Clemente, and Don Newcombe, played at Delormier Downs, the Royals’ home park, on their way to the majors.

Drapeau didn’t sweat the details — everybody involved in any of his ambitious plans did his sweating for him. And when it came to making the Expos a reality, the perspiration flowed right up until the date of their first game, April 8, 1969, as financial and logistical problems — as in where to play — left many wondering if Opening Day would ever come.

But it finally did, at Shea Stadium against the New York Mets. Before the game Drapeau signed autographs for fans who no doubt wondered who he played for, and he reveled in the attention. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mets catcher Jerry Grote.

The game wasn’t just a big event for Drapeau, as longtime Expos broadcaster Dave Van Horne discovered. As Canadian opera star Maureen Forrester sang Canada’s national anthem, Van Horne looked over at his broadcast partner, born-and-bred Montrealer Russ Taylor, and saw tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I thought, ‘Wow!,’” remembered Van Horne. “This is much bigger to every Canadian, not just Montrealers and Quebecers, than I had anticipated. I knew even prior to the first pitch that this was a big deal.”1

The players may not have wept, but they too were caught up in the historical significance of what was happening.

“I think there was a special feeling,” said Expos reliever Dan McGinn. “Everybody was excited.”2

Tom Seaver started for the Mets. Seaver was entering his third campaign after consecutive 16-win seasons. His mound opponent was Jim “Mudcat” Grant, whom the Expos had picked in the expansion draft from the Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom he had gone 6-4 with a 2.08 earned-run average in 1968. Conventional wisdom says that pitchers have the advantage over hitters early in the season, but conventional wisdom couldn’t get a ticket for this game, which the Expos won 11-10. Seaver and Grant contributed to the festivities by leading a parade of pitchers to and from the mound. The two teams combined to use nine hurlers, and that was back in the days before pitch counts, when starters were expected to throw as many innings as possible.

Mets fans were used to futility; prior to 1969, the Mets had never finished higher than ninth in the 10-team National League and their ineptitude was legendary. It seemed early on that they were in for more of the same, as the Expos took a 2-0 lead in the first inning when former Dodger Bob Bailey drove in two runs with a double.3 That here-we-go-again feeling continued when the Mets blew a great scoring opportunity in the bottom of the first. Singles by Tommie Agee, Ken Boswell, and Cleon Jones went for naught thanks in part to Rod Gaspar lining into a double play with Agee on first.

It was obvious pretty early that Grant wasn’t going to have a long afternoon of work. In the bottom of the second, the first two Mets hitters, Ed Kranepool and Grote, singled. To make things more challenging for himself, Grant walked Bud Harrelson to load the bases with nobody out. He struck out Seaver for the first out, but Agee cleared the bases with a double to give the Mets a 3-2 lead. Grant had to surrender the ball to Expos manager Gene Mauch after Agee’s hit.

“He [Grant] had no command of his breaking ball. He was wild in the strike zone,” said Mauch. “… He usually hits the corners, but everything came down the middle and they hit him. And hit him good.”4

Mauch brought in left-hander Dan McGinn, who not only became the first Expos relief pitcher, but the first to pick off a baserunner, when he nailed Agee at second.

“It was a play we had worked on in spring training and [shortstop Maury Wills] put on the sign,” recalled McGinn. “I just did what I had been taught to do. We caught him; I don’t think he had any idea we would be using a pickoff. He wasn’t really paying enough attention.”5

The Expos tied the game in the third when Rusty Staub drove home Wills, who had doubled. In the fourth McGinn added to his list of firsts, becoming the first Expo, pitcher or not, to hit a home run, a solo shot that bounced off and over the outfield wall and put the Expos up 4-3. It was McGinn’s first major-league hit and only major-league home run.

“He (Seaver) threw a fastball and I just happened to make a good swing and he supplied all the power,” said McGinn. “I was rounding first and [first base umpire Stan Landes] gave the home-run signal. In the dugout Rusty and Maury and Gene were all just standing there laughing as I went in. If you’re going to hit one you might as well hit it off a Hall of Famer.”6

McGinn didn’t have much time to enjoy the glory as the Mets stormed back in the bottom of the fourth. He walked Grote to lead off the inning, then committed the franchise’s first balk (he also threw the franchise’s first wild pitch in the second inning), which sent Grote to second base. After striking out shortstop Bud Harrelson and inducing Seaver to ground out, McGinn walked Agee, who was much warier on the basepaths the second time around. Consecutive singles by right fielder Rod Gaspar and second baseman Ken Boswell scored Grote and Agee.

McGinn’s day of firsts was over, as Mauch replaced him with Jerry Robertson, who promptly gave up a double to left fielder Cleon Jones. It scored Gaspar, but Expos center fielder Don Hahn (who would later spend four seasons with the Mets) threw to second baseman Gary Sutherland, who relayed the ball home to catcher John Bateman in time to get Boswell at the plate. This play saved at least one run because if Boswell had scored, the Mets would have led 7-4 instead of 6-4, with another runner in scoring position.

After neither team scored in the fifth, Mets manager Gil Hodges made a move he immediately regretted by sending journeyman pitcher Cal Koonce to the mound for the sixth inning. Koonce started the frame by walking the leadoff batter, pinch-hitter Ty Cline. A fielder’s choice by Wills erased Cline, but Wills, showed he still had some of the base thief in him by stealing second. After Staub walked, Expos left fielder Mack Jones doubled to left, driving in two runs and tying the game, 6-6. The Expos took the lead in the top of the seventh. With two out and nobody on, Koonce committed the unpardonable sin of walking pitcher Don Shaw, a former Met, then compounded his troubles by walking Cline, who had stayed in the game replacing Hahn in center. Wills drove in Shaw with a single to left. By this time the Mets felt like the boxer who kept thinking he had the fight won only to see his opponent keep getting up off the canvas.

They felt positively punchy after the eighth. Al Jackson took the mound for New York, but maybe he should have given it back because he gave up a solo shot to Staub, then singles to Bailey and Bateman. Hodges replaced Jackson with Canadian Ron Taylor, who surrendered a three-run homer to third baseman Jose “Coco” Laboy, a rookie playing in his first major-league game after spending 10 years in the minors.

Going into the bottom of the ninth, the score was 11-6 Expos. Mets castoff Don Shaw, who had replaced Robertson on the mound in the sixth, was in his fourth inning of relief.

That turned out to be one inning too long, as the Mets made things interesting by scoring four runs, including three on a home run by pinch-hitter Duffy Dyer.

“I left Don Shaw in there too long,” admitted Mauch. “He was getting tired, but I wanted him to finish it up if he could.”7

With two out, Mauch brought in Carroll Sembera to finish the game off. He did, but not before giving up a single to left fielder Amos Otis and a walk to Agee. He finally struck out Rod Gaspar on three pitches, giving the Expos the win and relegating the famous Montreal Canadiens, who went on to win the Stanley Cup in 1969, to the back pages of the sports section.8

“Everybody was excited and jumping around (in the Expos’ locker room after the game),” said McGinn. “It was a great feeling.”

The Expos’ first game ever was indeed a wild one. But even if a pitcher hit the franchise’s first home run, and the bullpen needed a revolving door because of all the relievers they used, they still won. The front page of the next day’s Montreal Gazette said it best:

“Look who’s in first place!”9

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196904080.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B04080NYN1969.htm

Notes

Here’s a history lesson. On April 14, 1969, an American laid claim to Canadian territory for the first time since the War of 1812. The American was Montreal Expos left fielder Mack Jones. The territory was the left-field bleachers at Jarry Park, which was renamed Jonesville after his three-run homer and two-run triple helped the Expos win their first-ever home opener. Jones was happily acclaimed Mayor-for-Life.

