Baseball Reminiscences (2)

In 1979, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the Earl Weaver Orioles in a classical good vs. evil battle.  To me there was nothing benevolent to say about those Orioles, Earl Weaver and his type of managing.  On the other hand, the Willie Stargell era Pirates are my favorite team of all time.  That group really had the aura of a genuine championship team and, maybe even more importantly, had players with both character and personality.  It is satisfying to me that, when I wear the 1979 black Pirate retro hat that my son bought for me in Cooperstown, people still occasionally stop to tell me how great or how cool that team was.  There is something about that Pittsburgh team that generates good feeling among fans, even sometimes among those too young to remember that Series (as I found when my son was playing college ball).  Every Pirate follower from that epoch remembers the reward for outstanding contribution to the team: the distribution of stars to add to the player’s cap. The picture of  Stargell that I have here must certainly be from the beginning of a season because a starless Willie is inconceivable.  An acquaintance of mine, Steve Oleschuk, scouted for the Pirates back then and was rewarded with a World Series ring, his claim to fame in the baseball business. The possession of that ring is a badge of pride, a recognition of somehow being a part of that Pirate family.

So I guess that (as a Pirate fan) I was an exception in Montréal because the Expo teams of that period were good and competitive. There were fans at the Stadium. Interest in baseball was high.  In the late 70’s and early 80’s, I attended a fair number of games, either with my wife or with friends.  What Montréal baseball fan could  forget the base stealing of Ron LeFlore and Rodney Scott, the hitting of the great outfield of Valentine/Dawson/Cromartie, the stellar defense of Gary Carter, the pitching of Steve Rogers?  We often sat in the upper deck at the Stadium, the same upper deck that was almost always closed in the last days of the franchise in this city.

I usually chose my games based on the opposition.  I wasn’t a Cub fan, but didn’t want to miss great starts (with 7 innings of ground balls) from “Big Daddy” Rick Reuschel and the always interesting at-bats of Dave Kingman.  In those days, the Cardinals had a couple of good base stealers and their games against the Expos often had moments at which the opportune steal made a serious difference.  I remember going with my father to a Cards game in which Expo legend Tim Raines stole his first base in the majors. George Hendrick, Garry Templeton, Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Bruce Sutter, Ted Simmons were players to remember.  And no one in Montréal can forget that there was a time when Joaquin Andujar seemed unbeatable.

Manny Sanguillen

Of course, I was most interested in the visits of the Pirates and the Giants. It was obligatory that my father and I sit behind first base when Willie McCovey made his last tour of the league in 1980.  Jeffrey Leonard always impressed me with his attitude toward  home runs. I saw current Giants’ broadcaster Dave Krukow pitch in Montréal, although I can’t really recall if he was with Chicago or the Giants at the time.  I was at the stadium when Willie Stargell hit what was supposed to be the longest home run ever hit in Olympic Stadium.  After they put a yellow seat in the deck at the place that the ball finally landed, it was a personal obligation to take all my baseball fan friends visiting from out of town to sit in that seat and marvel at the distance the ball had traveled. The pitcher who gave up that moonshot, Wayne Twitchell, whose career with the Expos was rather dismal, exposed himself to ridicule when he blamed his bad performance that day on the drinking water in this area.  The water here may not be the best, but Twitchell was no Nolan Ryan either.  To tell the truth, I rarely had pangs of guilt when Stargell, Madlock, Parker, Sanguillen and other Pirates beat up Expo pitching.  And, if any one asks me who was the best Expo hitter I ever saw, I have to make sure that I mention the transplanted Pirate Al Oliver.

Another great team from that era was the Philadelphia Phillies, whose roster was populated with legends like Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Tug McGraw, Bob Boone, Larry Bowa, Garry Maddox and Steve Carlton. Rogers/Carlton pitching match ups were among the best in baseball.  I was at Olympic Stadium with some colleagues from work on a Friday night in late September, 1979 when an uncharacteristic performance by Phillie pitcher Dickie Noles essentially knocked the Expos out of the pennant race.  140,000 fans attended that weekend series.  One of my favorite Expo moments was in a game when Steve Rogers was cruising along in full control and had retired Mike Schmidt three times that evening.  Rogers wanted to make it four in a row, elected to face Schmidt, and he hit a monster shot that led to the Expos’ downfall. I always admired Rogers for challenging the Phillie great.  It was a baseball moment that transcended winning or losing.

In the late 70’s I also developed a kind of benevolent fan attitude toward the Atlanta Braves.  They were going through some bad years (both in performance on the field and in attracting fans at home), but Phil Niekro’s starts in Montréal were not to be missed.  He could put the first five hitters of a game on base and not be anywhere near the plate with that knuckleball, then be in total control for the next 5 or 6 innings.  Games with Niekro and the Expos’ Ross Grimsley could have been played without the enforcement of the batting helmet rule.  At the the other end of the velocity spectrum, J. Rodney Richard of the Astros was king.  I was fortunate to see him pitch here once.

In those years, I was happy  to live in a city with a major league franchise.  Having grown up with baseball on the radio, I enjoyed the broadcasts by Jacques Doucet and Claude Raymond.  Attending games with friends and family was agreeable, but it took on a little different dimension when my son (born in 1983) started playing baseball.

The picture of my father in a classic Expos’ jacket dates from the late 70’s. This windbreaker was actually bought at the Expos’ office in Olympic Stadium. It was a time before massive sports’ merchandising was rampant.