Montreal Expos: The First Canadian MLB Team

On April eighth, nineteen sixty nine, baseball would ever be changed when the Montreal Expos played their very first game, giving Canada its first major League team in baseball history, winning their first game against the Mets, in starting a tradition that the last decades of capturing a nation's hearts and joys, only to be ripped out years later when they left the country, never to return again. Today, we're going to dive into the highs and how the Montreal Expos got started as the first Canadian team in Major League baseball history today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. Ame than Reees your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge as we dive into the Montreal Exposed and today's trim question to listen out for is what player got the first hit in Expo's history. Listen throughout the episode. If you miss it, I will give it to you at the very end. Now, Montreal was not new to baseball. They've had baseball teams dating back to the eighteen hundreds, and the Montreal Royals were actually a minor league professional team connected to Major League Baseball starting in eighteen ninety seven, and they would later become the farm team for the Dodgers, helping produce great talent like Roy Campanella, Tommy and LaRussa, Don Drosdale, and most notably Jackie Robinson. And they were the first team with a major league affiliation to break the color barrier in baseball with Jackie Robinson in nineteen forty five, helping lead Jackie to break the barrier in the majors as well. Fortunately, in nineteen sixty the team folded due to issues with the stadium, but that didn't mean that Montreal wasn't in love with the game of baseball. In nineteen sixty seven, at the Winners Meeting in Chicago for Baseball, Gary Snyder presented a formal bid for Montreal to host a major league franchise in Montreal was one of six cities buying for one of the two slots available in the National League. Montreal's proposal boasted the growth of sports enthusiasm and the success of the Expo in nineteen sixty seven, which was a World's Fair that symbolized the city's culture and economic viability. Despite the initial excitement of the franchise, it faced significant financial hurdles as many of the original investors backed out as they realized the cost that actually was involved in starting a new franchise in baseball, and the National League actually threatened to revoke Montreal's franchise unless they could make the initial payment. In nineteen sixty eight, that's when Charles Bonferman aired to the Seagram Empire, which if you don't know, they were one of the largest conglomorates in Canada and known for making alcoholic beverages, and he stepped in as the principal owner as he was motivated by civic pride and the desire to lead a major project of his own, and provided the necessary funds and stability to keep the franchise alive, so he was able to make that payment in Montreal, as the cost for team would be ten million dollars as they were awarded won the National League franchises along with San Diego and Bufferman hired an experienced baseball executive in John McHale as the team's president and Jim Fanning as the general manager, and in June nineteen sixty eight, they participated in their very first amateur draft, were they able to pick up some players like Manny Moto, Mudcat Grant and Murray Willis. In early nineteen sixty nine, they brought in Rusty stab from the Houston Astros to beat that first face of the franchise, Rusty Stubbs, and he was a two time All Star with the Houston Astros and he also became the first All Star for the Montreal Expo and it would be a three time All Star with Montreal Expos have his number ten. Jersey retired and joined the Montreal Expos Hall of Fame. So as for the name, Montreal was still looking around. They wanted to go by the Royals, as it was that team that Montreal had for so many years. The problem was Kansas City was already the Royals, so they had to figure out a new team name. They had lots of different names up in the air, but they actually picked the name the Expos as that was the main reason they were able to get a team. They used that they hosted in nineteen sixty seven as really the driving force for their pitch to become a team. And so they went by the Expos and it worked as a name that could be pronounced both in English and French. As we had toally remember in Canada, especially in Montreal, there's a lot of French speaking, and they used clever to his in their logo as well as they had that classic red, white and blue M that's on their logo standing for Montreal, but in that logo there's a small E for Expos and AB for Baseball. So with the logo, with with the front office in place and they have a team star and a team ready to go, Montreal was now had a team ready. The problem was they also needed a stadium. So originally Montreal actually wanted to have a stadium and have a dome, but there was a lot of financial issues in doing that. And remember when we did our episode on the Astrodome as the first indoor stadium. There was a lot of issues and it took a lot of money to do. And this was back around that same time, so the technology was there to do it, it just was Montreal ready to flip the bill to build this and they were not. See they were also getting ready for the nineteen seventy six Olympics and they had all their mon need tight into that. So when they announced they were going to join the Olympics, the Montreal Expos expected to take over one of the stadiums they were going to build for the Olympics, but that was seven years away. They needed an option. Now incomes Jerry Park, which was a pretty small park by today's standards that only held three thousand stands and they needed a minimum of twenty eight thousand in order to host MLB games, So they quickly had to adjust their stadium in order just to make it legal to play for a Major League game. And the stadium itself was very quickly put together and not a great stadium overall by MLB hinders. It really showed kind of how cheap the Expos were at the time and how quickly they had to just get something together right away as their plans for a dome fell apart and they needed something. So they renovated, adding stand into the outfield, adding larger bleachers, putting in a scoreboard behind the right field fence, and at a capacity for