Warm and sunny spring weather greeted the Expos and the reigning National League champion St. Louis Cardinals that day for the first regular-season major-league baseball game ever played outside the United States. Preparations for the opener continued right up to game time, including staff — Expos general manager Jim Fanning among them — unfolding 6,000 chairs to serve as temporary seats. More than 29,000 fans (not counting people watching the game standing on snow drifts outside the stadium) and 200 members of the media from the United States and Canada filled the Expos’ ballpark to watch the home club take a huge lead, blow it in one atrocious inning, then rebound to win it and send the fans home happy.

“Working under the tireless (team director of operations) Lou Martin, men worked around the clock to finish off the stadium,” wrote Ted Blackman. All that was missing were a few seats in the corners of the ballpark and a perfect playing field, but even the super-critical athletes were willing to abide the discomfort.”1

Nelson Briles started for the Cardinals, while veteran Larry Jaster took the mound for the Expos. Curt Flood hit a double in an otherwise perfect first inning for Jaster. Briles wasn’t so fortunate. Leadoff hitter Don Bosch led off with a single to right. After Maury Wills forced Bosch at second for the first out, Briles walked Rusty Staub, then gave up Jones’s home run to straightaway center field to give the Expos a 3-0 lead. Mayor Jones increased the Expos’ lead in the bottom of the second, tripling home Wills and Staub, who had both singled, putting the Expos up 5-0. A hero was born.

“When I got back to the hotel, I had something like 150 phone calls from the hour of 12:00 to 6:00 the next morning,” recalled Jones. “And it was all females. I think I got the record for that.”2

The third inning went better for Briles as he gave up only one run. Coco Laboy walked and advanced to second on a groundout by Gary Sutherland. Jaster singled to score Laboy, giving Montreal a 6-0 lead and causing delirious Expos fans to inquire about World Series tickets.

Then came the top of the fourth, an inning in which the Expos committed five errors and saw their 6-0 lead turn into a 7-6 deficit. Expos catcher John Bateman proved a generous host by dropping Mike Shannon’s foul popup, keeping his at-bat alive long enough to allow him to reach first when his groundball went through shortstop Wills’ legs. Tim McCarver then singled, followed by Julian Javier reaching first when first baseman Bob Bailey booted yet another grounder.

At this juncture, one of the peculiarities of Jarry Park should be pointed out. The songwriting team of Ian and Sylvia may have been thinking of the stadium when they wrote their hit “Four Strong Winds,” because all four of the breezes congregated there and blew consistently from left to right. More than one popup to second ended up going over the right-field fence for a home run. That’s the only logical explanation for what happened next, when number-eight hitter Dal Maxvill, who had three career home runs in seven major-league seasons, smacked a grand slam to right center.

Jaster got the next two hitters out, and then gave up a single to Curt Flood. After moving to second on a balk, Flood scored on a single by Vada Pinson. Pinson himself arrived at second when his hit got by center fielder Bosch. Jaster’s disaster of an inning continued when the next batter, Joe Torre, belted a two-run shot to give the Cardinals a 7-6 lead.

As much out of mercy as anything else, Expos manager Gene Mauch replaced Jaster with Dan McGinn. The Cardinals had batted around, so Shannon came to the plate for the second time in the inning. And for the second time in the inning, he hit a foul popup that an Expos infielder dropped, except this time it was Bailey. Shannon wasn’t able to take advantage of his second chance this time, as he popped up to short to end the carnage. Of the seven runs the Cardinals scored, only two were earned.

After playing more like Larry, Curly, and Moe than Tinker, Evers, and Chance in the top of the fourth, the least the Expos could do was make sure that Jaster wouldn’t get saddled with a loss, so they scored one in the bottom of the inning to tie the score 7-7. Wills singled, then moved to third on a double by Rusty Staub. That was enough for Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst, who replaced Briles with Gary Waslewski. Waslewski walked Jones intentionally, then uncorked a wild pitch with Bailey at the plate, allowing Wills to score.

With both starters gone, the next two innings were uneventful. In the bottom of the seventh Dan McGinn the pitcher became Dangerous Dan the clutch hitter, when he singled home Coco Laboy, who had doubled, for what turned out to be the winning run. McGinn went the rest of the way, giving up no runs on three hits over 5⅓ innings to win the first-ever major-league game outside the US.

“Unfortunately, I gave up one run on two hits and I ended up with the loss,” recalled Waslewski. “[The game] is not fair sometimes.”3

For the visitors, who were used to the manicured field of Busch Stadium, their initial impressions of Jarry Park were not all that positive. “The ground was frozen,” said Waslewski, who was traded to Montreal later that season for Jim “Mudcat” Grant. “It was almost like walking on a mattress. You would step in one spot and it would raise in another spot.”4

“The infield was soft and it was tough to go from first to third,” said Flood. “A stolen base is going to be unheard of here until something is done about it. “I’ve played on some bad diamonds, but this was the worst.”5

Expos fans didn’t care what Flood thought of the field. After a nine-year absence, when the historic Montreal Royals left town in 1960, baseball was back in town. And it was major-league baseball to boot. Lines started forming at the ticket booths as soon as the game was over. A love affair had begun.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-reference.com.

Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, Missouri).

Les Expos Nos Amours (video).

Box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON196904140.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B04140MON1969.htm

Notes

As if the inaugural game at Shea Stadium or the first home win at Jarry Park weren’t memorable enough, the Expos quickly adopted a flair for the dramatic in just the franchise’s ninth game, on April 17, 1969. That night, Bill Stoneman pitched a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies, allowing Nos Amours–a French expression meaning Our Loves–to achieve the feat more quickly than any other team.1

Montreal came into the game at Connie Mack Stadium with a 3-5 record and was playing its seventh game on the road after two at Jarry Park. What made this game more improbable was Stoneman’s career to date. Drafted in 1966 in the 31st round by the Chicago Cubs, he was called up to the big leagues in 1967 and went 2-5 over the next two years, mostly as a reliever. He earned the nickname Toy Tiger as much for his size (5-feet-10), as for his determination. Chicago manager Leo Durocher gave Stoneman only two starts, while using him in relief 44 times. The Expos selected Stoneman with the 10th pick in the 1968 expansion draft, viewing him as a starter even though he had only two starts in his major-league career. Going into this contest, he had an 0-2 record and a 5.00 ERA.

Stoneman’s inexperience showed in his first appearance of the season, when he gave up four earned runs in 1/3 of an inning against the Mets and left the game with a 108.00 ERA. His second outing was slightly better: He pitched 8⅔ innings and gave up all seven runs (but only one earned) in a 7-6 loss to the Cubs. His teammates made three errors behind him.

In this game, though, the defense was excellent from the beginning. Center fielder Don Bosch recovered from a late jump to grab a sinking fly ball by Don Money in the second. In the next inning, Rusty Staub preserved the no-hitter when he snared a liner off the bat of Tony Taylor.

As historic a night as it was for Stoneman, some of his teammates also had noteworthy evenings. In addition to his fielding heroics, Staub put on a batting clinic with four hits, including three doubles and a fourth-inning home run, his third of the season. Staub had 10 total bases in the game and drove in three runs. Le Grand Orange was blossoming.

Also joining the hit parade was rookie Coco Laboy, who rapped out four singles and drove in a run to help the Expos to their fourth win of the year.

