Valderi....Valdera...

  

 "Valderiiiiiii......Valderaaaaaa......Valderahahahahahah......Valderiiiii.....Valderaaaaaaaa......."

  Driving home from my grandparents' home in Eastern Ontario on a Sunday afternoon, my Dad would often tune in an Expos game from a radio station in Oshawa, just east of Toronto.  During a break in the action, the tune from Montreal organist Fernand Lapierre would echo around Olympic Stadium in between the dulcet tones of Expos broadcasters Dave Van Horne and Duke Snider.

  Before the Blue Jays, the Expos were truly Canada's team, captivating the country in both official languages. For a young baseball-mad boy growing up in Southern Ontario, they were a godsend.  NBC broadcast a Saturday game of the week, but with cable tv still in its infancy in Canada, the Wednesday night telecast on CBC was the only regular televised action I could watch

  Of course, the Expos were loveable losers in their early days, except for a brief flirtation with a pennant run in 1973, but by the late 70s, when I was a bored kid in the back seat of my parents' 1973 Ford Montego trying to pass the four hour drive home from my Dad's parents' place, the games took on new importance.

   A young core of players led by Gary Carter, Warren Cromartie, Ellis Valentine, Larry Parrish, and Andre Dawson lent considerable promise to the future.  By 1979, veterans Tony Perez and Bill Lee led the team into contention, finishing 95-65, 2 games behind the NL East and eventual World Series-winning We Are Famileeee Pittsburgh Pirates.  2.1 million rabid fans flocked to the Big O that year.

   That core of youngsters, who were labelled the Team of the 80s, never lived up to that promise.  Rick Monday's Home Run off of the bat of Steve Rogers, called in to relieve starter Ray Burris in the top of the 9th, eliminated the Expos in Game 5 of the (then Best of 5) NLCS.  The Expos would never scale such heights again.

   The team was mostly competitive for the rest of the decade, but had become an afterthought as the 80s gave way to the 90s.  Once again, the Expos rode a group of young players led by Larry Walker, Moises Alou, and Pedro Martinez, and by the summer of 1994, the team was rolling - they had four separate six-game winning streaks, and 8-game winning streak, and by August 11th were atop the NL East with a 74-40 record, 6 games clear of the Braves.

   We all know what happened next.

   The labour disruption resulted in the eventual cancellation of the remainder of the World Series, and cost the Expos what would turn out to be their last shot at contention.  The sell-off of the team's stars by ownership prior to the next spring training would turn out to be the beginning of the end of the franchise, which died a slow death under before moving to Washington after the 2004 season.

   Watching that final game was gut-wrenching, but the truth is was that the flame had long since been worthy of the candle.  My dad took me as a youngster to my first MLB game in 1973 at Parc Jarry, once labelled "Canada's largest outdoor insane asylum."  It was a sharp contrast the atmosphere we experienced 30 years later, when I took my dad to Olympic Stadium for a game between the Expos and Braves before about 8 500 fans in what seemed like a funereal setting.

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     My Uncle Tom introduced me to Strat-O-Matic Baseball sometime in the early 70s.  I taught my older brother to play, and we would often dump the player cards in a hat and "draft" a team, and play Best-of-Seven series against each other.  His buddy Wayne, who was tall and played 1st Base and therefore was nicknamed Willie, would play each other in the same manner.
    Eventually, I grew up (kind of), and went off to University, leaving my old Strat cards at my parents' house. While wandering around the former flagship store of the Eatons in the large downtown mall named after Canada's first family of retail, I came across the 1986 version, which cost $54 - a huge sum of money for a starving student.  I picked up the box, fought temptation, then set it down.  I circled the store several times before finally succumbing, and plunked down two weeks' worth of groceries for the game.  I still have the well-worn cards in my basement.

   The idea came several years ago, and was renewed when Jonah Keri's excellent "Up, Up, and Away," history of the Expos came out:  replay that 94 season with Strat-O-Matic.  I had a little trouble tracking a set down for the equivalent of a couple of months of groceries in 2015 dollars, but a connection on a Facebook group I belong to came through for me.  The 94 cards came in the mail last week, and I spent an enjoyable couple of nostalgic hours sorting through the whole set.
    My goal is to replay that season, and to blog about it as I go.  In subsequent posts, I will detail some of the decisions I had to make in order to make this simulation as realistic as I can.  I'll also play a few exhibition games against the Blue Jays and Red Sox in March to get my Strat feet back under me (I haven't played in a couple of decades).  Come April, I will follow the 94 schedule, and blog the results after each series.  I'll also keep a running comparison going between the real Expos, and my Expos.
    I hope you enjoy the posts that follow.