August 2- Montreal Expos

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post on the Montreal Expos. Unfortunately, there is a good reason for that. In the 35-year history of Expos baseball the team only wore four caps: two of them served as the team’s every day game caps, one was their batting practice cap and the other is one they wore for a short period of time when they played their home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico when they were looking to relocate in 2003. The latter cap is one that I have been trying to track down for quite some time.

The funny thing about this photo is that my friend John Beare (@Interstate19) is the only person I know of to own this cap. Not to mention this photo (his) is the only one I have been able to find on the internet.

The reason I bring all of this up is because there are too many great stories about the Expos organization that really need to be told, even ones that may seem insignificant to the most casual of baseball fans. So, I decided to stray wayward from one of my rules, I decided to buy an Expos Cooperstown Collection cap from Lids that truly defies the concept of being a Cooperstown Collection cap. Back on February 16^th I wrote about the true Cooperstown Expos cap, the one they wore from 1969-1991 which looks almost identical to this with the exception that blue panels stretching around on either side of the front white panels are red.

With this cap I had debated on writing about Dennis “El Presidente” Martinez, most of which revolved around to 100 wins he had as an Expo which put him in the rare club of one of nine players in Major League Baseball history to win at least 100 games in both the American League and the National League. The other hot topic of course is the fact he is the only person in Expos history to throw a perfect game. Yah, you could debate that the Washington Nationals are still technically the Expos, at which I would retort with, “Go to Montreal and state your case with any still-heartbroken fan and see where that gets you.” On a personal note, the crazy thing about the perfect game, which I recently found out about, is that my childhood friend Bryan Gildner’s brother Joel was at that game with his father at Dodger Stadium on July 28, 1991. Since Joel now lives in Austin, Texas and because I had already marked up this cap, I decided to postpone that story for a while, at least until another awesome custom Expos cap comes into my possession. Hopefully soon.

6/5/86: I came across this date accidentally and am forever grateful that I did. Like with a lot of my other posts which rely heavily upon a specific date in a team’s history I found this on one of the random “This Date in Baseball” Web sites that I sift through regularly. The story really starts back in the 1940s at the time when The United States of America and Canada had entered into World War II. Major League Baseball players were lining up at the local enlistment offices in droves, ready to do what they could to help out with the war effort. With most of the notable names overseas the owners did their best to capitalize on making money by still promoting baseball by any means necessary. By any means necessary this of course also meant that they didn’t hesitate to organize an all-female baseball league. It was called the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and it lasted 12 years from 1943-1954. For five seasons one of the best players in the league’s history was a woman named Helen Callaghan Candaele St. Aubin from Vancouver, British Columbia who went by the shortened name Helen Callaghan.  

As a rookie with the Minneapolis Millerettes Callaghan hit .287 in 111 games, for second in the league. She also finished third in total bases, hits, runs and stolen bases (112), while tying for third in home runs. The Millerettes could not compete attendance-wise with the Minneapolis Millers, so the team moved in 1945, becoming the Fort Wayne Daisies. That year Callaghan had her best season, batting .299 to lead the AAGPBL. (The league average was .198 that year.) She tied for the league lead in homers (three), led in total bases (156), was second in steals (92), first in hits (122), second in runs (77) and first in doubles (17). Callaghan was often called the "Ted Williams of women's baseball". The league was not yet giving out Player of the Year or All-Star honors, but it is clear she was a candidate for both. Ft. Wayne finished second and advanced to the championship, but fell four games to one despite a .400 mark from the younger Callaghan. Callaghan slipped drastically in 1946, hitting just .213, even though league averages rose about 10 points. She still tied for third in steals with 114. After missing the 1947 season due to illness, she returned for part of 1948 after getting married and having her first child. However, that year she hit just .191 as a bench player. She finished her career with Kenosha in 1949 as Helen Candaele, bouncing back to a .251 mark, tied for seventh in the league. She was ninth in total bases (113), eighth in steals (65), sixth in doubles and tied for eighth in triples. In a five season career, Callaghan was a .257 hitter (355-for-1382) with seven home runs and 85 run batted in 388 games, including 354 stolen bases, 249 runs, 35 doubles, 15 triples and 221 walks while striking out 161 times. Her on-base percentage was approximately .359, while she slugged .319.

The now Candaele gave birth to five sons. Her son Kelly produced a short documentary back in 1987 for PBS entitled A League of Their Own, which covered the history of the AAGPBL. The documentary inspired director Penny Marshal to make a film with the same name in 1992. One of Candaele’s other sons, Casey, decided to follow in his mother’s footsteps and make it big in professional baseball. 

Casey was born on January 12, 1951 and was raised in Lompoc, California which is northeast of Santa Barbara. He attended the University of Arizona and was even a part of the 1980 College World Series team which also featured Craig Lefferts, Dwight Taylor and the tournaments Most Outstanding Player Terry Francona. Candaele went undrafted but the Expos offered to sign him as a free agent in August of 1982 which he happily signed. From 1983 through 1985 Candaele worked his way up the minor league chain starting with the Class-A West Palm Beach Expos to the AA Memphis Chicks in his first season, the AA Jacksonville Suns in 1984 until finally landing with the AAA Indianapolis in 1985. Candaele’s numbers were pretty decent during his ascent; however, due to the fact that he was a second baseman, shortstop and outfielder, the Expos didn’t have room for him on the roster as the likes of Vance Law, Hubie Brooks, Tim Raines and future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson stood in his path. The only way that Candaele was going to make it to the Majors was if someone got hurt or he had the best season of his career to motivate general management to call him up. Well…

When 1986 rolled around Candaele got off to a blazing start at the plate. He was hitting over .300 and showing strong discipline at the plate with very few strikeouts and a decent amount of walks. When June rolled around the front office couldn’t ignore his progress and made the call for him to pack up and head to the show. On June 5, 1986 Candaele was put in to pinch hit for Dan Schatzeder, thus making him the first and only mother/son combination to play at the top level professionally. Candaele promptly struck out to Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Charles Hudson, but it was still a pivotal moment in baseball history.

Candaele spent 30 games with the Expos that year before getting sent back down. He resurfaced the following season hitting .272 with 122 hits and 23 RBI while only striking out 28 times in 138 games. He finished in fourth place for the Rookie of the Year Award that season. Candaele played for seven more years at the Major League level; one more season with the Expos, five with Houston Astros and two with the Cleveland Indians despite his final season coming in 1997. He spent quite a bit of time in the minors. Nonetheless, Candaele will forever be etched into the baseball history books.

#44- Carl Morton was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 18, 1944 and grew up in West Tulsa, where he played baseball on the same Webster High School team as future major-leaguer Rich Calmus. He went to college at the University of Tulsa before moving on to the University of Oklahoma where he continued his baseball dreams as an outfielder for the Sooners under head coach Jack Baer. In 1964 Morton was signed as a free agent by the Atlanta Braves who wanted to convert the outfielder into a pitcher. From 1965-1968 the Braves kept him in their minor league system where he showed signs of promise. His best season came in 1968 as a member of the AA Shreveport Braves where he went 13-5 with a 2.72 ERA and 130 strikeouts; however, the Braves didn’t have enough faith to hang onto him as the first leg of the 1968 Expansion Draft on October 14^th. See, back in 1968 the Expansion Draft was broken up into two legs; the first was for the Expos and the San Diego Padres in which they could only pilfer through National League roster to build their teams. The second leg was held on October 15^th between the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots in which the two could only raid American League teams. Fun fact about that draft is that only one future Hall of Famer was in the mix, Hoyt Wilhelm. Anyway, Morton was selected by the Expos with the 45^th overall pick.

