The Day Rick Monday Told Us The Truth

I was nine years-old when Rick Monday hit that sickening home run off Steve Rogers on that cold, dreary day in 1981. It was by far one of the most momentous moments in Canadian sports history. Montrealers are literally still in shock.

It still haunts me. The electricity that covered the city that year is often recalled in loving nostalgia. I ran from school to watch the last three innings. I was convinced the Expos were going to win. Ray Burris pitched very well that day and Steve Rogers came in relief.

At the time we could not know it but that hom erun - by Rick Monday - proved to be an omen for things to come. It was also a moment that defined and stigmatized the franchise. The Toronto Blue Jays had Joe Carter's marvelous home run, the Expos had....Rick Monday.

Rick Monday changed baseball in the big Mtl. that day. Throughout the 80s the Expos had great teams and superbly talented players - they were the Organization of the 80s according to Baseball America - but never could quite get over that hump. If it was not the Cardinals, it was the Pirates always getting in the way. But the hope never died.

But in retrospect, it does seem as though Rick Monday blackened our souls that day. We never could shake 'the curse.'

I've come to terms with the loss of the Expos. I don't buy into the prevailing reasons why this happened. All are excuses. We let ourselves down. Jeffrey Loria was not the problem but merely the result or symptom of a wider problem in this city. While we pointed figures like children at Selig, Samson, Brochu, Vishnu - whomever - we never stopped to think that we laid the foundations for a Loria to come in and do what he did.

Forget all that. Some in the media may still cling to false notions about our demise, but I suffer no such delusions. Rick Monday was not an illusion. They say things happen for a reason. Well, maybe at the heart of it, Montrealers did not deserve the Montreal Expos.