Authors: Jonah Keri
That set the stage for Steve Rogers. Williams had never hesitated to question Rogers’ courage under fire, complaining to anyone within earshot that the righty didn’t have what it takes to
win the big game. The criticism got to Rogers. Here was a chance to prove his old skipper wrong.
Facing a Mets lineup that included former teammates Staub and Valentine, Rogers was sublime, firing a two-hit shutout in which he faced just one batter more than the minimum for nine innings. Not normally a strikeout artist, Rogers struck out the side to end the game, giving him nine punchouts on the night, four of them against Mookie Wilson. That outing capped a season-ending stretch of 10 games in which Rogers posted a 1.72 ERA, including just three earned runs allowed in his last three starts of the regular season. Not bad for a supposed choker.
“This isn’t pressure,” he told Snyder after the game. “This is fun. When you’re thinking about pressure, you can get pretty scared and hesitant about what you throw. This is fun because we’re winning the way we know we can.”
Pitching coach Galen Cisco was more succinct in his analysis. “He was mean,” Cisco said of Rogers. “Mean!”
The Expos still needed one more win to clinch their first-ever playoff berth. They called on another homegrown player to get it done. Trailing 3–2 in the seventh with two on and one out, Fanning sent Wallace Johnson up to bat. Johnson wasn’t a star like some of his fellow farm products: he had very little power, and merely decent speed. Brought up as a second baseman and playing a little first base later in his career, Johnson wasn’t really equipped to play there or anywhere else on the diamond. He was, however, a very good pinch-hitter, working at-bats until he got a pitch he could handle. Added to the roster as a September call-up, Johnson was taking just the eighth at-bat of his major league career. The result sent the Expos faithful gathered around their TVs and radios into fits of delirium. A two-run triple to right put Montreal ahead 4–3 and blasted nearly everyone in the dugout off the bench and onto the field, pumping their fists and yelling at the
unlikely rookie hero. The Expos took a 5–4 lead to the bottom of the ninth, giving Reardon a chance to slam the door against his former team. With two outs, Dave Kingman lifted a soft flyball to left. Terry Francona, another member of those early ’80s Expos teams who went on to have a successful career as a major league manager, charged in and squeezed it for the final out.
The players’ strike had done the Expos a huge favour. The St. Louis Cardinals in fact finished with the best record in the East over the entire season, as did the Reds in the NL West (as well as the entire National League). But neither St. Louis nor Cincinnati made the playoffs that year. In the East, the Cards finished a game and a half behind Philly in the first half, and a half-game behind Montreal in the second half, denying them a postseason spot. In their stead, for the first time ever, the Expos were headed to the playoffs.
“This is such a culmination of so much hard work, of individuals as a unit,” said Chris Speier, in between gulps of champagne. “We have gone through so many changes together—the strike, personnel moves, the change of managers—this is the total release. No individual can hold you back. If you tried to keep your feelings inside, you’d go crazy. We can be six-year-olds. This is a kid’s game anyway.”
Amid the revelry in the clubhouse, there was one bittersweet sighting: Ellis Valentine. He didn’t get a chance to celebrate the way he should have, as an Expo. But Valentine’s old friends, the ones with whom he’d fought shoulder to shoulder through nearly a decade in the organization, did invite him in to share in the celebration.
“I’m really happy for them,” he said. “A little of my heart is still there.”
Montreal’s opponent in the first round of the playoffs was first half-winning Philadelphia, the team that dashed their dreams
a year earlier. The Expos offence was short-handed, as a broken thumb had knocked Tim Raines out of the lineup for the last three weeks of the regular season and would keep him out of the first round of playoffs as well. Montreal would make up for his absence with another round of lights-out starting pitching.
In Game 1 it was Rogers again, scattering 10 hits over 8 2/3, then turning the game over to Reardon to nail down the final out in a 3–1 win. In notching the win, Rogers outduelled Carlton, no easy task after a season in which Lefty went 13–4 with a 2.42 ERA.