Without much of a farm system established, the Expos threw Morton out to the wolves on April 11, 1969 where he only lasted eight games before getting hurt. That year he went 0-3 with a 4.60 ERA and 16 strikeouts in five starts. With a taste of the Major Leagues out of the way, Morton was determined to do better the next season when he got back to 100%. Not only did he do that, Morton was phenomenal in 1970. In 37 stars, 43 games overall, Morton went 18-11 with a 3.60 ERA and 154 strikeouts. He unfortunately walked a league-high 154 batters, but it didn’t matter. Morton was voted as the NL Rookie of the Year and even finished ninth for the NL Cy Young and 27^th for the NL MVP. While the rest of his career never quite matched the gusto of his 1970 season, Morton went on to play two more seasons for the Expos before getting traded to the Braves for Pat Jarvis before the 1973 season.

Morton played four decent years with the Braves, finishing with 15 or more wins in his first three years, but he only won four games in 1976. As a result of his falloff year the Braves traded him to the Texas Rangers along with Roger Moret for former-AL MVP Jeff Burroughs. Morton, sadly, never pitched in the Majors again, and only spent one last season in the minors before hanging it up for good at the age of 33.

With his playing career over Morton moved back to Tulsa. On the morning of April 12, 1983 Morton went out for a jog and when he arrived at the home of his parents he suffered a heart attack in their driveway and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. He was 39-years-old. One of the more tragic realities that came from Morton’s death involved another death less than a year before his passing. On August 2, 1979 New York Yankees former AL MVP and beloved catcher Thurman Munson was killed in a plane crash. Back in 1970 Munson had also won the Rookie of the Year honors in the AL. It is the only time in baseball history that two Rookie of the Year winners from the same year would come to premature endings.

June 23- Jacksonville Expos

It all started a few weeks ago when I got a text message from my friend John Beare (@Interstate19) some time around 9:30 in the morning. I had literally just woken up when I read, “Did you get an email from New Era?” which sent a light surge of adrenaline through my body and motivated me to immediately see what he was talking about. Sure enough, there it was. He and I had both been invited for a weekend visit to New Era’s headquarters in Buffalo, New York. I quickly texted him back to let him know that I had received the same email. There was something in the bottom of the email which I may have misread about confidentiality, which I took as “be sure to keep this a secret.” I didn’t bother asking about it and decided to that the best course of action was to remain quiet until further details were provided. I also kind of figured that it would be better to keep any mention out of public view for the sake of anyone who may become sad or upset by not receiving an invite as well. The last thing I wanted to do was rain on anyone’s parade.

My plane flew out around 6:30 AM on the morning on June 23^rd, which meant that I had to wake up somewhere around 3:00 AM to wake up and get ready only to then hike a mile-and-a-half to the train which then took an hour to get to the airport. Luckily for me, I was smart enough to print my boarding pass off at home so that all I had to do was get through security as soon as my train pulled into the airport. I was surprised to see the security lines so short. Normally when I’m in a hurry I’m “blessed” with having to wait over 45 minutes to get through the metal detectors. No this time. I got through in about 20 minutes and still had about an hour-and-a-half to kill before my plane started boarding. Having not eaten breakfast before I left the house I decided to get a breakfast burrito from the Mexican joint next door to my gate. The other thing I decided to do was grab an AM ale as well since the airport is the only place in Oregon one can legally purchase alcohol outside of the designated hours (7 AM- 2:30 AM). The beer was pretty good, a Drop Top Amber Ale; however, my burrito was questionable at best. 

I had ordered it to contain eggs, cheese and bacon only, but it arrived with ham instead of bacon. One could easily argue that both products come from the same animal and I really had nothing to complain about. To that person I say, “You just don’t know swine my friend.” I sucked it up and devoured about 75% of it before I got my fill. It was also in this moment that my stomach decided to go through a turn of the “mumbles and grumbles.” Having to be on a plane for the next six hours, with a brief layover in Chicago, I knew this was not going to make the trip an easier… but I managed.

The plane landed in Buffalo around 3:30 PM EST. I quickly rounded up the one bag that I brought with me on the journey and headed out into the terminal. New Era had hooked it up with a ride from the airport so I dashed out as soon as I could just in case someone else had landed close to the same time as I had who also happened to be catching the same ride as me. Sure enough, this became a reality, and this is how I met Van (@VanLe23). Van hails from Seattle, which is about 180 miles from my stomping ground of Portland. He has been an avid collector for a few years longer than myself, specializing in a lot Seattle-based team caps which he displays on his YouTube page under the user name: Van Le. The whole time I walked out of the terminal and down to the car I had meant to snag a photo of the driver holding a sign with my name as I had this series of photos and tweets I wanted to send out as homage to John McClane and Argyle in the film “Die Hard.” Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Sorry. What did happen was that Van and I chatted the whole way to the hotel, getting to know one another as neither of us had spoken to one another prior to that moment. In fact, it wasn’t until we were in the car together that I came to the realization that we were on the same plane together from Chicago to Buffalo; which is all made funnier by the fact that we both said that we were looking for anyone wearing a New Era Cap.

We arrived at the hotel in about 15-20 minutes, passing by Coca-Cola Field where the Buffalo Bisons, the AAA affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, play during the third game of their four-game series against the Durham Bulls. After the driver dropped Van and me off at the hotel I can only assume he was in a hurry because he got right back into the car and took off as I was trying to hand him a $5 tip. Or, things are done just a little bit different in Buffalo. When we got inside I let Van take the lead to check-in first. Once the desk clerk brought up his information on the screen, she turned around and picked up two bags off of the floor and handed them to Van. She then did the same for me. We then hopped in the elevator up to our rooms to decompress a little bit, as well as to see what was in store for us.

The Hotel Lafayette is a pretty classy establishment. It has a very classic, turn-of-the-century (20^th) look about it in the lobby, but then becomes very refined with a mix of hipster once you get into the rooms. It reminded me of the hotel that my girlfriend Angie (@sconnieangie) and I stayed in when we visited Tampa in April, but with a larger bathroom. I had a about an hour to kill before everyone else arrived meet in the lobby at 5:30, so I took the time to crack open my gift bags in case there was a note or anything I needed to look over before heading out. Sure enough, there was. The first bag was a little white goody bag, which contained a letter from one of our hosts from New Era as well as a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot sauce and some chocolate sponge candy, both which have obvious ties to the Buffalo area; a very nice touch. The other bag contained this…

an explosion of New Era-related paraphernalia which included a lanyard (which I needed), a belt (which I really needed), a water pouch, Sharpie (awesome!), headphones, buttons, a mini New Era Cap and a Two-spot travel case with a custom New Era Cap and a Bisons cap inside. Not a bad way to start the trip.

