Exhibition Game in Montréal, QC

For the 3rd year in a row, I made my way over to our decrepit Stade Olympique to take in the final 2 exhibition games of the Blue Jays pre-season. When they announced that the games were going to be against the Boston Red Sox, I was confident that the attendance would be better than the previous years. And it was.

In any case, after almost 6 months since I last saw a live baseball game, I was in my happy place. I decided for this game to share my happy place with my good friend and colleague, Steve Bissonnette. Steve hadn’t been to see a baseball game in over 20 years!

While it was great to see my favourite Blue Jay Kevin Pillar hit a home run, the real treat as an Expos fan was to see all the past stars honoured in the pre-game ceremony. It was great to see Ellis Valentine, Marquis Grissom, Jose Vidro as well as future Hall of Fame players Tim Raines & Vladimir Guerrero. The honoured guest that everyone wanted to see again was 2015 Hall of Fame inductee, Pedro Martinez. Pedro hadn’t been to Montreal since his departure in 1997. His speech was classic Pedro, unfiltered and full of positivity. He reiterated what he’s said for years now, we deserve to get a team back as soon as possible. The fans also honoured native Montrealer Russell Martin and David Ortiz with standing ovations.

My only complaint about the game was that by the 5th inning, both teams swapped most of the lineups with non-roster players. It was like watching AA ball! While I recognize that it’s more important that the players are in good shape for the regular season, we deserved regular season level gameplay.

More information about this game can be found here and here.

Attended by Warren Wilansky