In Memoriam: Jacques Doucet
AUGUST 28, 2026 — For 33 seasons, Jacques Doucet was the radio voice of the Montreal Expos, handling play-by-play duties on the French-language network. From Jarry Park to Olympic Stadium, Doucet witnessed most of the highs and lows spanning the existence of the Expos franchise between 1969 and 2004. He was also largely responsible for inventing and popularizing many French-language baseball terms.
After joining SABR in 2005, Doucet made regular appearances at Quebec Chapter and Hanlan’s Point (Ontario) Chapter meetings in Canada. Doucet died at the age of 86 on Thursday, August 27, 2026.
Doucet called more than 5,500 major league games, including almost every memorable moment in Expos history, like Dennis Martinez’s perfect game in 1991. In recognition of his remarkable career, he was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020. He also received the Canadian Hall’s Jack Graney Award in 2004 and was honored by the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame and the Montreal Expos Hall of Fame.
After the Expos left town, he called games for the Québec Capitales, then for the Toronto Blue Jays on TVA Sports, finally retiring for good after the 2022 season.
Born in Montreal in 1940, Doucet began covering the Expos as a sports writer for the La Presse newspaper when they began play in 1969. He also worked as an official scorer for National League games in Montreal. In a 2005 interview with SABR’s Ryan Chamberlain, Doucet explained that translating the game into French was a challenge in the early years.
“A lot of people forget that there was baseball in Quebec before the Expos (with the Montreal Royals, a longtime Dodgers farm club),” Doucet said. “We did improve on the language over the years. I can recall in 1969 that the local brewery that was our main sponsor with the Expos, O’Keefe Brewery … had a kind of symposium of sportswriters all across the province. We all sat down with everybody, and established a kind of French vocabulary for most of the American terms. Over the years, we did polish on that … but that (symposium) was the stepping stone.”
He also taught French to many of the Expos players and coaches over the years. “It was fun,” he said. “A lot of the Latin boys like Dennis Martínez and others really enjoyed it … they were regulars. We used to have about a one-hour course per city we were visiting. The (team) would lease a suite or a ball room or something like that and supply me with a blackboard. We used to get seven or eight guys who would show up on a fairly regular basis and I would teach them words to get along if they went to a gas station, or a supermarket, or something like that.”
Doucet has also been a finalist for the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award.
In an article he wrote for SABR’s Calling the Game on baseball broadcasting history, Doucet said his only regret was being unable to call a World Series game involving the Montreal Expos.
Originally published: August 28, 2026. Last Updated: August 28, 2026.