Not too long after I examined my gifts I got a text from John that he had arrived to the hotel after his long flight from Los Angeles. John and I had become well-acquainted through Twitter over the last year, but we had never met. Unlike most people I meet over the internet, I wasn’t too worried with John. I put a lot of faith in New Era on this one and didn’t think I was about to come face-to-face with an ax murderer or something. Kidding. In fact, John and I pretty much continued our conversations without skipping a beat, on top of the “nice to meet yous” and bro hugs that we exchanged as well; standard practice really. But the one thing that caught me off guard was a gift that John had for me. This…

a Modesto Athletics jersey from around 2005. At that immediate moment I looked like an ass because I didn’t have anything in return for him, but then again, that’s kind of the way gift-giving usual works, unexpectedly. I do have a little something-something on standby for John in the future though.

5:30 was only a few minutes away so John and I grabbed what we needed from our rooms, left what we didn’t and headed down to the lobby to meet the rest of the crew. As I mentioned at the top, because I didn’t say anything publically about this event, I didn’t know who I would be meeting. John, on the other hand, had been chatting with a few of these guys for a while and had nothing but great things to say, so I wasn’t too worried. 

The first person I made sure to meet first was our hosts Erin, Seth and Katherine for setting the Fan Appreciation event up. Then it was on to the other collectors: Ricky Ruby from Atlanta (@RickyRuby), Andrew Mitchell from Toronto (@Amitchell_416), Chris Cornolo from Milwaukee (@ccornolo) and Derick Chartrand from Montreal (@LeKid26), as well as John and Van who I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, three of the other members of crew hadn’t shown up yet, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. The first thing that I noticed was that Derick was wearing a Cooperstown Collection Oakland Athletics cap while I was rocking this Jacksonville Expos lid. It was pretty much guaranteed that we’d be good buds throughout this experience. With all of us accounted for at the moment, it was time for the field trip to get underway.

For the first part of our trip we all packed into two SUVs and made our way to Niagara Falls. I had only been to Buffalo one time prior in my life, coincidentally enough, it also happened to be for a New Era-related event. It took place in August of last year and my total time in the city was approximately three hours as I had to rush to Cleveland immediately afterward for an Athletics/Cleveland Indians game. So with that, I didn’t have time to really check out the city or the surrounding area. I was pretty excited to go, that’s for sure. The SUV I was in consisted of John, Andrew, Derick, Seth behind the wheel and me. It was a cool little 25-30 minute drive. We swapped stories, told a few jokes and I even managed to totally embarrass myself as I came to the realization that Seth and I had met around the end of July in 2012 in Toronto at a Blue Jays game in which they were playing the Athletics. In fact, I was in a beer line, had just gotten done doing the Bernie Lean after a Brandon Inge home run when he spotted me from afar. Classic! But apparently the Molson Ice, or whatever I was drinking, proved too much and killed my memory until mid-trip. Womp womp. Once that moment of awkwardness subsided, it was back to New Era Cap stories and shenanigans ranging from border security issues (guilty) to general sports smack talk.

When we got to the Falls we all piled out and stuck together in a surprisingly organized manner. I guess all those lessons we learned in elementary school really did pay off into our adult years. We went to the visitor’s center first, just to grab a few photos before heading down to rail just to the right of the top of the falls. The view that I had seen from film and television always made it seem as it were a lot taller, but upon closer inspection it wasn’t that bad, just wide. Andrew and Derick were talking about how both had seen Niagara Falls before, but only from the Canadian side, which sat about a half-mile away. In fact, this trip was Derick’s first time out of the country as well as being on an airplane. We all took turns snapping photos and just enjoying the moment.

I’m a sucker for natural bits of awesomeness like this, so I was a happy camper. After about 15 minutes we headed to the opposite side, which took a little bit, but it gave us time to get to know one another. 

From left to right: Ricky, John, The Shark, Chris, Van, Andrew and Derick

Andrew and I hit off pretty quick as we talked about when and where we’d get a New Era tattoo, as well as what celebrities we looked like. He started with saying I looked like RA Dickey (totally plausible) and I said he looked like Tim Duncan, which he’s heard all of his life. It makes sense too; the man is 6’7’’. That’s how it went, for everybody. We all hit it off immediately and truly enjoyed each others’ company.

After the Falls we headed back to Buffalo for dinner at an Italian joint that had opened just a few days prior to our arrival. I’m a bit hazy on this part, but at some point between when we left the hotel and headed to Niagara Falls someone mentioned that we should use a specific hashtag on Twitter and Instagram for our trip. Being the over thinker that I am, I stewed on it for a few hours before spouting out “Crew Era” before we got to the restaurant. To be honest, I thought everyone was going to shut it down. Turns out the exact opposite happened; nice, simple, to the point and catchy. When we got to the restaurant we ordered a round of drinks before we broke bread. Katherine did all of ordering and everything was served to us “family style,” in that everything was brought to the table in waves and essentially consisted of everything on the menu. Around the time thee appetizers started hitting the table, Alex Mendoza (@Type1SXC) from Chicago and Leif Johnson (@Permabox) from New York City arrived, with only Gary Thomas (@24HClnc) from the Bay Area unable to attend due to a family-related matter. Alex sat down next to me and Leif took to the table behind with a lot of the other collectors, while Andrew, Van and I sat with our hosts. Here’s a brief sample of what there was to eat…

Yah! Filling to say the least. Even with the addition of Alex and Leif the atmosphere never skipped a beat. It was reminiscent of all the dinner parties I through for my friends back in Eugene while I was attending the University of Oregon. With everyone being so busy I was always nice to gather once-a-week to catch up, eat and just enjoy one another’s company. What’s most amusing about all of this is that this was just the prelude. We still had an action-packed day ahead of us at New Era headquarters.

Our night at the restaurant concluded with the Discovery Channels broadcast of the Nik Wallenda tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon, which was especially ironic as he had done the same thing across the mouth of Niagara Falls just the year before. Go figure that we would all be watching it after having just visited it. I always love when weird little things like that come together.

It was only about 10:30 PM and none of us were ready to turn in for the night. The hotel had a bar in the back of the lobby that we were going to go for a nightcap; however, it being closed put a little bit of a damper on our fun. I kid you not; every bar within about a 15-20 block radius was closed. No being the type of motley crew that gives up easily, Seth and Katherine steered us in the right direction of a Walgreens that was still open and sold beer. Onward we hiked, picking up the classiest beers a Buffalo Walgreens has to offer: Labatt Blue, Sam Adam Summer Ale and Miller High Life. I’ll let you decided on who picked out the High Life. Unfortunately they didn’t have any 40 ouncers of Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor, so I had to settle for a standby. *sad face* John decided to stick with Coca-Cola, a move you just can’t knock a guy for, and a move I wish I had copied.

The Lafayette was equipped with an outdoor lounge area in the center of the hotel, but up one flight, and surrounded by all of the interior rooms. It’s amazing that we stayed out there as long as we did before the desk clerk said he received too many complaints, but it was totally worth it. We grabbed all the benches we could, forming a circle with all of the beer resting nicely on the coffee table in the center. I timed it; we were out there for two hours just shooting the breeze, cracking jokes, wishing that Gary could have been there with us, going back-and-forth about great games in MLB/NBA/NHL history, and of course, gabbing away about New Era Caps.