In Game 2, Gullickson was the hero. After an outstanding regular season in which he delivered a sparkling 2.80 ERA and led the staff with 115 strikeouts, Gully limited Philly to one run in 7 2/3 innings. The Phillies had a chance for a big inning in the eighth, cranking out a single and two doubles to cut the Expos’ lead to 3–1, setting up runners on second and third with two outs. But Fanning made two moves that helped save the inning, and the game. First, he pulled a tiring Gullickson, bringing in Reardon for his second straight save opportunity. Then, remembering the agony Mike Schmidt had inflicted on the Expos the year before (and pretty much from the moment he entered the league), Fanning ordered Reardon to walk Schmidt intentionally. Montreal’s relief ace then got Gary Matthews to pop out and end the inning. A one-two-three ninth left the Expos just one victory away from the League Championship Series.
The series headed back to Philadelphia, where the Phillies fought back. In Game 3, they cruised to a 6–2 victory. Game 4, however, was a cliffhanger. Philly jumped out to a 4–0 lead, only to have the Expos come back to tie it at 5–5, sending the game to extra innings. In the bottom of the 10
th
, pinch-hitter George Vukovich hit a low fastball from Reardon over the fence for a game-winning home run, forcing a deciding fifth game.
In the scrum after the loss, a reporter asked Fanning about the prospect of having to beat the great Steve Carlton twice in one series. Fanning had his share of spats with various Expos players, but he trusted Rogers in a way that Williams did not. Locking eyes with the reporter, Fanning gave his reply. “They have to beat Steve Rogers in this series. So I’m not worried.”
This would be the 14
th
matchup between Carlton and Rogers, with Rogers leading 6–5 with three no-decisions to that point. Carlton was red-hot right out of the gate this time, striking out the side to start the game. But Rogers matched zeroes with him, keeping the game scoreless into the fifth. Montreal then loaded the bases in that inning with one out, bringing Rogers himself to the plate. Carlton hung a slider, and Rogers connected, slapping a single up the middle to give the Expos a 2–0 lead. They added an insurance run in the sixth, and after that, it was the Steve Rogers Show. Here’s Rogers escaping a two-on, none-out jam in the sixth. There’s Rogers working around an error in the eighth. Finally, it’s Rogers carving through the Phillies in the ninth, clinching the shutout, the win, and the Expos’ trip to the NLCS on a lineout to Cromartie at first base.
It was time to celebrate, again. This time, with props.
“There was this set of twins, they were big fans,” said Cromartie, his voice rising an octave as he recalled the post-game scene in Philadelphia. “They’d brought a big Canadian flag. I took the flag, I’m swinging the flag, sticking it right up Philly’s ass. They had Carlton on the mound. ‘How you gonna beat Lefty? How?!’ We weren’t even supposed to show up. I was proud. I was fucking proud. When I went up there and starting waving the flag, people went apeshit.”
The next day, pictures of Cromartie waving the flag adorned newspapers all across the country. It wasn’t a World Series or even a League Championship Series. But in the era of two TV
channels—at a time when the door was wide open for a team to captivate the nation—the win and the waving of the flag resonated from coast to coast. The Expos were on a rocket ship, aimed at the World Series. All of Canada was coming along for the ride.
T
he first playoff berth in franchise history had been secured. The first playoff series in franchise history had been won. All that remained was a five-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the winner earning the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series. Ray Burris’ five shutout innings in Game 2 sent the Expos back home to Montreal with the series tied 1–1. Jerry White decided Game 3 with a three-run homer in the sixth inning that turned the crowd at Olympic Stadium into a delirious mess. The Expos had a chance to clinch the series in Game 4, only for the Dodgers to score six runs over the final two innings en route to a 7–1 win. Now, with the League Championship Series tied 2–2, the Expos were a single victory away from advancing to their first World Series. What transpired next became one of the darkest moments in Expos history, one that would haunt the team for the rest of its existence and turn one man into a pariah for the rest of his career.
This is the story of Blue Monday.
Serge Touchette:
“They won that first playoff series in Philadelphia. So they flew to L.A. They played two games there, split,
then
came back to Montreal. We came back around five o’clock in the morning. When we got out of the plane and got through customs, there were about two to three thousand people waiting for the team. I couldn’t believe it. That’s when I realized it was even bigger than I thought it would be. Even the players, they couldn’t believe it. People were cheering like crazy.
