It was enough to make you cry into your lox and bagels. Watching vintage Montreal Expos video clips, seeing former team members up close and personal, and reminiscing about the magical squad of 1994 proved to be a very good idea indeed as 650 fans crammed into the Gelber Centre March 27 for the seventh annual Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors (CJCS) Sports Celebrity Breakfast.
Sports Celebrity Breakfast honoree Mark Routtenberg, at left, poses with Lucy and Felipe Alou, and breakfast chair Mike Wagen, right. [Rina Friedman photo]
“This was the hottest ticket in town,” proclaimed CJCS president Barbara Solomon.
But the breakfast, in support of the CJCS’s Seniors in Crisis program, was also a wistful reminder of “what could have been,” when the Expos seemed destined to take it all but never got the chance because of a Major League Baseball (MLB) strike that put the kibosh on the whole thing.
With a 74 and 40 (.649) record and only 48 games to go!
“What could have been,” in fact, was the precise phrase used by guest of honour Mark Routtenberg, a limited partner in the Expos franchise from 1991 to 2001 who stood by the team through thick and thin.
So loyal to “Nos Amours” was he, in fact, that a number of the players made it a point to accept invitations to the breakfast, whose chair was Mike Wagen and honorary chair was gaming lawyer Morden (Cookie) Lazarus.
The idea of honouring the ’94 Expos came from breakfast committee member Joe Presser and Mercedes dealership owner Sam Eltes, a longtime supporter of the team.
So which Expos attended?
Think manager extraordinaire Felipe Alou, a good friend of Routtenberg’s who managed the Expos through 9/1/2 seasons (guess which one was the half?). At almost 76, Alou looks years younger and still comes across as one class act.
Guests also included other friends: Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez, Rondell White, John Wetteland, Mel Rojas, Marquis Grissom, Denis Boucher and Cliff Floyd, as well as the team’s Claude Brochu, Kevin Malone, Ron McClain, batting practice pitcher Johnny Elias, and yes, Youppi!, the one and only.
Routtenberg, introduced by his good friend, former Montreal Canadiens head coach Senator Jacques Demers, recalled how during that fateful 1994 year, his team won 20 out of its last 22 games before the strike hit – “when the gods of baseball started to shut down.”
Despite the Expos being still being missed by many – except the kids at the breakfast who weren’t even born in 1994 – the event was a mostly nostalgic and happy celebration of the team, especially the crowd-pleasing highlight, a tribute video by local rapper Annakin Slayd. He memorably referred to the 1994 season as, “the happiest and saddest summer of my life.”
The breakfast, hosted by Mike Cohen and CKAC’s Charles-André March and, and which raised $175,000 for the Seniors in Crisis program through the CJCS Foundation, also included the presence and participation of a number of figures from the amateur and professional sports world.
They ranged from the Montreal Alouettes’ Scott Flory and Diamond Ferri, and Word Boxing Organization champion Otis Grant, to Golf Canada’s Jocelyne Bourassa, Jewish Montreal Impact soccer star Adam Braz, who recently retired as a player to become the team’s manager, and Montreal Canadiens draft pick Louis Leblanc.
The Canadiens’ Kirk Muller and Mike Cammalleri were also supposed to be on hand, but they were obliged to cancel in the wake of three straight shutout losses and a hastily called extra practice.
One more “athlete” at the event was MP Irwin Cotler, a table-tennis competitor six years ago at the Maccabiah Games, who was off and running on the election campaign to keep his seat in Mount Royal riding.
Cotler referred to himself as a “putative athlete,” recalled the “bonding family experience” in following the Expos during the team’s heyday, and spoke of the need to make seniors a priority concern.
The breakfast also featured door prizes, as well as a silent and, for the first time, live auction of sports memorabilia.
At the end, Mike Cohen’s father, veteran local sports broadcaster Larry Fredericks, led the crowd in a rousing rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