When we wrapped things up we all had the “buzz” feeling that we all experienced when we were kids around Christmas time. Our hosts had done a fine job of not spoiling anything, but we all new that great things were to come… and hangovers, massive hangovers awaited us in the morning (except John). Me especially because I was up for another two hours writing articles for the Web sites I write for. Gaaaaahhhh!!!

Onto the hat! I have John to blame for this one. Back in February he made me jealous with an old snapback Jacksonville Expos cap from the mid-to-late 1980s. Even though it was a snapback, it was gorgeous. I’ve always been a sucker for any variety and style of Expos hats, especially ones that are game-style specific which, if you didn’t know, is an incredibly small list. Shoot, I’ve all ready written about two of the three they wore on the field throughout their 35-year history on February 16^th and April 6^th. The problem with trying to track down a Jacksonville Expos cap is that they, or so I thought, weren’t being made anymore. That is until the day that Angie and I went to the New Era Miami Flagship Store.

I didn’t have any intentions of buying anything that day as my money was pretty tight, but I knew better not to believe that I was going to reserve any kind of restraint. We were greeted within seconds by one of the employees, the manager I think, named Woo. He quickly remarked that I looked familiar and knew straight of the bat that I was a huge hat collector based on the numbers I mark my caps with. To really test this he asked if I could name the teams of the new caps that had just gotten in. I could (Anaheim Ducks, Asheville Tourists and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans). After we chatted for a bit I made my way toward the wall… where I literally froze like a deer caught in headlights. I asked Woo if they had a 7 3/8, they did, and any hopes of showing restraint jumped out of an airplane without a parachute and a time bomb strapped to its chest (feel free to steal that). I did my best to explain the importance to Angie as to why I was so pumped to find this cap. She smiled, told me she loved me and that she was happy I found it. I know there was a bit of sarcasm in there, but I also knew that she knew how much of a big deal this was to me. Not settling for one cap, I also got the Milwaukee Brewers “YOUnifom” cap which I wrote about on June 4th.

Sadly, this is not the correct color pattern for the actual Jacksonville Expos cap, but that really doesn’t matter. The original ones look like this…

I snagged this photo from John’s blog entitled, “Futility Live Here,” as that was literally the first photo to pop up when I did a search on Google; which only goes to show how rare of a find it is. It’s funny how the subtraction of the blue from the original “M” Montreal logo can still make the graphic look awesome and fitting at the same time. The Jacksonville affiliate, which has been known as the Suns since the 1991 season, originally started out as a AAA club from 1962-1968, but was demoted to AA in 1970 (no, I did not forget 1969), which it has been ever since. From 1985-1990 the team was known as the Expos, while every year before and after that stint the team has been known as the Suns.

If you have an extensive knowledge of any of the Montreal Expos teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s then you probably know that I could have gone with any of the big name guys to mark up my cap. I felt that would have been a little too easy and opted instead to do one well-known, one lesser-known, and one guy who very few have ever heard of. This is how I roll.

#16- Whoever the photographer for the Expos was really made my job incredibly difficult when it came to figuring out exactly what number Marquis Grissom was. Here’s what I mean.

Not just in this card, but as well as in his “Baseball America” Top Prospects card Grissom is shown kneeling down with the handle of the bat blocking the first half of the number affixed to the front of his jersey. I kid you not; it literally took me 23 minutes to confirm that the #1 was sitting behind that bat. So thanks a lot, all-around.

Anyway, Grissom, born in Atlanta, Georgia, was the 76^th overall (third round) pick in the 1988 amateur draft by the Expos out of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. He had been considered a prospect as both a pitcher and an outfielder, but the Expos decided to have him abandon the mound and work solely as a position player. He made his professional debut with the Jamestown Expos of the New York-Penn League that fall and advanced quickly through the system which included brief stops in Jacksonville and the Expos’ AAA affiliate the Indianapolis Indians. Grissom made him Major League Baseball debut on August 22, 1989, seeing action in 26 total games while hitting .257 in 74 at-bats. With his rookie status still in tact, Grissom started 1990 in Indianapolis for five games and played in another 98 up in Montreal, hitting .257 again with three home runs, 29 RBI and 22 stolen bases which was good enough for a seventh place finish for the Rookie of the Year award. Grissom’s star would only continue to get brighter.

Grissom would play all the way until the players’ strike in 1994 shortened the season and removed any chance of the playoffs and a World Series. This was especially heartbreaking in Montreal as the Expos had the best record in baseball (74-40) and were projected favorites to win their first title in franchise history, let alone make the playoffs for only the second time and win the National League Eastern Division title for the first time. Unfortunately for the Expos, Grissom’s contract was up and he opted to test the free agent waters rather than re-sign with the team who drafted him. He instead jotted his John Hancock on the dotted line with the Atlanta Braves.

In his last few years with the Expos Grissom compiled a rather stellar list of accomplishment: He led the league in stolen bases twice (76 in 1991 and 78 in 1992), made the NL All-Star team twice in 1993 and 1994, won two Gold Gloves in 1993 and 1994 (two more in 1995 and 1996 with the Braves) and cracked the top-15 in NL MVP voting in 1992-1994. He hit .279 with 54 home runs, 276 RBI, scored 430 runs and stole 266 bases during his tenure with the Expos. In Jacksonville He hit .299 with three home runs, 31 RBI and 24 stolen bases in the 78 games he played in.

#23- John Vander Wal grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan and graduated from Hudsonville High School in Hudsonville. He attended Western Michigan University. He was drafted by the Montreal Expos in the third round of the 1987 Major League Baseball Draft. Of anyone who rolled through Jacksonville on the way to the Majors with the Expos, Vander Wal definitely spent the most amount of time there.

Half-way through the 1988 season Vader Wal was promoted to Jacksonville after a 62-game run with the West Palm Beach Expos of the Class-A Florida State League. From 1988-1990 Vander Wal played in 206 games in Jacksonville, hitting .275 with 17 home runs and 78 RBI. The following season Vander Wal finally got his break in The Show as he debuted with the Expos on September 6, 1991, wearing the same number he wore in the minors. Vander Wal played two more seasons in Montreal before moving on to the Colorado Rockies in 1994, where he would spend all of four seasons and part of another, although he never recorded more than 151 at-bats or appeared in 105 games in any of those seasons. On August 31, 1998, he was traded to the San Diego Padres for a player to be named later and went on to appear in the World Series with the Padres, recording two hits in five at-bats.

Vander Wal spent 1999 in San Diego before moving on to the Pittsburgh Pirates in a 2000 trade that brought Al Martin to the Padres. While playing for the Pirates, he posted his best season, appearing in 134 games, and batting .299 with 24 home runs and 94 RBI. In 2001, Vander Wal was traded to the San Francisco Giants, who later traded him to the New York Yankees for Jay Witasick. Vander Wal was a part-time performer for the Yankees in 2002, before moving on to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003, and the Cincinnati Reds in 2004, where he recorded just 6 hits in 51 at-bats for a .118 average.

