Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my complicated history with the Washington Nationals.
In that blog from way back in 2016, I explained how I became a fan of the Montreal Expos: at the All-Star game workout in Cincinnati, li’l Scaia was permitted to get a hat. Li’l Scaia was enamored of the colors on the Expos’ hat.
And that’s how this started.
It hasn’t stopped, either. I attended the exhibition game at Olympic Stadium with the family this spring.
A few years back, a group of folks from Montreal was going from ballpark to ballpark to drum up support for a new team. Obviously, because I was not biased in any form, I met them for an interview when they stopped in Arlington.
A few years before that, Bud Selig was in Arlington for the World Series. I don’t recall the specifics of this one, but he was having a press conference one afternoon.
Here’s what I vaguely recall: He was talking about how important it is to get teams like the Rangers, teams that aren’t considered perennial powerhouses, into the postseason to drive up interest across the country and get the next generation excited for the game.
Selig was talking about how Major League Baseball was making strides in building popularity internationally as well, trying to break into new markets.
So I stood up and, as an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist, asked if that international outreach would include Montreal.
He answered the question. He answered it thoughtfully and completely, saying there had been a lot of interest from Montreal, but first stadium and attendance issues had to be resolved in cities like Tampa and Oakland. Plus Montreal had to figure out its own stadium situation.
“Just one more thing,” I like to tell people I continued. “Didn’t you kill the Expos in 1994?!”
This came up during a discussion with an associate during Game 4 of the NLCS last night. The Washington Nationals were on their way to winning their first pennant.
The Nationals’ first pennant, nay: the Expos’ first pennant, was coming exactly 25 years after the World Series was canceled. A World Series that, obviously, would have featured the Expos.
At 74-40, they had the best record in the Majors. Leading up to the strike, they had gone 20-3.
That associate had posted on Facebook about how the ’94 Expos were stacked. His analysis was accurate.
But then a mutual associate replied the Expos could not have taken the Reds in the postseason. The Reds were leading the NL Central after all.
25 years later, I was, for the first time, imagining a Reds-Expos NLCS. They would have been playing in Ohio, right down the road from the Ol’ Scaia Place. I would have shown up at Riverfront Stadium to cheer on Moises Alou, Montreal native Denis Boucher, and Freddie Benavides [who would have felt so conflicted, having spent time with both the Expos and Reds].
In 2016, I declared the Nationals were ready because they had come so close, only to be foiled, much as the Expos had been foiled by Rick Monday in 1981.
I had forgotten about this until the discussion last night: I actually had declared the Nationals ready in 2012 as well. They were Rick Mondayed then, too, with the Cardinals rallying in the 9th inning of Game 5 of the division series.
As a wordsmith, I’ve coined a late rally in the playoffs “getting Rick Mondayed.” Let us, on this 25th anniversary, celebrate the Nationals’ success by creating another verb to remember the Expos’ fate in 1994, being robbed of a postseason berth.
“Oh, man, some guy broke into our house and Seligged us!”
It’s gonna be a thing.
