This Day in Washingt...Montreal Expos Baseball History...

The Continuing Attempt to Remind Washington Nationals' Fans of Their Canadian Past...

Last September, a friend, by the name a Boss and I attended the last meeting of the '07 season between the Washington Nationals and the New York Mets on September 26th in Shea Stadium, the Flushing, Queens home of the Mets, where we met the Boss' cousin Frank, and I sat with the two of them, both lifelong Mets' fans, quietly celebrating, half-afraid for my life, (should I be discovered as a Washington fan), while the Nationals succeeded that night in sweeping the last of a three game series against the Mets, leaving New York just one game ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, (a lead the Mets lost the following weekend), to help complete the Mets' historic collapse. 

As we walked out of Shea Stadium that night, Frank turned to the Boss and I...

"Do you remember Opening Day in 1969?" Frank asks us.

"No, I wasn't even born," I say.

"I think I do," the Boss says.

"Opening Day 1969..." Frank holds court, "...I remember it clearly, the Mets lost to the Montreal Expos in the first game of the Expos' first season, 11-10 final, and one of Montreal's relief pitchers...uhh...Dan McGinn!! McGinn homered off Seaver," Frank says, and then he turns into the crowd..."I gotta go this way. Alright see you guys next time."

Montreal Expos vs New York Mets August 8th, 1969 box score:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196904080.shtml

CBC coverage of the Montreal Expos debut in Shea:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-41-611-3272/sports/baseball_canada/clip4

See, they did love their Expos in Montreal at one time.

This Day in Montreal Expos' History...39 years ago today, April 8, 1969, the first game in this Washington franchise's history. The Newark Star-Ledger printed this fact today on their baseball page, below the box scores and the list of each MLB team's batting stats thus far this season...it reads:

"This date in Baseball"

1969 The Montreal Expos played their first regular-season game -- the first international contest in major league history -- and defeated the eventual world champion METS 11-10 at Shea Stadium. Expos pitcher Dan McGinn hit the expansion team's first home run. 

Odd that's the Star-Ledger write-up is almost an exact duplicate of Frank's quote from his own memories. If only the Ledger piece mentioned Tom Seaver, it'd be nearly identical.  

The Expos finished that first season with an abysmal 52-110 record...the lone highlight of their Inaugural campaign being Daniel Joseph "Rusty" 'Le Grande Orange' Staub's .302 AVG, 29 HR's and 79 RBI's in his first season in Montreal, after arriving in a deal with Houston that sent Don Clendenon and Jesus (Brother of Felipe, Uncle of Moises) Alou. However...Clendenon refused to report according to an article at www.astrosdaily.com entitled, "Worst Trades in Astros History":

"When Spring Training started, however, Clendenon refused to report. The Expos hastily replaced him in the deal with pitcher Jack Billingham, scrub Skip Guinn and $100, 000. Nothing like a little cash to smooth things over, eh?"

There...don't you feel like you learned something, however inconsequential it might be, about Montreal Expos' baseball history?