Vander Wal played 14 seasons in the major leagues. 13 of these seasons were with National League clubs, where the pinch-hitter is a much more widely used tactic in the absence of the designated hitter. Vander Wal holds the modern Major League Baseball single-season record for pinch hits, with 28 in 1995 while playing for the Colorado Rockies. In his career, Vander Wal contributed 129 pinch hits, which is one of the highest totals of the modern era, behind Lenny Harris' 212. Vander Wal was inducted into the Western Michigan University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003.

#53- As I mentioned above, unless you’re die-hard Expos fan I doubt you’ve ever heard of John Trautwein. Why is he so special? 

Well, Trautwein, a pitcher, was playing Rookie League ball in Helena, Montana with the Brewers of the Pioneer League in 1984 when his contract was purchased by the Expos at the end of the season on October 17^th. From 1985-1987 Trautwein bummed around the minors, playing in West Palm Beach in 1985 and the beginning of 1986 before being promoted to the Class-A Burlington Expos of the Midwest League and then to Jacksonville for the last bit of the season. In 1987 Trautwein had, not only the greatest season of his professional career, but the greatest ever recorded in Jacksonville Expos history. That year Trautwein went 15-4, the most wins and best win percentage by any pitcher in their six-year history, accompanied with a 2.87 ERA and 85 strikeouts.

On December 7, 1987 Trautwein was obtained by Boston from the Expos in the Rule 5 draft, but was returned by the Red Sox to Montreal in 1988. Hours later, he was sent by the Expos to Boston in exchange for Victor Rosario. In nine relief appearances for the Red Sox, Trautwein posted a 0-1 record with a 9.00 ERA with no saves, giving up 17 runs (one unearned) on 26 hits and nine walks while striking out eight in 16.0 innings of work. After that, he was demoted to AAA Pawtucket for the remainder if his career which ended in 1990.

Trautwein currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Susie, and his three children. He and his wife Susie are the founders of the Will to Live Foundation in honor of their fifteen-year-old son who took his own life in 2010.

April 6- Montreal Expos

If there’s one thing I learned today, it’s that it is incredibly difficult to write and research during an 18-hour train ride from the Bay Area to Portland, Oregon when you are sitting in the aisle seat next to a high school-aged kid who constantly gets up to go to the bathroom. I mean, I’m no big city urologist, but I think that kid should get checked out for early onset prostate complications, if such a thing exists. The biggest problem in my travel fiasco is that my train left from Richmond, California around 9:47 PM PST and I didn’t have a speck of internet until I reached my final destination of Union Station in downtown Portland. This posed a few problems as

1. I couldn’t research any of the players I’m writing about.

2. I wasn’t able to post my story.

But even at that, as I mentioned above, trying to type in such a rickety area because an incredible nuisance for me. Thus, the biggest lesson I learned is to get my ass writing way before I get into any kind of a moving vehicle when I have deadlines (even personal ones) to meet!

I first came across this cap in March of 2012 after my friend, and fellow MLB Fan Cave Dweller hopefully Bryan Mapes (@IamMapes) sent me photo from the local Lids in Brookfield, Connecticut. I had seen this hat before, but not since Andres Galarraga sported it in this photo from Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 

This Montreal Expos hat was only used for one season in 2002 as part of the first line of mesh batting practice caps which New Era introduced during spring training. Unlike the batting practice caps of the last eight years or so, these were 5950 style; in that they had a higher, stiffer crown, unlike the low profile 3950s. The one that I’m wearing in the photo above, as well as the one that Mapes had shown me was a replica wool style, which I much prefer. I was never the biggest fan of the mesh style caps; however, I did enjoy the color patterns as well as the original logo choices that New Era decided to produce for the vast majority of them. Obviously in the case of the Expos the logo is the same one they’ve used since their debut season in 1969 through their final year in 2004.

I’ve only worn this cap a handful of times; mostly because I’m honestly not a big fan of the way the color red looks on me. This is something you may notice if you ever shuffle through my photos of Facebook or Instagram (@shakabrodie). I always prefer wearing darker colors because they’re easier to match. Plus I have dark hair, a dark beard, green/blue eyes and very pasty skin. All those years of living in the Pacific Northwest have turned me into a bit of a cast member from “Twilight” reject to say the least. Wearing red makes this way more apparent. The one thing that I do love about this cap is the personal history it shares between my best friend Sam Spencer and myself.

Back in 2005 Sam served as my assistant manager at the Woodburn, Oregon Just Sports (@JustSportspdx) location where I served as store manager for two-and-a-half years. I lived about 15 miles north of Woodburn in the heavily Mormon populated town of Woodburn, a suburb of Portland. Sam unfortunately was still living with his parents up in Vancouver, Washington at the time and crashed at my house most nights since The Couve was an hour away from the store. On the nights in which he crashed we always made sure to get buy a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, something for dinner and end the night with two to three games of All-Star Baseball 2003 for my old school XBOX. While I could have upgraded to later versions, I always found that the 2003 edition was the most fun for the sake of nostalgic lineups. Case in point: the Montreal Expos.

For those of you who have never scoured for hours playing any sports-related video games, the one thing you need to know is that whatever year was tagged on the game you’re playing, the company always used the rosters from the last date of the previous year. Therefore, in the 2003 version of All-Star Baseball, we rocked hard with the 2002 Expos squad. Both of us were especially miffed at how the 1994 Expos got the shaft on account of the players strike, so we figured we’d do the next best thing and make sure the Spos got themselves a well-deserved trophy to the tune of going 158-4 on the regular season and only losing one game in the playoffs; Game 2 of the ALDS versus the Houston Astros. Those jerks! It took us three nights a week for four months (plus several simulated games) to pull it off, at which all we got, was a congratulatory message and a weak-ass celebration from the computer-generated players on the field. We both looked at each other with disgusted looks on our faces, as if we could have done way more important things with our lives.

I finally picked this cap up at one of the Lids locations near Times Square in downtown Manhattan. It was kind of funny because Mapes had promised to buy it for me, but I ended up getting this and like six other hats in the process. Mapes saw what I was doing and gave me a wicked, “What the hell!?” Since I had all ready paid there wasn’t much I could do, so he offered to buy me another cap on the rack which I didn’t all ready won. Luckily they had a mid-1990s Milwaukee Brewers cap I didn’t own, but that post will come at a later date. When I got back to the apartment that MLB had hooked us up with in SOHO I couldn’t help but laugh when I thought back on Sam and my four month quest. With that, I knew exactly which numbers to throw on this cap.

#14- As I mentioned above, Andres Galarraga is the one person I remember most to wear this cap, but more important, Galarraga was the National League MVP throughout the season that Sam and I had played with the Expos. Sam and I had a foolproof system every time we played. I took care of the pitching, and he handled all of the guys in the field. When it came to batting, I took all of the odd batters and he took all of the even ones. Galarraga was a consistent pinch hitter for the Expos that season; however, in OUR season, Galarraga was the starting first baseman over Lee Stevens. Don’t get me wrong, as a loyal Expos fan, I love Lee Stevens, but in the video game world Lee Stevens can suck it. We needed the clutch power hitting; which Galarraga did to the tune of a .654 batting average with 74 home runs and 167 runs batted in. Yah! We were setting all sorts of records which unfortunately were not recognized by Major League Baseball. Damn shame too. In reality, Galarraga had only gone .260/9/40 that season, so in a way, Sam and I truly improved history.

