ThirtyYearsIsAnEternityInRealLife
ButNothingButABlinkOfThePastime’sEyeVille
A wee Tweet from Tom Hawthorne reminded me that it was 30 years ago today that faux Expos manager Jim Fanning brought Steve Rogers in to pitch to the Dodgers’ Rick Monday in the ninth inning of the deciding game of the National League Championship Series.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Which, in the end of course, turned out to be a very bad history for the Montreal Expos indeed.
But here’s the thing….
If management hadn’t fired the real manager of the Expos, Dick Williams, earlier that year during the pennant drive I’m not so sure starter Rodgers would have been brought in late in the game in a pressure situation instead of, say, Jeff Reardon, because Williams apparently knew what Mr. Rodgers wasn’t made out of.
And if that had not happened baseball in Montreal might have turned out very differently.
Not to mention the fact that The Vlad might be still playing in the beautiful province, maybe even in a new downtown ballpark, so that he can go for his 500th next year where he belongs instead of shucking, jiving and playing out the string as a free agent vagabond.
****
Anyway.
I remember Monday’s home run trot on Rodgers back on Oct 19, 1981 like it was yesterday.
But as for what else I did on my 22nd birthday?
Heckfire.
I can’t remember a darned thing about it.
.
