The Kid Is Gone

We lost a big one no doubt with the passing of Gary Carter.



One of the most popular athletes in Canadian sports history, Carter was awesome as catcher of the Montreal Expos and New York Mets - and later Giants and Dodgers.

But Carter represented more than just a baseball player to a city famed for its hockey icons. He was the single, most endearing personality on the sports landscape. Carter and those Expos teams of the 1970s and 1980s impacted an entire generation (or two) in ways we're still discovering.

Yeah, he was "just" and athlete, but sometimes some of them manage to leave a mark on the minds of young sports fans like me.

Carter, truth be told, wasn't my favorite player. Andre Dawson was. On a team loaded with talent, I suppose everyone had a favorite but Carter was undeniably an intricate and instrumental component of an organization that became the most recent poster child for the "we'll get 'em next year" since the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I even met him briefly at Dorval Airport. I remember seeing him and his trademark broad smile and pitcher Scott Sanderson.

I notice American news outlets described it as "Former Mets great" while in Canada it's "Former Expos great." I don't know who he "belonged" to (Ok, he was an Expo at its profound base) but I know one thing: He had a far, far greater impact on Canadian sports than on a deep American sports scene. Just listen to sports radio up here and you'll get a sense of his influence.

#8 has come and gone. Montreal lost one of its greatest athletes it has ever seen.

Sad. At the age of 57 especially.

***

Not interested in writing these days but I had to make a curtain call for Carter. On one of my many treks with my neighbor (who had season tickets) down Pie IX boulevard from Laval straight down to the Olympic Stadium, I remember hearing Frankie Lyman sing "Why do fools fall in love" and somehow it got connected with the Expos and Carter in particular.

If the Canadiens honor Carter, the fans should break out, one more time, with Valderi, Valdera, les Expos sont la!

So long, Kid.