#23- Javier Vazquez is one of those weird pitchers in MLB history who had moments of absolute brilliance and moments of absolute horror throughout his career. He was originally drafted in the fifth round of the 1994 draft out of Puerto Rico by the Expos and hung with the team from his debut in 1998 through the end of the 2003 season. During his six-year run he posted a 64-68 record with a 4.16 ERA and 1076 strikeouts, the largest chunk with one team for his career. He never won a single award, nor was he ever really in the running for one during his time in Montreal. For his career Vazquez only made one All-Star appearance in 2004 with the New York Yankees and finished in fourth place for the NL Cy Young in 2009 with the Atlanta Braves, the only finish he had for the award. While Vazquez can at best be viewed as a mediocre pitcher, the one thing that people tend to forget about is that he was one hell of a hitter (for a pitcher). Vazquez is a career .204 hitter with one home run and 29 RBI to his name. However, in the video game world, it was his start against the Cleveland Indians on June 21 at the Big O that Vazquez made history.

The thing about batting in All-Star Baseball 2003 is that the hitting zone for each player fluxuates in two ways: the contact zone is in the form of an isosceles triangle and ranges in size based on one’s batting average. The power zone is in the form of an equilateral triangle inside the contact zone and you can use the option of only using that in order to crush more home runs. The other thing is that you can tilt the angle of the contact zone to direct the ball wherever you want it to go after contact. In the case of Vazquez, he had a huge contact zone and little power; rightfully so. CC Sabathia was pitching for the Indians in the contest and I had control of Vazquez on the mound and at the plate. Because Sabathia pitches lefty and Vazquez bats righty I tilted my contact point toward the left field wall every time. And, every time I made contact, I was rewarded with bases. I got a double in the first at-bat and a single in the second. I really had no intentions of getting fancy with the bat, but on the third at-bat I decided to tilt the cursor toward right field and put it on the outside of the strike zone in case the computer decided to throw me some outside sliders. Sure enough, it did. And sure enough I hit the hardest low-flying home run in the history of pitchers at the Big O. By the time Vazquez’s fourth at-bat came around Sabathia had been pulled for Jerrod Riggan, but all I kept thinking about was going for the triple. I tilted my cursor in the same manner as the home run, but laid it flatter as to only get a chalk-scrapping punch to the right field corner. I fouled off the first two pitches and took the following two for balls. With a 2-2 count I got a little ahead of the pitch but chopped it perfectly to where I wanted. Matt Lawton was playing right field for the Indians at the time and I did my best to test his arm as I booked Vazquez around the bases. Vazquez was only a third of the way around second by the time Lawton threw the ball from the corner. By some miracle the defensive instincts for the computer kicked on and Omar Vizquel cut the ball off. Thus, allowing Vazquez to ring in the cycle with ease. Oh Javier!!!

#24- This player will ring a bell for a few of you, and be a completely afterthought for others. On April 23 the Expos played host to the Brewers as a free agent pickup by the Boston Red Sox from 1999 took the mound for the Spos. From 2001-2003 this Japanese national pitcher wore #24 for the Expos in which his 13-8 record with a 3.18 ERA in 2002 proved to be the bests of his career. On this date; however, Tomo Ohka had a day of destiny in the video game world.

Ben Sheets took the mound for the Brewers, a team whose only offensive threats came in the form of Richie Sexson, Eric Young, Geoff Jenkins and Ronnie Belliard. Ohka, for some reason, was feeling it. The first three innings went by fairly quick: three strikeouts and a lot of grounders and pop pouts. Innings four through seven were riddles with at least two strikeouts per inning and a lot of brilliant catches by Sam on the field defense. It was at this moment that I paused the game and noticed what was going on. We had built an 8-0 lead and Sheets had all ready been replaced by Mike Buddie in the fifth. But then we both took a look at the Brewers’ offensive numbers: zero hit and zero walks. With six outs to go I got a little nervous. I’ve always been prone to throw strikes as I hate playing games that last more than an hour; however, in this case I became a bit more daring and started painting corners a little bit harder as Ohka’s fatigue level hadn’t really registered yet. Sexson went down to strikes, Jenkins took on to the right field warning track where a patient Vladimir Guerrero was waiting to make out number two and Alex Ochoa grounded out for the final out. With the heart of the lineup gone, all I had left was Jose Hernandez, Raul Casanova and whomever was going to be pinch hitting.

I think the computer sensed what was about to happen and opted to bunt with Hernandez… but I was ready for it; a real jerk move on its part. One down. Casanova battled, taking Ohka’s total pitch count over 110; thus making it harder to control. With the eighth pitch of the at-bat Casanova bounced a dribbler up the middle, but slow enough for Jose Vidro to do a quick scoop and throw. Two down. Finally, it was time for the final test: Mark Loretta. I’d like to say it was more exciting of a finish, but Loretta popped it up to the first base side for an easy out by Galarraga. Sam and I went crazy despite the pathetic fireworks display I got; however, I did get a slew of baseball card points which ultimately unlocked retro jerseys. So that was awesome.

Yup! This hat will always have a special place in my heart to remind me of the day when my best friend and I did good by the fine people of Montreal… even if it was in the video game world.

March 6- Portland Beavers

I’ve been in an especially feisty mood today, which has certainly helped fuel this blog post. Take warning. It’s going to get ugly.

Portland, Oregon is a horrible baseball city. Yah, that’s right, I said it. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest (specifically Vancouver, Washington) I was regaled by stories and banter from hardcore Portland sports fans about how amazing it would be to have a Major League Baseball team within the confines of the city. For years I was told that Portlanders would give undying support if a team was ever relocated, because after all, “we’re huge sports fans.” I bought that bullshit for years. The illusion of seeing a top tier in the city I called home was brought on by this…

a more than clever bumper sticker which I first saw in the manager’s office at the Just Sports (@JustSportspdx) location at the Lloyd Center Mall. For those who don’t know, Lloyd Center is the state’s largest indoor mall and it sits roughly 10-12 blocks away from the Rose Garden, the home of the Portland Trailblazers of the National Basketball Association. It’s not very becoming of me to mention other sports within my baseball articles; however, the important thing to know about Trailblazers fans is that they are extremely loyal, more so than most other franchises. I know that seems like a “homer” thing to say, but you should probably take into consideration that I’m a huge Indiana Pacers fan. In fact, the one thing to prove my assertion true is that the Trailblazers hold the record for most consecutive sell-outs at 814 from 1977 (the year of their only championship) through 1995. Oh yah, and by record, I don’t mean NBA record. I’m talking about most consecutive sell-outs in American sports history. The next closest streak? The 2003 through present Boston Red Sox at 712 games. For those doing the math at home, the Trailblazers record will more than likely be broken in 2014. Now, with that logic, one might think that the validity of Portlanders supporting a baseball team might be true. Think again.

