LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: An Autumn Reading Recommendation

Autumn…when baseball fans prepare for the post-season – and the unexpected delights only baseball can provide. The Division finals are already underway and assuming the universe unfolds as it should, the World Series will begin Wednesday, October 24, in the home park of the National League representative. One of the four NL clubs still in […]

Part II: Canadian Hall of Fame–Rusty Staub

Part I of this essay, The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Honours its Own, introduced Induction Day at the Canadian Hall’s St. Marys, Ontario, home base on June 23, 2010. The special guests of honour that day were Rheal Cormier, Doug Melville, the Canadian Senior Men’s National Baseball team, winners of the gold meal at […]

Canadian Hall of Fame Inductions: Cormier and Melvin, Part I

On Saturday, June 23 the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame held its annual Induction Ceremony in the picturesque town of St. Marys Ontario. It was a beautiful sunshine-filled day. Not that it mattered – for this day all eyes were on the stars. St. Marys, a hamlet set deep in the Ontario countryside only a […]

Blue Monday: a Bitter Expos Anniversary

“Blue Monday, how I hate Blue Monday” Fats Domino may have sung the words, but it took Expos fans to live the nightmare – and many of us still carry the pain. It was thirty years ago today when we – and by ‘we’ I mean every living, breathing, Expos fan in Canada – watched […]

Stanley “Doc” Glenn Fondly Remembered in Quebec

Word came down the other day that 84-year old Stanley “Doc” Glenn had passed away on April 16. Glenn, a rangy 6’ 2” son of a Virginia fisherman who once described himself as a journeyman catcher, was in fact a superior defensive rearguard with a great arm. During the 1940s he made his mark with […]

The Day the 1994 Expos Came Back to Town

What do you get when you put Felipe Alou, Cliff Floyd, Marquis Grissom and Rondell White; Denis Boucher, Mel Rojas and John Wetteland; Pedro Martinez …and loveable former Expos mascot Youppi, in the same room, all at the same time? A class reunion of the 1994 Montreal Expos, that’s what; with the operative word being […]

Canadian Black History Month Part Two: Jackie Robinson

We have just wrapped up Black History Month in Canada, and, interestingly enough, baseball played a major role in at least two of our nation’s many celebratory moments. A stamp was issued in honour of Ferguson Jenkins on February 1 and at the end of the month a commemorative plaque was placed on the Montreal […]

Ferguson Jenkins and Jackie Robinson: Canada Celebrates Black History Month

We have just wrapped up Black History Month in Canada, and, interestingly enough, baseball played a major role in at least two of our nation’s many celebratory moments. A stamp was issued in honour of Ferguson Jenkins on February 1 and at the end of the month a commemorative plaque was placed on the Montreal […]

Reflections on Ron Piché

Ron Piché, the man they called “Monsieur Baseball,” passed away a few days ago. Ron Piché was one of only a very few Quebecers to have enjoyed a career in major league baseball. Born in the Montreal suburb of Verdun, he was a hard-throwing right-hander who toiled with the Milwaukee Braves from 1960-1964 and later […]

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: The Kirk Rueter Revelation

The most shocking and compelling conclusion … is that Kirk Rueter was the Mozart of fielding pitchers – John A. Knox. A Few Words Up-Front Baseball is a complex game. Unlike those other activities which dominate the Sunday sports pages, baseball’s very essence engenders a measureless range of options and possibilities. Rife with ageless imperatives […]

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: Induction Day at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Part Two

In mid-summer I wrote about the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario, and the successful Induction Day ceremonies it held this past June. I mentioned that the new inductees included Canadian pitcher Paul Quantrill—his 14-season major league career took him to Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York (Yankees) San Diego and […]

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC Induction Day at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame: Part One

It was a month ago, on a sweltering June 19, that the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum introduced four new members to its ranks. Joining such former inductees as Gary Carter; Joe Carter; Andre Dawson; Tony Fernandez; Ferguson Jenkins; Jim McKean; Tip O’Neil; Jackie Robinson; and Larry Walker were two recently retired ball […]

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: An Expos Birthday…

“Gerry was a great salesman,” the friend said. “How else could he have convinced Walter O’Malley to bring major league baseball to Montreal?” Remember this date – May 27, 1968. It is as significant as any in the history of the organization we once called the Expos. Although pretty well forgotten now, May 27 was […]

Talking Expos: Talking Books – in Two Languages

Baseball is a pastoral game. You don’t play a pastoral game in a concrete stadium under a dome. – Charles Bronfman, Expos first owner, September 24, 2004. *     *     * Gone? Indeed. But forgotten – not by a long shot. Not if the spate of recent books about the Montreal Expos means anything. By that […]

Letters From Quebec: Catching Up With Spring Training

I admire catchers, a fact I rediscovered recently in chilly Florida where I attended four spring training ball games – and caught a cold. I was travelling with an old friend who is now a judge in the courts of Ontario. My friend, let’s call him Dave, once toiled as a left-handed relief pitcher for […]

Letters From Quebec: Remembering Willie Davis…

“There was only one Jackie Robinson and he was fantastic,” Willie Davis said about the Dodger immortal who broke baseball’s colour barrier, first with the old Montreal Royals and then with Brooklyn Dodgers.  Then he added, “There’s only one Willie Davis, and I’m fantastic too.” Willie Davis, to Montreal Gazette journalist Tim Burke, June 12, […]