20 years ago, the end of the slow agony of Expos

On September 29, 2004, Claude Delorme went to the Olympic Stadium around 6 a.m. The senior vice-president of the Montreal Expos expects to complete preparations for a tribute to the team’s 1994 edition during the last home game of the season. Delorme will end the day among 31,395 spectators who came to say goodbye to their Loves for good.

Already 20 years have passed since that day when Montreal, for the last time, saw its baseball team play. Delorme nevertheless speaks about it with great clarity, as if he were telling on Monday what he did with his weekend. This is the characteristic of these upsetting days which shake up what seemed to be the project of a lifetime.

Rumors had been circulating for years. The end was approaching. The arrival of Jeffrey Loria had offered fans and employees some reprieve, but the rest of this story is well known. No more ownership in Montreal, no more stadium plans in the city center either, major budgetary constraints and local matches in Puerto Rico. When Tony Tavares joined the team as president, he made it clear to me that after having discussions with [le commissaire du baseball majeur] Bud Selig, the intention was to move the franchise at the end of the 2002, 2003 or 2004 seasonremembers Delorme.

But the rumors became more and more persistent. On the morning of September 29, they monopolized the sports channels. Delorme then made a phone call to Pat Courtney, from major league baseball’s public relations department.

I ask him to verify that these are indeed rumors, because we planned the day based on the 1994 team, says Delorme. He tells me it’s just rumors, but he’ll check it out anyway.

Around 8 a.m., the phone rings.

He said to me: “I have bad news. The team will move. Bud Selig is on a call with all baseball owners to get approval for the move to Washington. A press conference is planned in Washington at 11 a.m..”

Delorme has worked for the Expos since 1982. The organization is the only employer he has known. But this is not the time for emotion for the vice-president, who must gather the staff to tell them the bad news.

People were very disappointed, very moved. There were long-time people who had given their lives to the Expos, he recalls. My role was to show strength and resistance so that we could be ready for the match. Maybe it hit me around the holidays, after the employees were laid off. We had done the necessary follow-up. Baseball gave me the funds to support the employees.

After major league baseball publicly confirmed the move, the organization sold tens of thousands of tickets in the following hours. The Expos will play in front of a crowd three times their season attendance average, which fell below 10,000 fans. We are bringing staff into work as we open the stadium balconies and additional food counters.

The Youppi mascot will also be called upon. We will see his silhouette in every corner of the stadium during the evening, even in the television control rooms. Inside the orange suit, Sylvain Ouellette cannot say a word. But the emotions are jostling deep within his being.

He had never had so many secrets, Youppi, underlines Ouellette. He had never had so many hugs — but sincere hugs, where he was told: “Yay, we don’t know if we’ll see each other again, but I just want to tell you that you were there the time I was here with my partner, or the time I introduced my baby to you for the first time.” […] I knew that I was meeting people who have spent their lives, or at least part of their lives, at the Olympic Stadium to come see baseball games.

Even upset, the Montreal public remains relatively calm given the circumstances. The only problem: at the start of the third round, golf balls are thrown onto the field.

Claude Delorme did not find it funny. These balls had been sent into the stands earlier in the day, when an Expos player chose to practice his swing at the Olympic Stadium. The referee had to interrupt the match for around ten minutes, and Delorme remembers that the major baseball authorities even wanted the club to immediately stop selling alcohol to the public.

However, the situation returned to normal, and a wave of affection ended up sweeping the stadium, despite the Expos’ 9-1 defeat against the Marlins.

My satisfaction is to have been able to finish the match without any major event, says Delorme. It ended in a respectful way for baseball and for Montreal. The baseball was going, but it wasn’t aggressive.

On the field, we hand over the microphone to pitching coach Claude Raymond. The first Quebecer to have played for the Expos, he says he hopes that a miracle one day bring baseball back to Montreal.

In Washington, a few hours earlier, people were happily rubbing their hands. It was the league itself that purchased the Expos from Loria in early 2002. They were finally found a home.

The owners of major baseball, they were very, very, very patient in order to have an extraordinary offer from Washington, that is to say a $700 million stadium built at taxpayers’ expense.supports Philip Merrigan, professor of economics at the University of Quebec in Montreal. It is a city with, after all, an excellent market. They were patient and time proved them right.

Claude Delorme retired in 2021, after 16 years as Senior Vice President of Operations and Events with the Marlins from Miami. He was there when Jeffrey Loria sold the team for, roughly, $1.5 billion Canadian dollars in 2017.

If baseball had remained in Montreal, I would still be in Montrealsays Delorme. He still lives in Florida. And he no longer really believes that the miracle desired by Claude Raymond is possible.

Today, to buy a franchise, it’s a billion $ in addition to the construction of a stadium… all the money necessary, we’re talking about easily $2.5 or $3 billion for turnover, calculate he. It’s more difficult today than it was 30 years ago. It would take someone with deep pockets.

And our history has taught us that this is only part of the equation.