In 2000 Portland all ready had a professional baseball team, the Portland Rockies. What was incredibly shocking about this is that 1. They were a short season-A squad in a major city. 2. They hardly drew anyone. Trust me on this one; I caught a few games at the old Civic Stadium and saw how empty it was. But… hope was just around the corner. What I didn’t know before moving North was that Portland was once a decent baseball city who housed a storied AAA franchise known as the Portland Beavers. From 1903-1917, 1919-1972 and 1978-1993 the Beavers came and went, but always seemed to find its footing anytime they set up shop. If you read my Salt Lake City Bees post from January 28 you’d know about the last run of the Beavers, and how then owner Joe Buzas cut and run at the end of the 1993 season to not only establish the franchise in Utah, but also had the balls to name the team after himself (Buzz). Every now-and-then when I get back up to Portland for a few beers with my friends Buzas’s name comes up in conversation. To this day I have yet to hear one positive thing about the man other than, “I’m glad he’s dead.”

Following the 2000 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres swapped AAA affiliates. The Albuquerque Dukes (a charter franchise of the PCL in 1903 as the Los Angeles Angels) moved to Portland, becoming the Beavers, as the San Diego Padres affiliate. As part of the relocation agreement, Civic Stadium was renovated in 2000 and renamed PGE Park. Things were certainly looking bright. Like most new franchises, attendance was booming. The team brought up such budding talents as Sean Burroughs, Kevin Witt, Ernie Young and Ryan Radmanovich as well as brought down/rehabbed such stars as Jim Leyritz, Jeremy Powell, Jason Middlebrook and even Rickey Henderson. Popularity of the sport was certainly on the rise, and one moment I will never forget took place on March 29, 2002 as the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners played one exhibition game in front of a sold out crowd. The Mariners, coming off their 116-win season proved to be the perfect draw. The Padres won the game 3-1 thanks to a two-run shot by Phil Nevin and six strong innings of pitching from Brian Lawrence. Attendance drew pretty well for the rest of the season and on into the 2003 season when the news “we all wanted” broke.

Back in June 2001 a story was released, but very few people knew about it. Bud Selig had sent one of his representatives, Corey Busch, to Portland to attend a Beavers game as the Montreal Expos were considering playing a few home games at PGE Park as, a Montreal Gazette article mentioned, the Expos were looking for a temporary home until a new stadium in Montreal was built. At the end of the 2002 season the possibility of a new stadium in Montreal was looking rather bleak, but the possibility of the Expos moving to Portland was looking promising. As a long-time Expos fan, I was champing at the bit with just the thought. Another thing that most people didn’t know is that Lynn Lashbrook, the founder and President of Sports Management Worldwide, had been rallying for a Major League team in Oregon for the previous six years, and made sure to head the committee to try to bring the Expos westward. For almost the entire winter on into spring of 2003 I helped work in the campaign. Well, as much as they would let me do: hand out fliers, make calls, send emails; you know, bitch work. At the end of January 2003 things were moving at an incredible pace. Only Washington, D.C. and Portland remained in the running for the team. Then Portland Mayor Vera Katz was in great support of it as she met with representatives from MLB in New York despite criticism from Republican politicians who didn’t see the benefits of allocating $350-400 million for a new stadium, especially with unemployment rates being one of the highest in the country at the time at 7% (the rate went as high as 11.6% in 2009, but is now around 8.3%). At the same time; however, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos was protesting the move to D.C. as the Orioles had territorial rights. Oddly enough, the Mariners tried to pull the same move with Oregon with little merit. Even more interesting is that the Oakland Athletics and Florida Marlins names were being tossed around as other possibilities of relocation if Portland lost the Expos bid by the end of 2003.

On into 2004 very little seemed to be moving forward. The Expos and their fans in Montreal were well aware of the fact that the team would be playing its last season in Canada, but no one knew where that would be. All appeared to be going well for Portland as one of the Native American tribes even offered to front $250 million to build a new stadium as long as they were allowed to build a casino within the city limits. Mayor Katz balked at the idea and somehow around September 29 the announcement was made that the Expos would be moving to D.C. And I mean, it was really out of the blue. We were all dumbfounded, and we especially wanted to throw Katz out of office for not accepting the offer. But in the end, there wasn’t much that even Katz could do. Angelos had back off from his previous comments (more than likely paid off) and D.C. was getting their THIRD team throughout MLB’s history (because the first two panned out so well).   

As the years progressed attendance figures for the Beavers dwindled. Every game I attended from 2005-2007 seemed to be a jab to the ribs. I would have thought that in lieu of everything going to Hell that people would support the team in protest to MLB which would hopefully pave the way to luring another team to the city. Nope!

Years continued to roll on with little hope. The Beavers weren’t all that successful on the field which deterred a lot of people from going to the games. I had moved to Eugene in April of 2007 which made going to games on a regular basis a bit of a challenge, but I always made sure to catch the Sacramento River Cats (the A’s affiliate) when they visited.

In 2009 the AAA All-Star game was held at PGE Park. I was one of a little over 16,000 of the possible 18,000 it could fit to attend. Not too long after that the Portland Timbers were promoted from the United Soccer League to Major League Soccer under the stipulation that PGE Park be converted into a soccer/football specific stadium. The Beavers were forced out, but were given a slew of possible locations in which to build another stadium… at which ever possible site was protested. Without a home to play in, Merritt Paulson, the then owner of the Beavers sold the team to a group headed by Padres owner Jeff Moorad before the end of the 2010 season. Ever since that day I've had a lingering hatred of Portland and its residents. 10 years of boasting itself as a great baseball town went right out the window.

On September 6, 2010 the Beavers played their final game at PGE Park. The game ended with a 6-5 win over the Las Vegas 51s. I didn’t know it until today, but that was only the third sell-out the Beavers had since returning in 2001. The other two games were their first game back on August 30, 2001 and a July 4 fireworks night in 2009. I happened to attend all three.

For years I had kept this hat blank, even after I established my marking system. Today I finally set on one…

9/6/10- The Beavers wore this hat on their final game, a thought that still brings me to tears even as I write this two and a half years after the fact. It served as their home hat from 2008-2010. A lot of my other hats have specific dates, but I will wait to feature those on their specific anniversary. In the case of this hat I made an exception for the sake of my depression on this matter. When I went to Montreal this summer and visited my friend Dave Kaufman, all the heartbreak and sense of loss came rushing back anytime we talked about our teams. With Dave it was something deeper rooted as his beloved Expos were ripped out of the hands of the fans in Montreal despite their best efforts to hold on. I felt awful for all of the hours I put in to try to bring the team here, not really seeing both sides of the coin at the times.

In the case of the Beavers it became an oversight; something that only true baseball fans were affected by including then owner Paulson who regretted not doing more to keep the team in Portland. In an open letter following the last game Paulson predicted that the Beavers would make a return to Portland in the future. I guess we’ll wait and see.

February 16- Montreal Expos

To get a full sense of how last year started for me be sure to read this first. http://beardtobefeared.blogspot.com/2012/02/kid.html

It’s the original post I had before I went to Arizona for the MLB Fan Cave final audition.

It’s amazing how much I’ve grown as a person in the last 366 days. On February 15, 2012 I was just a happy-go-lucky 29-year-old kid, bound for bigger and better things as my campaign for the MLB Fan Cave had been going better than expected. After doing one TV interview with the local Fox/CBS affiliate in Eugene my story had been picked up by all of the major sports Web sites (Yahoo!, Deadspin, ESPN, NBCSports, etc.), and I was quickly making a name for myself throughout the baseball community. As great of a feeling as it was that I was almost guaranteeing my entrance into the Fan Cave, none of it really seemed to matter by the afternoon of February 16. Gary Carter, my childhood idol and inspiration for my path into baseball had passed away.

