...the dream died. We lost 4-0 to Pittsburgh, but that didn't matter because we;d only lost 2 of the previous 21. We were on fire. And we had the second-lowest payroll in the league.
Leadoff - Marquis Grissom (CF). Gold glove. 36 steals. An OBP of .333
2. Mike Lansing (2B). Not quite what he was in his rookie season, but when you get 400 quality at bats and solid fielding from a guy making 200K, you don't complain.
3. Moises Alou (LF/RF). God I loved him. He was on his way to 200 hits and 35 HRs - and this after having essentially been crippled the previous September by getting his cleats caught in shitty turf in St. Louis. And when he clubbed one, we'd all howl at the moon - Aloooooooooooooooooooo!
4. Larry Walker (RF/1B). Fuck Fergie Jenkins, Walker was the greatest Canadian to ever play the game. There was nothing more beautiful than a Walker 3-run homer. And his arm was a cannon - though this year he blew rotator cuff and got moved to 1B in June.
5. Sean Berry (3B). The only real weak link. Couldn't clutch hit worth a damn.
6. Wil Cordero (SS). Yeah, you may remember him from his crappy later years, but in 1994 he was good enough to be an all-star and a silver slugger. And his clutch hitting was like something out of a movie - real Roy of the Rovers stuff.
7. Darrin Fletcher (C). Nice guy. Slow as molasses. How slow? Possibly the only man in history to have an out-of-the-park triple.
8. Cliff Floyd (LF/1B). Yeah, that's right. We were so fucking good, Floyd hit eighth sometimes. While hitting .281. Suck on that.
The back-ups: Rondell White, you heard of him right? You might have heard of Lenny Webster, too. And Randy Milligan, in the twilight of his career. But the rest were total no-names: Lou Frazier, Juan Bell, Freddie Benavides, Jeff Gardner, Tim Spehr.
How'd we score over 5 runs a game with a bench like that? Oh, right - because Felipe's a genius.
The Rotation: Ken Hill, Jeff Fassero, Pedro Martinez, Butch Henry, Kirk Reuter. Other than Hill, none of them had been big-league starters for more than 18 months. Hill was 16-5, coating towards being the team's only-ever 20-game winner. Fassero was our lefty genius. Pedro was in his first full season as a starter and hadn't yet *quite* figured out the whole "control" thing, so it was a little bit of Nuke Lalouche every time he went out to pitch. Reuter was a junkball king and Henry...well, if Butch hadn't had such a bum elbow, he could have been one of the greats. A 2.43 ERA and after Maddux probably the best starter in the whole league that year.
And the bullpen - oh, the bullpen. It was to fucking die for. Gil Heredia was the swing man. Jeff Shaw - yes that one, the two-time all-star with the 200 career saves - was 4th(!) on the depth chart. Ahead of him was set-up man extraordinaire Tim Scott. He never got the credit he deserved, but when he came to the mound and the stadium DJ played his theme tune (I'll be There, by the Four Tops), you knew things were going to be all right. Mel Rojas was the backup closer.
And then there was Wetteland. John Wetteland. My God, he was a magnificent bastard. Half the time, he'd come on like an avenging angel and mow batters down like they were fairground conches. The other half, he'd load the bases with three leadoff walks, *then* mow them down. His performances deserved health warnings.
Then came the strike. The cancelled post-season. The fire sale of 1995.
And then they were gone.
Because they never played a post-season, it's like they never existed. But they played some of the most beautiful baseball you ever saw. If Fay Vincent hadn't got whacked in '92, there'd have been no strike and we'd have won the World Series that year. There would still be a team in Montreal.
I'll probably spend every August 12th thinking about this for the rest of my life.
Leadoff - Marquis Grissom (CF). Gold glove. 36 steals. An OBP of .333
2. Mike Lansing (2B). Not quite what he was in his rookie season, but when you get 400 quality at bats and solid fielding from a guy making 200K, you don't complain.
3. Moises Alou (LF/RF). God I loved him. He was on his way to 200 hits and 35 HRs - and this after having essentially been crippled the previous September by getting his cleats caught in shitty turf in St. Louis. And when he clubbed one, we'd all howl at the moon - Aloooooooooooooooooooo!
4. Larry Walker (RF/1B). Fuck Fergie Jenkins, Walker was the greatest Canadian to ever play the game. There was nothing more beautiful than a Walker 3-run homer. And his arm was a cannon - though this year he blew rotator cuff and got moved to 1B in June.
5. Sean Berry (3B). The only real weak link. Couldn't clutch hit worth a damn.
6. Wil Cordero (SS). Yeah, you may remember him from his crappy later years, but in 1994 he was good enough to be an all-star and a silver slugger. And his clutch hitting was like something out of a movie - real Roy of the Rovers stuff.
7. Darrin Fletcher (C). Nice guy. Slow as molasses. How slow? Possibly the only man in history to have an out-of-the-park triple.
8. Cliff Floyd (LF/1B). Yeah, that's right. We were so fucking good, Floyd hit eighth sometimes. While hitting .281. Suck on that.
The back-ups: Rondell White, you heard of him right? You might have heard of Lenny Webster, too. And Randy Milligan, in the twilight of his career. But the rest were total no-names: Lou Frazier, Juan Bell, Freddie Benavides, Jeff Gardner, Tim Spehr.
How'd we score over 5 runs a game with a bench like that? Oh, right - because Felipe's a genius.
The Rotation: Ken Hill, Jeff Fassero, Pedro Martinez, Butch Henry, Kirk Reuter. Other than Hill, none of them had been big-league starters for more than 18 months. Hill was 16-5, coating towards being the team's only-ever 20-game winner. Fassero was our lefty genius. Pedro was in his first full season as a starter and hadn't yet *quite* figured out the whole "control" thing, so it was a little bit of Nuke Lalouche every time he went out to pitch. Reuter was a junkball king and Henry...well, if Butch hadn't had such a bum elbow, he could have been one of the greats. A 2.43 ERA and after Maddux probably the best starter in the whole league that year.
And the bullpen - oh, the bullpen. It was to fucking die for. Gil Heredia was the swing man. Jeff Shaw - yes that one, the two-time all-star with the 200 career saves - was 4th(!) on the depth chart. Ahead of him was set-up man extraordinaire Tim Scott. He never got the credit he deserved, but when he came to the mound and the stadium DJ played his theme tune (I'll be There, by the Four Tops), you knew things were going to be all right. Mel Rojas was the backup closer.
And then there was Wetteland. John Wetteland. My God, he was a magnificent bastard. Half the time, he'd come on like an avenging angel and mow batters down like they were fairground conches. The other half, he'd load the bases with three leadoff walks, *then* mow them down. His performances deserved health warnings.
Then came the strike. The cancelled post-season. The fire sale of 1995.
And then they were gone.
Because they never played a post-season, it's like they never existed. But they played some of the most beautiful baseball you ever saw. If Fay Vincent hadn't got whacked in '92, there'd have been no strike and we'd have won the World Series that year. There would still be a team in Montreal.
I'll probably spend every August 12th thinking about this for the rest of my life.
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