Phillies pitchers had forgettable nights. Starter Jerry Johnson went eight innings and gave up four runs (three earned) on 11 hits. The Expos opened the scoring with an unearned run in the third. Laboy singled and went to second when Gary Sutherland reached on an error. After Stoneman struck out, Laboy scored when Tony Taylor made the Phillies’ second error of the inning, this time on a Bosch grounder.

Staub homered leading off the fourth inning and with the Expos in front 2-0 in the sixth, run-scoring singles by Ty Cline and Laboy upped the lead to 4-0. In the ninth the Expos put the game away for good with three more runs off Bill Wilson. Staub doubled with the bases loaded, plating Stoneman and Bosch and moving Maury Wills to third. Turk Farrell replaced Wilson and allowed Wills to score on a wild pitch to make the score 7-0.    

Stoneman’s determination showed in the ninth inning as he finished the game in style, striking out Ron Stone and Johnny Briggs, and then inducing the dangerous Deron Johnson to ground out to Wills. Overall, Stoneman faced 31 batters, struck out eight and walked five. Stoneman later admitted that he wasn’t overpowering that night.

“People think that a pitcher who throws a no-hitter totally dominates the game, but that isn’t always true,” he said. “I had trouble with my control and gave up five walks, which is something that happened a lot in my career.”2

As sweet as the win was for the players, this game also provided some revenge for Expos manager Gene Mauch, who was fired by the Phillies after 53 games the previous season. Not only did his new team lay a beating on his old one, but he was serenaded by the fans chanting “we want Mauch” from the seventh inning until the end of the game.3

The Expos’ reaction to the event seems almost quaint by today’s standards. Management ripped up Stoneman’s contract and gave him a new one with a $2,000 raise. Then, between games of an April 20 doubleheader against the Cubs, public address announcer Claude Mouton asked fans to stay in their seats and then called Stoneman out of the dugout. Team president John McHale pointed to a new Renault car in center field, a gift from the Renault Company. However, the big surprise came when one of the car’s doors opened and out stepped Stoneman’s mother along with a brother just back from Vietnam. 

Nonetheless, Stoneman’s first no-hitter was no fluke. He repeated the feat on October 2, 1972, at Montreal’s Jarry Park against the Mets, winning by the same 7–0 score. Stoneman struck out nine, but had control problems, walking seven. Ironically, this was the last complete game of his career. He is the only pitcher in major league history to pitch no-hitters in his first and last career complete games.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. It also appeared in SABR’s “No-Hitters” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin. To read more articles from this book, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Ballparks.com

Blackman, Ted. “Stoney Staggered by Montreal Huzzahs Over No-Hitter,” The Sporting News, May 3, 1969.

Baseball-reference.com.

Conniemackstadium.com.

King, Norman. “Expos get first franchise no-hitter right out of the gate,” Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2002.

Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI196904170.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B04170PHI1969.htm

Notes

Most managers get fired for such modest predictions, but for Expos bench boss Gene Mauch, 70 wins represented an 18-game improvement for the second-year Montreal Expos. And when he made that prognostication at a news conference in Montreal in January 1970, he didn’t see the number as a final result, but as a benchmark the team would likely surpass.

Fast-forward to September 25, 1970. Thanks in part to the emergence of 1970 NL Rookie of the Year Carl Morton (18-11), the Expos entered play that night with 69 wins. They got their 70th win that night, and an old pro made sure they won in style.

Their opponents for the game, the St. Louis Cardinals, were finishing a disappointing season. After enjoying a marvelous decade in which they played in three World Series and won two of them, the St. Louis Cardinals weren’t much better than the Expos in 1970, with a 74-82 record going into the game.1By this point they were just playing out the string.

Two journeymen started the game. Left-hander John O’Donoghue (2-3) took the mound for the Expos. In his ninth season in the majors, he arrived in Montreal on June 15 in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers for Jose Herrera. Frank Bertaina, the St. Louis starter, was making what would be his last appearance in the major leagues. He had a 1-2 record at game time.

The 20,998 fans at Jarry Park saw the Cardinals start the game with some textbook small ball. Lou Brock led off with a single to left and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Ed Crosby. Carl Taylor moved Brock to third on a groundout to the right side, and Joe Torre singled him in to make the score 1-0. The Cards weren’t finished, as Jose Cardenal moved Torre to third with a single to left, then showed how dangerous the famous Cardinal speed could be; he attempted to steal second, and in trying to gun him down, Expos catcher John Bateman sent the ball to the outfield, allowing Torre to score easily.

The Cardinals waited until the third inning to reciprocate the gift run. With one out, Don Hahn singled to left. Gary Sutherland followed with a tailor-made double-play grounder to second, but Cardinals second baseman Ed Crosby booted the ball, giving the Expos runners on first and second and the meat of the order coming up. Rusty Staub didn’t look that gift RBI in the mouth and put the Expos on the board with a single to right that sent Sutherland racing to third. Cleanup hitter Bob Bailey grounded to short, but shortstop Milt Ramirez played the ball perfectly and chose to take the out at second instead of throwing to the plate. Sutherland scored, tying the game at 2-2.

The score remained that way until the Montreal half of the sixth. Bateman singled to left and advanced on an error by Brock.2Bobby Wine showed he was of good vintage that night by singling and sending Bateman to third. Now this is where Bertaina met with some hard luck. Bateman was no speed merchant; he stole 10 bases in a 10-year career, eight of which came in that 1970 season.3 It would take a hit or a pretty deep fly ball to score him. Ron Fairly, the next batter, hit the requisite fly ball to center field. Somehow it wasn’t deep enough to score Bateman, but Wine was able to make it to second. Mauch and St. Louis manager Red Schoendienst then continued their tactical pas de deux. Bertaina walked Clyde Mashore intentionally, which loaded the bases with the pitcher coming up. Mauch wanted to keep reliever Mike Marshall in the game – he had entered in the fifth – so up to the plate Marshall went with his .100 batting average and zero RBIs.

If this were fiction, Marshall would have hit a grand slam. The truth is that he didn’t get a hit at all, but he did hit a fly ball deep enough to score Bateman. Bertaina didn’t allow any more runs the rest of frame, and ended the sixth, and his career, downby a run.

Marshall breezed through one-two-three innings in the seventh and eighth. His Cardinals counterpart, Canadian Reggie Cleveland, held the Expos scoreless in the two frames, although Montreal threatened in the eighth with one out and runners on first and third. Marshall had a chance to double his RBI total for the season, but his fly to center was not deep enough to score Fairly from third.

Mauch sent a tired Marshall out to start the ninth, even though he had been pitching since the fifth. Back-to-back singles by Luis Melendez and Ted Simmons gave the Cardinals runners on first and second with nobody out. A double by pinch-hitter Joe Hague that scored Melendez and sent Simmons to the hot corner finally convinced Mauch to replace Marshall with Dan McGinn. Julian Javier came on to pinch-hit and he took full advantage of the situation, singling to right to score Simmons and move Hague to third. Brock grounded to the right side, and Fairly was only able to get the out at first while Javier motored to second; with Hague still at third, the Cardinals now had two on with one out.

At this point the managers played the percentages game. With a southpaw on the mound, Schoendienst sent right-handed hitter Jim Beauchamp up to hit for the lefty Crosby. Mauch countered with right-hander Howie Reed to replace McGinn. It seemed that Mauch won the battle of percentages, but Beauchamp came through with a sacrifice fly to score Hague and give the Cardinals a 5-3 lead. Reed got through the rest of the inning without any further damage.