It was pretty much a for sure thing that I would be writing about this hat today, as it is not only a year later from Carter’s passing, it’s also one of the more important hats that I own. From the Montreal Expos first season in Major League Baseball in 1969 through the end of the 1991 season the team donned this amazing, and truly iconic hat. It was one of the first of its kind; a pinwheel of colors which also captured the spirit of the city in which the franchise was founded. For those who don’t know the name Expos comes from the 1967 World’s Fair which was dubbed Expo 67, and is in fact the most successful World’s Fair of the 20^th century in regard to attendance and number of countries who participated. As a kid the only time I ever really got to watch the Expos on TV was whenever TBS played the Atlanta Braves games in which they played throughout the season. Aside from that, the Expos cards were always my favorite to collect because they had the most interesting players and colors. Despite being an avid Oakland Athletics fan, I quickly developed a love for the Expos which I justified as my National League team. I wouldn’t be until I was 14-year-old that I would finally purchase an Expos cap, this one to be precise.

This is the first fitted cap I’ve ever owned, and truly the inspiration for my love of New Era Caps. More importantly, this is around the time when the internet really began to take off, and I was finally able to watch Gary Carter in some Expos highlights, as opposed to trying to recreate a play from his career based on the assortment of Carter Expos cards I owned. You see, the first time I ever saw Carter in action was during the 1986 World Series as a member of the New York Mets. I understood that he had played on a different team because of his baseball cards, but never got to enjoy it the way that my elders and the fine people of Montreal got to experience. In my lifetime I was only fortunate enough to see Carter play live once, but as a member of the San Francisco Giants, which has always left a sour taste in my mouth. But the most important thing that I value about this hat is that I bought it while the team still existed.

#4001- This number actually represents me. Like Montreal, I was heartbroken when the players strike ended the 1994 season for the Montreal Expos. If you don’t remember, the team had gone 74-40 in their first 114 games, and were primed to not only win their second division title (1981 being their only), but most analysts were saying the team was the outright favorite to win the World Series. Being 11-year-old, I didn’t really have a full understanding of what was going on. All I knew is that it was over. As years followed the Expos had difficulty keeping their talent; Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, Marquis Grissom and Moises Alou all moved on to greener pastures, and the attendance at Olympic Stadium dipped to an average of 4000 fans per game. Therefore, even though I never attended a single Expos game in person, I watched all of them after the ’94 season on whatever channel would play them. I am fan #4001, and I never stopped supporting the team until they packed up and moved to Washington, D.C.; a move which I will forever be upset about.

#8- It wasn’t until his passing that I put hi number on this cap. I’m still not sure how I was able to keep it together, as this is the only hat I’ve ever marked with tears streaming down my face. I never met Gary Carter, but from every article I read, and every time I saw him on TV, I could tell that he was one of the most genuine human beings the world had ever known. His smile radiated, and his hard work and determination motivated others, especially a three-year-old kid living in Stockton, California. When Carter passed I cried almost as hard as when I found out the news that my best friend had been killed when I was 19-years-old. I’ve always been an extremely emotional person; however, this was one of the few times I had ever been truly inspired to do better for as many people as possible. With the Fan Cave only a few weeks away, I couldn’t think of a better platform to be able to inspire kids and spread my love of the game in the way that Carter inspired me.

It started in Phoenix during Day 1 of the Fan Cave auditions. I’ve always been a rather superstitious person, so I made sure to pack the one hat that I felt most comfortable wearing throughout my trip. I got a lot of questions from the other candidates and executives about it, as I was supposed to be the representative of the Oakland A’s. Every answer I gave consisted primarily of me pointing to the number on my hat and saying, “I’m a bigger fan of him.” Most people got it, or so I thought. Our first task was an “elevator pitch” to the suits of MLB, which is basically a 60 second reason why they should take us. I only needed 58 seconds, but every word that came out of my mouth felt as if every baseball fan who couldn’t be there took over my body. I never used the word “deserve,” I used the word “earned,” but most important, I talked about all of the things that made the game great… al the while with #8 on top of my head. The rest of the day consisted of killing it at MLB trivia and singing in public for the first time since I was 13-years-old. I don’t think I’ve ever been so “on” in all my life.

When I went to New York as one of the nine finalists for the Fan Cave I had said publicly that I would honor Gary Carter when I first walked in, but that didn’t come without its moments of controversy. All eight of the other Cave Dwellers had work the gear of the team they were representing, while I opted to wear a Mets Gary Carter Player-T along with an Expos cap. This was the first time I realized that no one ever listened to a word I said. When we were finally allowed inside I dropped my hooded sweatshirt, showing off my Carter shirt. People finally started to get it, but not until I wrote this on the top of one of chalkboard pillars…

In early April I was finally able to meet Dave Kaufman, a radio personality in Montreal who I became good friends with after a late night of boozery and Montreal Expos chatter.

Dave had given me an open invitation to visit and stay with him in Montreal after I was done with the Fan Cave, something we both had chalked up to taking place some time in 2013. Little did either of us know that I was going to be the first person axed. So, at the end of July I made my way out to take him up on his word. I stayed with him for a week and he was kind enough to tell me stories of all the Expos games he attended throughout his life, and even took me to the stadium which the Expos called home from 1977-2004. We had only planned on taking exterior shots, but lucky for us, someone had left the doors unlocked…

Throughout the week Dave and I talked about how the team’s departure affected the city. Almost every day in which I wore an Expos hat we were greeted with praise from the locals, but I never stopped any of them to go into more detail; a move I truly regret. From what I had gathered, the team was still reeling from the loss of their team, especially in the wake of the Washington Nationals having a very successful season. One of the things that Dave and I made sure to do was visit Cooperstown and the MLB Hall of Fame. It was the first time I had ever visited the museum, and I of course couldn’t think of a better hat to rock than this one.

When I visited Washington, D.C. I happened to be there for when the Nationals started a three game series against the Mets. The first day happened to be “throwback” day. This made perfect for the fact that I was all ready going to wear my Expos game, but it was especially weird when the Nationals decided to honor the Senators, as opposed to the actual past. So, I made sure be that representative. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to move the team back to Montreal…

I think if there’s one thing I’m most proud of over this last year it’s that I never lost myself. My mission over the last year was to be an inspiration to the next generation of baseball fans, much in the same light that Carter was to me. Despite having a short run in the Fan Cave I can honestly say that it was a success. I visited 27 of 30 stadiums and treated fans to tickets and good conversation, all the while I stopped and talked to every fan who recognized me and wanted to chat. I met my girlfriend, Angie Kinderman, during my stop in Miami, and I got to be there for almost every big moment the A’s had this season including their miraculous run to win the American League West title. Despite all the hardships I faced on the road, as well as the coldness I’ve received from MLB since my exile, I can still look at this hat and smile like Carter at all of the great, and amazing things I’ve done. Thank you Gary; everything I’ve become is because of the drive and passion you gave every day of your life. I will go and do likewise until my final breath.