to be a good teammate. | Forum
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Nov 19 '19
MONTREAL - "The Rock" summed it up best. Danny Santana Jersey . "It feels like I havent left," said Tim Raines, the former long-time Expo, current Blue Jays roving instructor and should-be Hall-of-Famer, just moments after stepping onto the turf at Olympic Stadium. While Raines was referring to the memories that came flooding back, he may have meant it literally. Nothing much has changed about the Big O. Its the same ride to the Pie IX stop on the famous Montreal Metro. The walk from the station to the stadiums dimly lit concourse is no different. Then, you emerge through one of the section corridors into a time capsule. The yellow seats, so often empty in the Expos final years, serve as a reminder of days gone by when fans would rap them up and down to make a clanging sound. The scoreboard, which still sits above the centerfield batters eye, hasnt been updated. Its not high definition or LCD or anything else that resembles what fans enjoy in the stadia of today. The players are different. Well, for the most part, if you consider that Blue Jays utility infielder Maicer Izturis made his major league debut in a Montreal uniform on August 27, 2004. Everything else is the same. "I was joking if they wanted me to do any fan mail," said Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos, a Montreal native whose internship with the Expos, which included the responsibility of answering fan mail, launched his career in baseball. "I was getting ready to go." There was little chatter around the stadium of the 1994 players strike, which happened at a time when the Expos were 74-40, good enough for the National Leagues best record. The resurgent New York Yankees were the talk of the American League that year. What a contrast, those two organizations, in the two decades since. The Expos are gone, the proverbial stick of dynamite given to that 94 team by an uncommitted ownership, the 1995 club a shell of its former self. The Yankees have missed the playoffs only twice since. It took 10 years after the strike for the Expos, which experienced a kind of walking dead status once the likes of Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou and others left town, to die off. The fans, descendants of the people who watched Jackie Robinson play in their city before he broke Major League Baseballs colour barrier in 1947, were subjected to annual speculation about their franchises relocation. Finally it happened in 2005 with the city of Washington, D.C. receiving a third crack at getting baseball right (the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers each descend from failed Washington Senators clubs.) "I think the issues were, and its no knock against the stadium, but the location of the stadium, the fact it wasnt a retractable roof," said Anthopoulos. "Growing up in this city, like you would in Toronto but its a lot colder here in the winter, the winters are long and any bit of summer you can get you want to be outdoors. Its a tough sell to go all the way to the east end and be indoors for a ballgame." This is a 48-hour period for the Blue Jays and Mets to work out the final kinks before the start of the regular season. Just as importantly, its a chance for Montrealers to experience what once was and to pay a posthumous tribute to their beloved Gary Carter, which they did on Friday night. On Saturday, its the 94 Expos turn to feel the love. Larry Walker, Moises Alou and future Hall-of-Famer Pedro Martinez will be among those on hand. One can only hope this weekend serves to exorcise the demon just a little bit. Luis Rivera, the Blue Jays third base coach who played his first three big league seasons with the Expos from 1986-88, doesnt forget. "The crowds, they were loud and there was a lot of whistling, which I do a lot," he said. "It was about sometimes 20-thousand, 30-thousand, 40-thousand. I remember when Pasqual Perez used to pitch it was a packed house." Tim Raines, The Rock, he remembers too. "Its a very good baseball town," said Raines. "My first 10 years here we averaged two million fans a year. They dont just leave. I think ownership back in the day, right at the tail end, played a big part of the lack of success that they had here." Warren Cromartie, the former Expos great, has said the exhibition weekend is the first step toward the return of Major League Baseball to Montreal. Maybe hes right and one day well be able to say, "Les Expos sont la!" Maybe hes wrong and this is nothing more than a pipe dream. For the moment, its just nice to be back at Olympic Stadium. Ian Gibaut Jersey . In the second game of their day/night doubleheader at Minneapolis, three Blue Jays pitchers, Steve Delabar, Sergio Santos and J. Jeff Mathis Rangers Jersey . General Manager Sam Presti said the three-time All-Star had knee swelling that would not subside, and the procedure was intended to solve the problem. He said doctors determined that a loose stitch was to blame for the swelling, that Westbrooks lateral meniscus has healed properly and the procedure was successful. MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Denny Hamlin promised he would be a factor in Sundays NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway, and he went out and proved it by leading a parade of drivers who smashed the track qualifying record. Hamlin turned a lap at 99.595 mph around the 0.526-mile oval, the oldest and shortest in the Sprint Cup Series. Its his 17th career pole, third at Martinsville and career-best fifth this season. "I knew we were going to be pretty strong," Hamlin said about the track where hes won four times. "I knew we had a shot at the pole and, beyond that, I think our car is pretty good in race trim as well." Hamlin later also won the pole for Saturdays truck race, where hell seek his third straight victory at the track. Johnson, a five-time champion for Hendrick Motorsports, will start the race with a four-point lead over Matt Kenseth in the championship, and surrounded by Kenseth and his teammates -- Hamlin and Kyle Busch. "No," Johnson said when asked if being surrounded made him nervous. "Maybe I should be, but not as of now. We will all race hard Im sure. We have all been, at least so far, have been a lot of situations with each driver and been able to race hard and take it right to the line, but not cross it. Scott Heineman Jersey. " Johnson and Busch actually tied in qualifying at 99.344 mph, but Johnson was awarded the second spot based on the owner points tiebreaker, moving Busch to the third spot with Kenseth alongside. Johnson, who has won eight times at Martinsville, including the last two, said his team struggled for much of the day in practice, but "we found some direction there at the end and made some adjustments." The top 10 in the starting grid features half of the top 10 in points with just four events to go. Busch and Kevin Harvick (starting 10th) are third, 26 back, and Jeff Gordon (9th) is fifth, 34 back. Hamlin, who is in danger of seeing his streak of seasons with a victory end at seven if he cant claim one of the final races, said he will race hard for at victory, and to be a good teammate. "I think both my teammates and the guys who are around will know that Im racing for a race win and thats it," Hamlin said. "Ill take more risks, obviously, when racing for a win. I will be a lot more aggressive with a non-teammate than I will with a teammate, so that part of it is a little bit different, but that would be the only way I dont givbe 100 per cent racing for a win." ' ' '
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