What happened in the bottom of the ninth became the two-year-old Expos’ “shot heard ’round Quebec.” The two managers used every angle and pulled every string to win this game even though it would not affect the standings. Schoendienst sent righty Frank Linzy to the mound. Mauch countered with left-handed pinch-hitter Mack Jones, and to the delight of his constituents, the Mayor of Jonesville (the left-field bleachers at Jarry Park, so named in honor of the Expos’ left fielder) singled to left. Wasting no time, Schoendienst brought in Tom Hilgendorf to get the lefty-versus-lefty matchup with Le Grand Orange, Rusty Staub. Hilgendorf won this battle, as Staub flied to right. The next two scheduled hitters were righties, so Schoendienst brought in right-hander Chuck Taylor. Bailey singled, moving Jones to second; Bateman popped out to first.

It was two on, two out, and Mauch’s turn in the managerial chess match. Jim Fairey, batting in place of Wine, sank his teeth into a Taylor pitch for a single to center, scoring Jones and bringing up Fairly.

Schoendienst brought in left-hander Al Hrabosky, known as the Mad Hungarian for the way he ranted and raved off the mound between pitches. He became an even madder Hungarian when Fairly smacked a three-run walk-off home run that gave the Expos a 7-5 win, brought “70 in ’70” to reality and made Mauch and Expos fans feel as though they won the World Series.

“Mauch displayed a rare show of emotion following the game when he repeatedly raised his arms into the air and received hearty applause from the spectators on the way to the clubhouse,” wrote the Canadian Press.4

The Expos finished the season with a 73-89 record, better than the three other 1969 expansion teams.5 The 70th win symbolized a progression that left Expos fans with bright thoughts for the future. Alas, it would be another nine seasons before they would break the .500 mark.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-reference.com.

Box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON197009250.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B09250MON1970.htm

Notes

Perhaps it was because of the afterglow of that event, or the cool October weather, that only 7,184 hardy souls attended a twi-night doubleheader between the Montreal Expos and the New York Mets at Jarry Park on October 2, 1972. They saw something in the first game that no one had ever seen before–the first major-league no-hitter ever pitched on other than American soil.

“There was only one way, it seems, that we could knock Team Canada from the front page,” said Expos president John McHale. “That was for Bill Stoneman to throw a no-hitter – and he did.”1

The Mets and Expos were winding down disappointing seasons. The Mets had a 79-72 record, good for third place in the National League East Division, 15 games behind the eventual division champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Since coming from nowhere to win the World Series in 1969, they had won 83 games in 1970 and 1971, and would do so again in 1972.

The Expos were 69-82 in their fourth season of existence. Since winning 73 games in 1970 when manager Gene Mauch “predicted “70 in 70” for what was then a second-year franchise, the Expos hadn’t improved at all. They went 71-90 in 1971 and were on their way to a 70-86 season in 1972 (the season was shortened by a players’ strike at the beginning of the year).2

The two starting pitchers had both been slumping. Mets starter Jim McAndrew was in the midst of a losing streak. After defeating the Phillies on September 12 to go 11-5, he had lost his next two starts, including a 4-0 whitewash in St. Louis. Similarly, Stoneman would never sing “Try to Remember That Kind of September” after the month he went through. In seven appearances, he went 1-5 with a 3.86 ERA. Somebody was due to have a good game.

It was clear from the get-go that that somebody was not to be McAndrew. After Stoneman struck out the side in the first (he also walked John Milner), the Expos struck quickly in the bottom of the inning. Leadoff hitter Ron Hunt doubled, moved to third on a Tim McCarver fly ball, and scored on a wild pitch. He would have come home anyway because after Ken Singleton struck out, Ron Fairly gave Montreal a 2-0 lead with a home run.

The Expos put it away in the bottom of the third. McAndrew plunked Hunt to lead off the inning.3 Hunt moved to third on McCarver’s single to center, and scored on Ken Singleton’s single; Singleton advanced to second on the throw to the plate. One out later, Jim Fairey was walked intentionally to load the bases for Boots Day. Boots belted the ball to right for a bases-clearing triple to give the Expos a 6-0 lead after three.

The Expos’ final run, off Mets reliever Brent Strom in the fourth, was a singular achievement. Singleton singled home Hunt, who had singled and moved to second on McCarver’s single. That made the score 7-0.

A big lead after four innings certainly doesn’t guarantee a no-hitter. It doesn’t even assure victory, at least not in baseball. The Mets came close to scoring in the fifth when Bill Sudakis walked with one out, moved to second when Stoneman flubbed a Don Hahn grounder and to third when Ted Martinez hit into a fielder’s choice. With two on and two out, Stoneman fanned pinch-hitter Dave Marshall to end the Mets’ only real scoring threat.

Stoneman’s performance from the sixth inning on was marked by an oddity in that he didn’t have a single three-up-three-down inning. He walked two batters in the sixth and one in each in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. He also left one runner on base in each frame (Lute Barnes, who received the first base on balls in the sixth, was erased on a double play).

The Mets’ relief corps did a fine job. Strom, who came on with one out in the third, allowed one run. Bob Rauch pitched three scoreless innings and Ray Sadecki gave up one walk in working the eighth.

This was the second no-hitter of Stoneman’s career, making him the 16th pitcher in the 20th century to pitch two gems. His first no-hitter was also historic as it came in the ninth game of the Expos’ existence on April 17, 1969, and was the first ever thrown in an expansion team’s debut season. When he left the major leagues he was the only pitcher to toss no-hitters in his first and last career complete games.

The two games were also similar statistically. In the 1969 game, Stoneman struck out eight and walked five. He struck out nine and walked seven in the 1972 one. Seven walks sounds high, but according to Expos manager Gene Mauch, they were the result of smart pitching rather than of poor control.

“Most of his walks tonight were because he made certain he didn’t give the batters anything decent to hit after he fell behind,” Mauch explained. “He simply said to hell with this and just gave them nothing to hit.”4

As with any no-hitter, a pitcher has to rely on his defense to make outstanding plays. Tim Foli made two quality plays to keep the goose egg in the hit column. The first came in the fourth when he went far to his right to snag a blooper off Milner’s bat that went behind third baseman Coco Laboy. The second came on the game’s last out when Hahn–a former Expo–-smacked a grounder that bounced crazily after hitting the edge of the grass. Foli was able to snare it and throw to Fairly at first for the out.

“Both [no-hitters] ended with tough groundballs to shortstop,” Stoneman said. “Foli stayed with it. He made the play look easy and it wasn’t that easy.”5

Expos management deserves kudos for arranging to show Stoneman the team’s appreciation the very next night between games of another Expos-Mets doubleheader. They gave him a $2,000 bonus check and two Air Canada plane tickets to anywhere the airline flew. His wife, Diane, a former Air Canada stewardess, received a gold watch and his batterymate, McCarver, received a $500 gift certificate.

For his part, Stoneman was happy to have pitched his second no-hitter in the milieu familier of Jarry Park for the hometown crowd.6 “I heard the people yelling. It felt great,” he said after the game. “Having pitched one on the road, I know that I’m happier to have pitched it here.”7

Years later, Stoneman evaluated the two no-hitters not just in terms of what they meant to the fans or the team, but what type of pitcher threw them. “There were a lot of similarities to both games,” he said, “but the pitcher who threw the first no-hitter and the pitcher who threw the second were two different pitchers in terms of experience.”8

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. It also appeared in SABR’s “No-Hitters” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin. To read more articles from this book, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-reference.com.

SI.com.

