By Anthony Wilson-Smith

December 16, 2024

Not long ago, an old friend of renowned Montreal cartoonist Terry Mosher – a.k.a. Aislin) phoned him for a catch-up chat. After several minutes, the talk switched to baseball: the friend, now living in Toronto, asked a question about the late, lamented Montreal Expos. “Just a sec,” Terry said, “I have someone who’ll know the answer.” Seconds later, a new voice on the phone said: “Hi, it’s Bill Lee – how can I help you?”

As even casual Expos fans know, Bill Lee was the legendary, talented, iconoclastic left-handed pitcher nicknamed “Spaceman” in his three years with the team from 1979 to 1982. He is a member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame, a surprisingly successful 2016 Vermont gubernatorial candidate (for the Liberty Union Party ‑ “So far left, we’re right”…more than 8,000 votes) and the subject of a Warren Zevon tribute ballad.

Forty-two years after leaving, Lee often visits the city and visits Terry while doing so. And for good reason: between the two, there are probably no better, more knowledgeable tellers of tales about the Expos ‑ “The ‘spos”, “Nos Amours” ‑ the baseball franchise that captivated Montrealers and millions of other Canadians through many of their 35 years of existence before succumbing in 2004 to a lethal combination of penny-pinching, administrative ineptitude and a resultant general indifference among Montrealers.

But as Terry demonstrates so compellingly in the recently released, 335-page Aislin’s Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist’s Love Affair, a life lived mostly well and joyously ultimately counts for more than an ignominious end. That is certainly true of the Expos, of whom memories still burn bright through festivals, annual conventions, perpetual rumours of a rebirth (unlikely) – and the ubiquitous tricolour caps still sported across North America by everyone from hip-hop stars to teen fashion mavens not even born when the Expos played their final game but enthralled by the legend, now grown into myth. There is, of course, a Netflix documentary in the works.

Terry brings those memories and that passion to life through a combination of neatly framed anecdotes about people and events throughout the team’s history, limned by his famous cartoons and some more stylized sketches. He also flashes – in an understated way – an insider’s knowledge borne of friendships with everyone from players and management to Expos founder Charles Bronfman to such fellow über-fans as actor Donald Sutherland. (The latter, he recounts, was so devoted to the team that he would dial in to listen to games while overseas starring in films.)

Along the way, he identifies the most beloved players and managers – Lee, utility man Ronnie Brand, outfielder Warren ‘Cro’ Cromartie, manager Buck Rogers, among others – to those seen more ambivalently – the loved/sometimes loathed Gary Carter – to the fairly universally unloved shortstop Tim Foli.

If there is one hero, it is Charles Bronfman, who stepped in at the last minute as principal owner in 1969 when the still-nascent team seemed dead in the water. As Charles recounts in his eloquent foreword, when the franchise was granted, it existed “on paper, but no playing field, no stands, no venue…..” From that almost non-existent base, he put in place an organization that he oversaw with love and an open wallet for 21 years before deciding that rising player salaries and gradually diminishing interest in the team were killing the joy that had driven him in the first place. In retrospect, his sale of the team in 1990 (Terry’s perfect cartoon marking that event, above), to a penny-pinching local conglomerate headed by team president Claude Brochu – for much less money than Charles could have received if he agreed to the team being moved – marked the beginning of the end 14 years later.

All that could sound – literally – like too much inside-baseball. But Terry transcends that by making the book as much about an era and the defining people within it as the sport itself. When the Expos arrived in 1969, Montreal was on a high, two years from the epochal Expo’ 67 and still the largest, wealthiest and most influential city in Canada – distinctions it would lose in the 1970s to Toronto.

The characters who filled it – both anglophone and francophone – possessed a grandeur of vision that caught the imagination of people across North America, including star players. Even as the city’s influence dissipated outside Quebec, Montreal – and the Expos – retained their allure through to 1994, the infamous season when the Expos had the best record in all of baseball until a players’ strike in July ended the season.

What finally killed the team, prompting the franchise’s move to Washington to become the Nationals at the end of the 2004 season? Terry cites a variety of factors, more in sorrow than anger. The multi-pronged partnership that bought out Bronfman weren’t interested in spending money beyond their initial investment. After the shortened 1994 season, ownership ordered a sell-off of star players in favour of cheaper, lesser talent. On-field quality suffered accordingly despite some high-end young talent, smartly chosen castoffs, and the wizardry of manager Felipe Alou (one of the most iconic Expos ever).

Another reason that Terry cites (which is my own theory): the dark, dreary Olympic Stadium, where the team moved after its early years at tiny, open Jarry Park. It was perhaps the only venue of which potential spectators would say ‘it’s too nice a day’ to go to the ballpark.

Whatever the case, after 1995, the team never averaged more than 20,000 fans per game. By the end, the joy was gone, as were almost all fans. The city was changing in its diverse makeup and preferences. A professional soccer team arrived, and more young people gravitated to the sport over baseball.

And yet, the fond memories seem at times to grow even stronger among those old enough to remember. Perhaps the main reason is Terry himself, now in his early 80s and producing some of his best work ever.  The often-angry, dark-haired, dark-eyed rebel of the first half of his career has mellowed without losing his edge. In the second half, he has graduated from enfant terrible to linchpin of the community – always reaching out, bringing Montrealers together, reminding them of their shared stories in both politics and sports.

The book’s mini-profiles – in print and art – are fully rounded, the subjects’ strengths recalled, and failings explained, with compassion and understanding. The result is a love letter to a sport, a team and a city that celebrates all that was without undue mourning for what is no more.

A portion of the book’s revenue is being donated to the Montreal Children’s Hospital. And with that, fittingly, the cycle of past, present and future is complete.

Aislin’s Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist’s Love Affair, is independently published. You can order your copy from shop@aislin.com.

Anthony Wilson-Smith is President and CEO of Historica Canada and former editor of Maclean’s magazine.