Faites La Vague Comme Jamais!: Baseball back to Montreal
The baseball weekend in Montreal was magic. Flat out, pure magic. The come from behind victory on Friday night, the late inning homer on Saturday. Bautista hit a homer. Lawrie made a kickass play in the field. Encarnacion tied the game. Lifelong minor leaguer Ricardo hit a walk off single. Melky finally hit a homer, after raking without a homer all spring. The bullpen was solid, capped with Aaron Sanchez making us weak in the knees with two solid innings out of the ‘pen. Larry Walker high fived Youppi while taking a selfie.
I don’t know if Montreal can actually support a major league team. I think some of the success of the weekend is the result of the effort of the past few years to make Blue Jay fandom a country-wide phenomenon. What I think might be a good idea is to move the Mets’ AAA affiliate from Las Vegas (which reportedly is hated by all) to Montreal. It's a 90 minute flight. Do it.
An Excerpt from Jonah Keri's Up, Up and Away. Keri had basically the best weekend ever, btw.
Montreal Baseball Project.
Pedro Martinez was sadly absent from the Montreal, which bummed me out considerably as I love Pedro Martinez, particularly now that my team no longer has to face him on a regular basis. He didn't give an official reason, but he did release this message through the Montreal Baseball Project. Here it is in French:
J’aurais sincèrement voulu être parmi vous pour voir le baseball majeur revenir dans l’une des plus grandes villes dans le monde, avec mes amis et mes anciens coéquipiers. Je suis retourné à Montréal de nombreuses fois, mais malheureusement, je ne pourrai assister à cet événement marquant.
20 ans, ça semble déjà si loin, mais les souvenirs seront toujours aussi présents. Montréal et ses partisans sont uniques en leur genre et je n’oublierai jamais ces beaux moments passés en tant que membre des Expos.
Je veux lever mon verre à ce 20e anniversaire, et à tous ceux qui travaillent d’arrache-pied pour ramener le baseball à Montréal.
Beautiful.