Box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON197210021.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B10021MON1972.htm

Notes

The Expos were reeling when they arrived to play a doubleheader at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on Thursday, July 26, 1973. They had lost eight of their last 10 games during a season-long 17-game road swing, to fall to 44-51 and fifth place in the National League East. Less than three weeks earlier, on July 7, the club had evened its record at 40-40, marking the latest date in the season that the Expos had possessed a .500 recordin their history. Philadelphia’s first-year manager, Danny Ozark, had inherited a club that was coming off two consecutive last-place finishes in the NL East, including a miserable 59-97 record in 1972. The Phillies had not enjoyed a winning campaign since 1967, when Mauch guided them to what was then a franchise record sixth consecutive winning season.

Philadelphia sent ace Steve Carlton to the mound. The 28-year-old southpaw was the best hurler on the planet the previous season, leading the majors with 27 wins, 346⅓ innings, 310 strikeouts, and an NL-best 1.97 ERA for the NL’s worst club; however he was struggling in 1973. His record stood at 9-10 and his ERA had more than doubled to 4.22 in 183⅓ innings. In desperate need of a starting pitcher, the Expos had called up Rogers on July 16. After beginning the 1973 season with the Quebec Carnavals of the Double-A Eastern League, Rogers was transferred to the Peninsula (Hampton, Virginia) Whips in the Triple-A International League, where he proved his big-league readiness by tossing four consecutive completegames. Rogers’ “career with the Expos got off to a rocky start,” wrote SABR member Norm King, when Canadian customs agents did not initially permit the pitcher into the country without his signed contract, forcing the rookie to spend an extra night in the US.4 The next day, contract in hand, he legally entered Canada to realize his dream. In his first big-league start, on July 18, Rogers yielded two runs on four-hit ball over eight innings in a no-decision against the Houston Astros in the Astrodome, which the Expos eventually won 3-2 in 10 innings.

A good crowd of 34,459 spectators turned out for the first game of the Expos-Phillies three-game series, and was treated to a classic scoreless pitchers’ duel through six innings. Carlton yielded only three hits (one in each of the first three innings), and permitted as many as two baserunners in an innngonly once when he issued consecutive two-out walks in the fifth inning. Not to be outdone by his veteran counterpart, the Missouri native Rogers retired 13 of the first 14 batters he faced. His only blemish was a walk to Del Unser, whom catcher John Boccabella cut down at second in a steal attempt. The Phillies nicked Rogers for their only hit in the game in the fifth inning. Light-hitting third baseman Jose Pagan, in his 15th and final season, “topped a ball down the third base line,” reported the AP. Third sacker Bob Bailey “tried to pick it up bare-handed but couldn’t hold” and Pagan was safe without a throw.5

The pitchers’ personalities stood in stark contrast to each other. Carlton, a nine-year veteran with 113 big-league wins, was enigmatic, had a reputation as a recluse who refused to speak with reporters, and seemed unemotional while pitching, tuning out distractions. Rogers was the exact opposite. “On the mound, he talks to himself,” said Pat Jordan. “He curses an inadequate pitch, exhorting himself to a superior effort. If he is particularly displeased, he remains in his follow-through for a moment, his feet firmly planted, and then executes a tiny leap into the air.”6 Rogers recognized that his emotions and intensity got him into trouble early in his professional baseball career and had worked hard to keep them in check. “I’m not exactly a stoic pitcher,” he said. “I’ve always been an emotional person. In the minor leagues it used to destroy my concentration.”7

The Expos scored the game’s first run in the seventh inning. Boccabella singled and moved to second on shortstop Pepe Frias’s sacrifice. Rogers recorded his first big-league hit on a hard-hit ball that drew first baseman Willie Montanez away from the bag. Rogers was safe when Carlton “failed to cover first on [the] infield grounder,” reported the AP.8Boccabella had raced to third, and later scored on second baseman Ron Hunt’s single to center. The Expos tacked on three more runs in a wild eighth inning that included two hits, three walks (two intentional), an error, a double-play, a sacrifice bunt, and two men left on base. Right fielder Ken Singleton smashed a double to center to drive in pinch-runner Mike Jorgensen for the first run of the rally; Frias’s bases-loaded single to left plated Bailey and Singleton to give the Expos a 4-0 lead.

Carlton tossed a complete game, but was not at his best in the loss, yielding eight hits and seven walks. In the ninth inning he picked off Jorgensen at first; however, in the ensuing rundown he committed the Phillies’ third and final error when he threw wildly, allowing Jorgensen to scamper to third. But the story of the game was Rogers, who closed out the game in impressive fashion.He set down 12 of the final 13 batters he faced, walking one, to pick up his first of 158 victories and 37 shutouts in a 13-year career. “I’m not disappointed,” said Rogers of settling for a one-hitter. “[The hit] came too early in the game to be thinking of a no-hitter.9

“I’ve done everything I’m capable of doing in these last two games,” added Rogers matter-of-factly.10

But Rogers had more in store for Montreal. Four days later he tossed his second consecutive shutout, a seven-hitter, against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. Rogers has the “most super concentration I’ve ever seen,” said Expos pitching coachCal McLish when asked to explain Rogers immediate success.11 In a magical debut season, Rogers dazzled baseball by going 10-5 with a sparkling 1.54 ERA in 134 innings, and finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting behind Gary Matthews of the San Francisco Giants.

In the second game of the double header, Expos starter Steve Renko (6⅓ innings) and reliever Mike Marshall (2⅔ innings in relief) held the Phillies to six hits in a 5-1 victory.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-Reference.com.

Retrosheet.org.

SABR.org.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI197307261.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B07261PHI1973.htm

Notes

That taste of life at the top was fleeting, because Montreal lost the nightcap, a 12-inning crusher. In a turnabout, a win slipped away from the Expos in the ninth inning. They did not hold the lead again in a September pennant race until 1979.

Montreal Gazette columnist Michael Farber later wrote, “The Expos stumbled onto a pennant race by default” in 1973.2 The division was dubbed the “National League Least” because all teams were struggling to get to or stay above the .500 mark.

Montreal reached .500 on September 15, when Jarry Park’s single-game attendance record of 34,331 was set.3 The Expos won their fifth straight on September 16 and drew within half a game of the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates, who lost to St. Louis. That set the stage for the twin bill against the Cardinals. A crowd of 20,160 arrived that cool, cloudy evening.

The first game began at 6:05 P.M. The starters were Rick Wise for St. Louis and hot rookie Steve Rogers for Montreal. Neither was especially sharp, but they still kept their teams in the game. Rogers allowed 10 hits and three earned runs in seven innings before giving way to iron-man reliever Mike Marshall, making his 83rd appearance of the season. Wise gave up three earned runs through eight innings.

In the second inning, the Expos loaded the bases with nobody out but got just one run as Tim Foli grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. Rogers (a .138 lifetime hitter) then struck out. St. Louis scored twice in the third, but Montreal’s Ron Fairly tied it in the sixth with a leadoff home run.

The Cardinals went ahead in the seventh. Lou Brock led off with a walk, stole second (his second theft of the game), reached third on catcher Bob “Scrap Iron” Stinson’s wild throw, then scored on Ted Sizemore’s shallow sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the seventh, however, Stinson tied it again with another leadoff homer. He said, “God, that felt good. I want to win so badly. I know I have trouble back there [behind the plate], but I can’t be in the right place for every pitch.”4

A remarkable subplot then unfolded. The brothers Felipe Alou and Matty Alou had played most of the year for the New York Yankees, but the Yankees dealt them both away on September 6. St. Louis picked up Matty; Montreal acquired Felipe, the club’s future skipper, on waivers for $50,000.