twenty eight thousand, five hundred players, and it worked for a little bit. But this was an outdoor stadium in Canada, so during the winner, as September and October came along, it started to get really cold. But luckily in nineteen seventy seven they were able to move into Olympic stadium after the Olympics full time, they would have a dome stadium to play in for those cold months in those which really kind of helped them along in their journey. So now they have the team together, they have the front office, they have a stadium. It's time to play their very first game, which actually was not in Canada. It was in New York, facing off against the New York Mets at Shay Stadium on April eighth, nineteen sixty nine. And this game was more than just a debut. It really symbolized the expansion of the US across the borders. I know right now it may not seem like something that we were trying to do, but in sports, we are trying to open up the teams to be a more global game, and baseball was becoming a more global game. We've talked about players from Japan and the World Baseball Classic. Baseball really is a world game, and this really showed that Canada had success and there were and still are a lot of players that do come from Canada to play in Major League Baseball. So for the ceremonial first pitch, the Montreal Mayor Geane Debreaux. Throughout the first pitch. Even though then the game was played in New York, it signified a great start for a new era in baseball, and of course it was the first game in the season, so all the opening day's festivities were going on. Fans were crazy, and the Mets were a newer team as well, and they had never won an opening game before. And in the first inning, the Expos come out swinging, leading to a two zero lead, where Bob Bailey gets the first hit and extra base, hitting a double and submitting himself in the lore of Expo's history. But the Mets responded in the second inning, getting three runs, taking a brief lead. Then Don mcgir Don McGuinn hit a two run home run off Tom sever hitting the first home run in Expo history, and they would continue to build their lead throughout the game, scoring eleven runs, taking a eleven to six lead into the eighth inning, but the met would rally back, coming back in the ninth, bringing it to within one run off a Duffy Dyer three run home run, but unfortunately it was too little, too late, and Carol Dembarra came out of the bullpen and would strike out Rod Gasper with three pitches giving him the save and giving Montreal their very first win in team history, and became huge headlines in all news outlets in Canada as they were the first Canadian team to win a game and play a game. It was huge in the significance of Montreal in Canada and the sport of baseball as it continued to expand, and just a few days later, on April fourteenth, they would play their first home game game in Canada. Now, it was April in Canada and weather always has its issues and they were actually shoveling snow off the field in order to make it playable and faced off against the Saint Louis Knols, where they had an eight seven victory, winning the first major league home game in Canada history. Now, despite their great start of the season, fortunately, they had a lot of struggles that first season and would end up with a fifty two and one hundred and ten record, tying the San Diego Patras, who also started that same year. But they would continue to get better and better, and they would have a lot of bright spots as Bill Stoneman would throw a no hitter that season and Rusty Stuke would finish the season with twenty nine home runs and seventy nine RBIs with a three to zero two batting average and be nicknamed La Grande Orange. While playing in Canada. Despite the struggles on the field, the Expos had success with fans, having over a million fans come to the home games, averaging nearly fifteen thousand per game, which was good enough for seventh in the major leagues, showing the passion that Montreal had for baseball and this led to a lot of good years for baseball and in nineteen seventy seven they would be joined by the Toronto Blue Jays, having another team in Canada, and in nineteen eighty one they would win their first division title, winning the NL East and they made their first playoffs, but the team struggled financially and had lots of stadium issues. They did move into that Olympic Stadium, but it needed lots of renovations and they struggled to keep a competitive team on the field, and after the nineteen ninety four strike, the teams was struggling financially more than ever and they started to look for options to sell the team and eventually move it and they would move to Washington, d C. Becoming the Nationals. Leaving Montreal again a void of baseball. Unfortunately, this is how it got. They had thirty five seasons of baseball in Montreal, having success, having multiple Hall of Fame players play for them, such as Randy Johnson, Payne Martinez, Vladimir Garero. But there's always challenges being a new team and being in a country where most of your players are from the United States, it can always be hard to have success. We've seen this with other teams. The Toronto Blue Jays have had more success than the Expos, but have also struggled with maintaining players and in other sports such as basketball with the Toronto who struggled with the Vancouver Grizzlies and has struggled at times to get players to play up for the Toronto Raptors. It can be a challenge with these expansions playing in other countries, but it doesn't mean we should stop trying. The game of baseball has grown even more and there's talks about even expanding again into possible Canada, Mexico or even other countries. As baseball across the world has gotten better, we've seen more international players have success in Major League Baseball than ever before. Maybe this Exposed experiment showed how successful it really could be, and we will always remember that classic m logo for the expos I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please like them, subscribe wherever you are and if you want, leave us a reviewed, tell us your favorite baseball logo and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer today's triviy question, what player got the first hit in Exposed history? That player was Bob Bailey, who hit a double in their very first game against the Mets.