“Then they played that first game in Montreal. One of the biggest moments ever in the history of the franchise happened in Game 3. Jerry Reuss was pitching for L.A., tied 1–1 in the 6
th
, Jerry White comes up … and hits a three-run homer. The reaction from the fans … it was like an explosion. Fifty thousand people stood up at the same time and went crazy. People were dreaming about the World Series.”
Rick Monday:
“This is before the roof at Olympic Stadium—it’s cold, there’s a threat of not only rain, but
snow
. Being from southern California, snow is a big deal when you’re trying to play baseball. But we were reading in the papers how the boys from Hollywood won’t be able to handle the cold weather. So Tommy Lasorda in his infinite wisdom before the first game up there said, ‘We’re going to show them how tough we are. They can’t down-talk to us!’
“ ‘I don’t want anyone wearing their jackets!’ Tommy told us. So, we’re introduced, we don’t have our jackets, we’re on the third-base line and they proceed to introduce all but two people even in attendance for the game. They introduced everybody, and all the while the boys from Hollywood are standing there, shivering. And we’re thinking, ‘Whose great idea is this?! It’s cold!’ ”
It only got worse from there. Game-time temperatures hit about 9 degrees Celsius (the high-40s) for Game 3 at the Big O.
They plunged to near freezing for Game 4, but the boys from Hollywood staved off elimination (and pneumonia) anyway, blowing out the Expos 7–1.
Game 5 was scheduled for the next day, a Sunday afternoon, with temperatures again diving toward zero. The Expos were expecting another packed house of 54,000-plus. Forecasters had predicted rain, sleet, or both, which combined with the cold prompted the umpires to postpone the deciding game until Monday afternoon. The predicted downpour wasn’t as bad as feared, with some on hand that day believing the game could have been played—but the postponement did allow starter Ray Burris to pitch on a full four days’ rest, after shutting out the Dodgers 3–0 in Game 2. It also reduced the Game 5 crowd to a shivering, tense gathering of 36,491. A tight, low-scoring game only raised the tension.
Steve Rogers:
“Look at the first inning. We put runners at first and third with no outs against Fernando [Valenzuela]. Dawson’s at the plate. Fernando usually throws the screwball. Instead he throws that little slider, jams Dawson right to the shortstop for a double play. A run scores. And that’s it. That’s our offence. Now, while nobody could say in the first inning that that’s important, you look at how the game went on—that first inning was as critical as anything. They’ve already got someone warming up in the bullpen. If Hawk sees it better or gets a ball over the plate and drives it, we might be into the bullpen. One big hit and Fernando might be gone.”
Mike Scioscia:
“Fernando gave up that run in the first inning and then proceeded to pitch as well as you could ever imagine anyone pitching. You know, Fernando was young. He was only 20, but he understood the ramifications of what was going on out there. He
was really focused on every pitch. We just didn’t do much offensively to help him.”
While Valenzuela dominated, Burris tossed another gem of his own, scattering five hits over eight innings. But the Dodgers pieced enough together in the fifth to tie the game. Monday and Pedro Guerrero led off the inning with back-to-back singles. After a Scioscia lineout, Burris uncorked a wild pitch, pushing runners to second and third. With Valenzuela up, the Expos brought the corners in, watching for a potential game-tying squeeze. Instead, Valenzuela swung away, slapping a grounder to second to score the tying run.
Both teams went down in order their next two times up. In the seventh, the Expos put two on, but didn’t score. The Dodgers pushed Davey Lopes into scoring position in the eighth with an infield hit and a steal, but didn’t score. On to the ninth the game went, with the score still tied 1–1. The Expos had pinch-hit Tim Wallach for Burris in the bottom of the eighth, meaning they’d need a new pitcher for the ninth. Jim Fanning now faced a big decision. Due up for the Dodgers was the heart of their order: right-handed hitters Steve Garvey and Ron Cey, and 35-year-old, lefty-swinging Rick Monday, who’d hit a ton in part-time duty that year and pushed the lighter-hitting Ken Landreaux out of the lineup.
The Expos’ bullpen wasn’t particularly deep that year, so even after their starter had given them eight innings, there were only two likely choices to start the ninth. Closer Jeff Reardon was battling a bad back, though he’d pitched in Game 1 of the series. The other most likely option was starting pitcher Steve Rogers.