At the batting cage before the first game, Matty told Felipe, “We’re going to finish this pennant talk about the Expos tonight. We’re going to win the doubleheader.”5 Afterward, Felipe said with a laugh, “He was just kidding me. But after what he did, I think maybe he was serious.”6

Indeed, Matty’s pinch-hit RBI single off Marshall in the eighth gave St. Louis a 4-3 lead, which Wise took into the bottom of the ninth inning. However, after a leadoff single by Jim Lyttle, Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst brought in reliever Al Hrabosky. Recalled again from the minors that June, “The Mad Hungarian” had not yet become the Cardinals’ bullpen ace. But he did strike out over a batter an inning for St. Louis in 1973, something that was much less common then.

Rookie Tony Scott ran for Lyttle. He went to second when Hrabosky’s first pitch to pinch-hitter Clyde Mashore sailed over the head of catcher Ted Simmons. Mashore then tried to bunt but managed only a weak little popup. First baseman Joe Torre grabbed it with a slide that took him almost to home plate.

Hrabosky then struck out Foli. The Expos were down to their last out when Felipe Alou pinch-hit for Marshall. He later said, “I had it in my mind that I’m going to show Matty.”7 On a 2-and-2 pitch, high and outside — he called it “a very bad pitch” — Alou hit a sharp grounder between first and second.8 It looked like a sure base hit. But Sizemore, the Cardinals’ second baseman, stopped it with a headlong dive to his left. Sizemore rose to his knees but had trouble getting the ball out of his glove. He tried to get Alou at first anyway, but Felipe, who still ran well for a 38-year-old, was safe by a step.

Meanwhile, Scott was steaming around third base, waved on by coach Dave Bristol. Torre’s rushed throw home was high and wide, and Scott–sliding into Simmons and colliding heavily–scored the tying run. Alou still got credit for an RBI, but Torre was charged with an error because Alou took second on the play.

Mauch then sent up his third pinch-hitter of the inning, Ron Woods, to bat for rookie second baseman Larry Lintz. The crowd was “ready to come apart at the seams,” as Gazette sportswriter Tim Burke put it, but the suspense only intensified. The count went full, and then Woods fouled off seven pitches.

Finally, Woods hit a towering popup just short of the mound. Hrabosky, Torre, shortstop Mick Kelleher, third baseman Terry Hughes, and Simmons all called for the ball. No one took charge. The ball dropped for a base hit and Alou–running hard all the way because he’d seen such plays many times in his career–came around to score the winning run. After the game, Mauch praised the veteran for his presence of mind, saying that a less experienced player might have conceded the out and headed for the dugout.9

Red Schoendienst said, “It was a foolish mistake. My team fell asleep on that play. At the last second, Hrabosky yelled at Hughes to catch it, he made a lunge and missed. The pitcher should have called the man much earlier.”10 Hughes also took his eye off the ball, distracted by Torre’s late charge.11 Expos manager Gene Mauch observed how unusual that was for Torre, who had been in control of hundreds of such popups during his career.12

“It was the nicest hit of my career,” said Woods. “It was probably the shortest too.”13 Expos president John McHale, a religious man, said that “something spiritual” guided the comeback.14

The win lifted Montreal’s record to 75-73. The Pirates went into their 8:05 P.M. game against the New York Mets at 74-72. The winning-percentage calculation needed five digits — .50676 to .50684 — to show how slightly Pittsburgh was ahead.

Awareness of the standings was high. Ron Fairly said, “In 1970, we had a slogan, ‘Win 70 in ’70 — since when is that a goal to be proud of? That was always tough for me, coming through the Dodgers’ system, where we expected to win a hundred games. Expansion teams are going to take a beating until the minor-league system produces, and it’s not a lot of fun.

“But this was a different area for a lot of the guys. They got excited, and I remember the fans talking about it too.”15

The opener in Montreal ended a little before 9 P.M. At Pittsburgh, the Pirates drubbed the Mets, 10-3. That game included a 75-minute rain delay. Thus, it was pushing midnight when the final score was posted at Jarry during the second game. The Expos had been watching the scoreboard–as Fairly said, “You always do that. Anybody who tells you they’re not isn’t telling the truth. At the same time, you have to win your game.”16

Rain also delayed the nightcap for 72 minutes in the top of the 12th. It didn’t end until nearly 2:00 A.M., past press time for many newspapers — some September 18 headlines still showed Montreal tied for first.17

The team then faded out of the race but was not mathematically eliminated until it lost its final game on Sunday, September 30. “We had a shot at it,” said Fairly, “and it would have been a great story.”18 For his efforts, Gene Mauch was named NL Manager of the Year for the third time.19

Expectations, however, had leaped. Veteran Montreal sportswriter Dink Carroll stated, “The task … won’t be entirely completed until the Expos win the pennant, which could happen as early as next year because the club has become a solid contender.”20 The smell of success ended the innocent phase of the romance between city and ballclub. As Carroll’s colleague Ian MacDonald later wrote, “The fans weren’t about to accept only hustle and effort now. They wanted results.”21

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Bangor (Maine) Daily News.

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON197309171.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B09171MON1973.htm

Notes

On June 11, 1974, the Expos arrived at ParcJarry to play the second game of a three-game set with the reigning National League West champion Reds on a positive note. The night before, they had defeated the Big Red Machine, 3-1, in a game interrupted twice by rain and ultimately called with one out in the top of the ninth inning. More importantly, the victory gave skipper Gene Mauch’s squad a psychological boost, evening its record at 25-25, good for third place in the NL East. The Reds, after a horrible start (13-14), were on a roll, having won 19 of their last 28 games. Skipper Sparky Anderson’s slugging club was aiming for its fourth division crown in five years, but faced an uphill struggle. Despite the hot streak and the second best winning percentage in baseball, they trailed the Los Angeles Dodgers by eight games.

In the previous offseason, the Expos made a startling trade, sending disgruntled fireman Mike Marshall to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for 34-year-old Willie Davis. The 30-year old, right-handed Marshall, arguably baseball’s best reliever at the time, was coming off two superb years. He posted ERAs of 1.78 and 2.66, set a big-league record with 92 appearances in 1973, and finished third and second respectively in Cy Young Award voting.But the outspoken pitcher clashed with Mauch and management. Davis, who had thus far amassed in excess of 2,000 hits in his 14-year career, had held down centerfield for the Dodgers since 1961;he was named to his second All-Star team in 1973 and also earned his third consecutive Gold Glove Award.

The trade benefited both teams. Davis gave the aspiring Expos some much-needed “star power,” andled the club in ’74 in practically every offensive category, including hits (180), runs (86), doubles (27), triples (9), RBIs (89), batting average (.295), and stolen bases (25); while Marshall set a standard for relievers that as of 2014 was still unmatched, with 106 appearances and 206⅓ innings pitched to become the first reliever to win a Cy Young Award.

A sparse crowd of 12,450 spectators showed up at Jarry Park on a cool, windy Tuesday evening. The Expos struck first when their leadoff hitter, leftfielder Mike Jorgensen, connected for his eighth hit in his last 15 at-bats, a solo shot in the bottom of the first offReds starter Roger Nelson. A 30-year-old righty with a 28-32 record in parts of eight big-league seasons, Nelson retired 17 of the next 20 batters, yielding just three hits. “[He] had the Expos eating out of his hand through six,” wrote MacDonald.4

Cincinnati took a 2-1 lead on Johnny Bench’s two-run double in the third inning off Dennis Blair, Montreal’s 20-year-old rookie making just his fourth career start. The Reds chased the ineffective Blair (three earned runs, five hits and four walks in 3⅔ innings) in the fourth with Nelson’s run-scoring single, and tacked on single runs in the fifth and seventh innings to increase their lead to 5-1.

The game’s momentum changed in the bottom of the seventh. Nelson “couldn’t get … his breaking stuff (over),” said shortstop Tim Foli.5 With runners on first and second, catcher Barry Foote slapped a two-out single, driving in third baseman Bob Bailey and opening the floodgates, as the next four batters reached base. After pinch-hitter Ron Woods drew a walk from reliever Tom Hall to load the bases, Jorgensen rapped an RBI single. Foli greeted the normally reliable Pedro Borbon by sinking his teeth into a fastball for another bases-loaded single, driving in two runs to tie the score, 5-5. Willie Davis, who had hit at a .366 clip (41-for-112) in his last 28 games, broke the contest open by sending Borbon’s inside offering careening like a missile over George Foster’s head in right field for a three-run homer and an 8-5 Expos’ lead. “The pitch looked like it might hit him,” said Bench after the game. “That guy must use a matchstick for a bat. He got around so quickly.”6

The Expos, an average club on offense that finished seventh in batting average and runs scored in 1974, continued their unexpected offensive outburst by scoring a franchise-record eight runs in the eighth inning. Following run-scoring singles by Foote and reliever Chuck Taylor off Reds reliever Dick Baney, skipper Sparky Anderson brought in southpaw Mike McQueen to face the left-handed-hitting Davis with two out and the bases loaded. The plan backfired as Davis connected for the fourth and final grand slam of his career, extending Montreal’s lead to 14-5. Two batters later, first sacker Ron Fairly, who had played with Davis on the Dodgers’ three pennant-winning teams of the 1960s, smashed Montreal’s fourth homer of the evening, tying a team record, to make it 16-5. All of the clouts went to right field, aided by a swirling wind.7

Chuck Taylor, who replaced Marshall as the Expos’ closer in 1974 and turned in a careerseason (61 appearances and a 2.17 ERA in 107⅔ innings), pitched the final two innings, yielding two hits and a run in the final frame. He ended the 2-hour, 55-minute contest by punching out Foster and Cesar Geronimo. Expos hurler Tom Walker, who gave up three hits and a run in two innings of relief, was the beneficiary of the Expos’ offensive surge and got the win. Tom Hall was charged with the loss.

“I can never recall a team putting innings back to back like that,” said an incredulous Mauch after the game.8The Expos scored 15 runs in the seventh and eighth innings on 10 hits and 5 walks, and finished the game with 14 safeties. “To be so far behind and come on to win — that’s fantastic,” added an excited Davis, whose 7RBIs tied a team record held by Bob Bailey and John Bateman. “To keep on scoring when you’re ahead, that’s great.”9 

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-Reference.com.

Retrosheet.org.

SABR.org.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON197406110.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1974/B06110MON1974.htm

Notes

The Expos had a reasonable 3-5 record when they faced the Cubs in the second of a three-game series. Steve Rogers had gone 8⅓ innings on April 19 in a 4-3 Montreal win over Chicago’s Bill Bonham. After an off-day on April 20, Geoff Zahn of the Cubs took the mound against old pro Woodie Fryman. Zahn was the author of his own misfortune in the first inning. He walked the first two Expos hitters, Pepe Mangual and Nate Colbert. A groundball fielder’s choice by Mike Jorgensen forced Colbert at second but allowed Mangual to reach third. Zahn then muffed a comebacker to the mound by right fielder Gary Carter, which scored Mangual to give the Expos a 1-0 lead. The Cubs took a short-lived 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first when Jose Cardenal homered with leadoff hitter Rick Monday, who had singled, on base.

The Expos rallied in the top of the second. Barry Foote led off with a single and reached third on Foli’s first hit of the game, a line-drive single to left. Pete Mackanin got the Expos’ third consecutive single, which drove in Foote and sent Foli to second. Fryman moved the runners up with a sacrifice bunt. Both Foli and Mackanin scored on a single by Mangual. The Expos led 4-2 and were on their way to a rout.

Foli got his double in the third. With one out and new Cubs pitcher Tom Dettore on the mound, Larry Parrish singled to left and moved to third on a double by Foote. Foli’s two-bagger drove home Parrish and Foote, giving the Expos a 6-2 lead. The clubs traded solo shots in the fourth, with Mike Jorgensen going yard for Montreal and Cubs catcher Steve Swisher responding in the bottom of the inning. Then came the fun-filled fifth.

Wrigley Field didn’t have lights back in 1976, so games in those days could still be called because of darkness. This particular game had already started 15 minutes late because of the weather, and had endured rain delays of 30, 31, 20, and 27 minutes. When the rain began falling in the top of the fifth, the Expos wanted to get through the inning quickly so the game would be official.

“The game became almost a comedy in the fifth when rain was threatening,” wrote the Des Plaines Herald. “The Expos were trying to get the inning over to make the game official while the Cubs were doing everything they could to prevent it.”2

The last thing the Expos needed was baserunners. Leadoff hitter Foote followed the script by grounding out to first. Foli was up next and swung at the first pitch from new Cubs pitcher Paul Reuschel, even though it was in another area code. He swung again and hit a screamer down the left-field line. He started running, touching first, then, second, then third — the triple was in the books — but kept on running and was an easy out at the plate.

“I wanted to get five innings finished,” admitted Foli. “That’s why I kept running. We needed the outs.”3

Mackanin was the next batter. When he let the first two pitches go by, players in the Expos’ dugout started jumping and screaming to get his attention and remind him that speed was of the essence. He swung at the next pitch and smacked it to right-center for another triple. Unlike Foli, Mackanin held up at third. Fryman was the next batter and he hit a single to drive Mackanin home. But instead of holding up at first, Fryman tried to stretch the hit into a double. Now, Fryman was 36 years old at the time and could never be confused with Lou Brock or Maury Wills — he was out by 10 feet, ending the inning. Umpiring crew chief Billy Williams was not happy with the Expos’ actions, and told the two managers between innings to stop the shenanigans.

“Montreal made a farce of the game,” Williams said later. “I’m referring to the baserunning of Woodie Fryman and Tim Foli. There was no way I was going to let that go further. Fans pay to see teams and the players do their best.”4

The Cubs, for their part, wanted to pour molasses on the proceedings to prevent the game from becoming official. Leadoff hitter Rick Monday kept stepping out of the batter’s box to clean his spikes, and when they weren’t clean enough, he walked over to the on-deck circle to go over them with a towel. These delaying tactics didn’t work and the game continued after the Cubs went down in order.

In the top of the sixth, Reuschel stymied the Expos’ plans for a quick inning by letting them score at will. Mangual led the inning off with a single. New center fielder Jerry White homered. (In the bottom of the fifth, Mangual had replaced Colbert in left and White took Colbert’s spot in the lineup.) Jorgensen and Carter both walked, and Jorgensen scored on a single by third baseman Larry Parrish. The score now was 11-3.

Don Carrithers replaced Fryman in the bottom of the sixth, and came through the inning unscathed. The umpiring crew suspended the game at that point not because of the weather, but because of darkness, which meant that the game had to resume the next day. The hot-tempered Foli went ballistic, charging at Williams and arguing that the game should be called on account of rain. That would have meant the game was official and didn’t need to continue the next day. To his credit, Foli was more concerned about the win than the personal milestone of hitting for the cycle.

“It is ironic that Foli was furious when that game was suspended because of darkness with the Expos ahead 7-3 [sic],” wrote Ian MacDonald. “He was the most volatile of the Expos who wanted the game called because of rain.”5

Before play resumed the next day, Foli brought the lineup card out for Expos manager Karl Kuehl so he could apologize for his behavior the previous day. When the action started again in the seventh, Buddy Schultz was on the hill for the Cubs, while Carrithers was still in there for Montreal. In the bottom of the inning, the Cubs made a minor dent in the Expos’ lead when Monday drove home shortstop Dave Rosello to make the score 11-4. Foli got that run back with his history-making home run in the top of the eighth. The Cubs scored too little too late in the bottom of the ninth. Third baseman Bill Madlock drove home two runs to end the scoring. The Cubs got some revenge and ended a five-game losing streak at the same time when they beat Montreal 5-4 in the regularly scheduled game.

Foli’s cycle was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise forgettable year for Montreal. Kuehl was fired on September 3 after compiling a 43-85 record. Expos management eventually got tired of Foli’s tantrums and traded him to the San Francisco Giants on April 27, 1977, in an even-up deal for shortstop Chris Speier, who, ironically, became the second Expo to hit for the cycle.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-reference.com.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Webster, Gary. When in Doubt, Fire the Skipper: Midseason Managerial Changes in Major League Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2014).

Box scores for this game can be found on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN197604210.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1976/B04210CHN1976.htm

Notes

The Expos had not had a winning season during their first eight years and were coming off a 106-loss season in 1976. Manager Williams hardly seemed bound for the Hall of Fame. The Expos had lost 25 of their first 40 games despite the presence of three future Hall of Famers (Tony Perez, Gary Carter, and Andre Dawson) with potent bats. This was offset by an incredibly unreliable pitching staff when Steve Rogers was not on the mound. On May 29 Dan Warthen got the start as the Expos faced the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium before 15,219 spectators. Pitching for the Cardinals was Bob Forsch, who came into the game with a 7-1 record.

Those who dawdled on their way to the ballpark essentially missed the turning point of the game. The outcome was decided in the top half of the first inning as the Expos exploded for eight runs. The output tied for the Expos’ second highest single-inning run total since they first took the field in 1969.

With one out, Chris Speier walked and was moved to second base by an Ellis Valentine single. A double off the bat of Gary Carter scored Speier. A single to right field by Warren Cromartie scored Valentine and walks to Del Unser and Andre Dawson brought Gary Carter home with the third run of the inning. Larry Parrish, who as the game progressed became his own one-man wrecking crew, contributed to the first-inning onslaught with an opposite-field single to right field that scored his team’s fourth and fifth runs. His hit convinced Cardinals manager Vern Rapp that it was not Forsch’s day, and he was replaced by Buddy Schultz. A single by Dave Cash plated Dawson with the sixth run. Parrish came around to score the seventh run of the inning when Cardinals right fielder Jerry Mumphrey overthrew third base as Parrish advanced on Cash’s single. Speier’s single brought Cash home with run number eight.

Wild Dan Warthen, who averaged more than 10 walks per nine innings in 1977 (43 in 38⅔ innings), was staked to an eight-run lead. Would it be enough? With his parents and brother in the stands, having traveled to St. Louis from Omaha, Warthen went to work.

The Cardinals wasted no time chipping away at the Expos’ big lead as Mumphrey led off the first inning with a double and came around on a one-out double by Tony Scott. The second inning was quiet as both squads went down in order.

Parrish had his second at-bat in the top of the third and banged out his second single of the afternoon with one out. He advanced to second on a bunt by Warthen and scored when right fielder Mumphrey was unable to handle a fly ball off the bat of Dave Cash for his second error of the game. In two trips, Parrish had come around to score on Mumphrey errors. In his next three trips, such help would not be needed. The Cardinals’ Scott homered in the bottom of the inning, but the score through three innings was 9-2 for the Expos. In the top of the fifth, the Cardinals brought in their third pitcher of the game, John Urrea, and with one out Parrish came to the plate for the third time and homered to left-center field to extend the Expos’ lead to 10-2.

At the time, Parrish was perfectly content with his 3-for-3 performance. “Well, you know, after you get three hits you kinda say, ‘Hey, this is a good day.’ You get placid,” he said after the game.1

In the bottom of the inning, the Cardinals, aided by two Warthen walks, manufactured a run to cut the deficit to seven runs. Mumphrey walked and advanced to second base on a single by Garry Templeton. A walk to Scott loaded the bases and prompted manager Williams to consider removing his starter. Warthen indeed was one pitch from a trip to the showers when he got Ted Simmons to hit into a double play that scored Mumphrey. Warthen said, “I just took a little off the fastball. He (Simmons) hit the ball pretty good, but was out front.”2 Warthen got the third out on a grounder by Roger Freed, and there was no further damage.

Cardinals manager Rapp was not about to use any more pitchers than necessary and Urrea was still pitching in the seventh inning when two of his pitches were rerouted to the seats by the Expos. Del Unser’s two-run homer scored Warren Cromartie, who had singled to lead off the inning. Parrish then came to the plate. Tony Perez, who was sitting the game out after appearing in each of his team’s first 40 games, caught Parrish’s ear. ( “C’mon man, what you did today? Three hits. Now that’s nuthin’. Now you gotta get four.”3 Parrish took Urrea deep for his second homer and the Expos had a 13-3 lead.

But Parrish’s day, and Perez’s needling, were not yet complete. As he prepared to leave the dugout for his fifth at-bat, with two out in the ninth, he heard Perez exclaim, “What’s four hits, man? That’s all you got today. Go get another one.”4 There have been more dramatic situations but nonetheless Parrish, urged on by Perez, came to the plate for the fifth time in the game and slugged his third consecutive homer, this time off Butch Metzger, giving the Expos a 14-3 lead.

Meanwhile, Warthen was cruising along like a ship in the Bermuda Triangle. He walked six batters, and had he looked over his shoulder, he would have seen Billy Atkinson getting ready to enter the game at a moment’s notice. Warthen allowed his second homer and fourth extra-base hit of the game as Mike Anderson lifted one out leading off the bottom of the ninth. That finished the scoring, and three outs later Warthen had his second win and his first (and only) complete game of 1977.

The victory was Warthen’s 12th and his last in the major leagues. Later that season he was sent to the Phillies and his major-league career ended in 1978 in Houston. He pitched in the minors until 1982.

Gary Carter was the first Expo to hit three consecutive homers, doing so on April 20, 1977, against Pittsburgh. He said, “It’s a great thrill. I know because it happened to me.”5

Parrish, with his 5-for-5 performance, raised his batting average from .237 to .264. The next day, in the first game of a Memorial Day doubleheader against the New York Mets, manager Williams moved Parrish up from eighth in the batting order to sixth, and Larry singled in each of his first two visits to the plate to extend his consecutive hit streak to seven hits in seven at-bats. But his bat cooled off later in the season and his batting average dropped from a high of .271 on May 30 to a final.246.

In the early history of the Expos, Parrish became the third player to have five hits in a game and was the first Expo to score five runs in a game. The 23-year-old Parrish would go on to play for 15 major-league seasons and hit 256 career homers, and would again hit three homers in a game the following season against Atlanta. He played with the Expos through 1981 and was traded to the Texas Rangers in 1982 for Al Oliver. With the Rangers, he had two more three-homer games.

This article appeared in “Au jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos” (SABR, 2016), edited by Norm King. To read more articles from this book, click here. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author consulted:

Baseball-Reference.com.

MacDonald, Ian. “Parrish Bashes in Three Homers, Leads Expos, Warthen to Victory,” Montreal Gazette, May 30, 1977.

MacDonald, Ian, “Heavier Bat, Light Banter Made Parrish Powderkeg,” The Sporting News, June 18, 1977.

NewspaperArchive.com.

“3 Parrish Homers Doom Cards 14-4,” State Journal-Register (Springfield, Illinois), May 30, 1977.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN197705290.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1977/B05290SLN1977.htm

Notes