Montreal Expos fans, players look back at tragic '94 season

Monday is the anniversary of one of the darkest days for Montreal Expos fans.

On Aug. 12, 1994, the first full day of the Major League Baseball strike started.

It also ended the Expos' run at first place in the league and potential run to the World Series.

Season's cancelled?

Scott Abramovitch was a bat boy with the team along with his brother Jamie.

"I think there was like a bit of a shock like, wait a second, can this actually happen?" said Scott.

Perry Giannis is a forever fan and collector of Expos merch.

"Never, never, never in my wildest dreams did I think we're the season was going to be cancelled," he said.

Sylvain Cantin sold peanuts at the Olympic Stadium.

"It was terrible because we'll never know what would happen in that year," he said.

Packed stadium

The empty, cavernous Olympic Stadium of 2024 was once packed with sellout crowds in a golden time for those wearing the Expos uniform, whether you were ace pitcher Pedro Martinez or a teenager from Cote-Saint-Luc.

"I didn't even have my driver's license for the first couple of months of the season," said Scott Abramovitch. "So I had to get lifts to the stadium. It was packed in 1994, that was a special place to see baseball. The fans were incredible. The the sound of that place is something that I still remember."

Hall-of-Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez with bat boy Scott Abramovitch from Cote-Saint-Luc.

"It was a good feeling in the city," said his younger brother Jamie. "When the Expos won, people were talking about it. It was it was really great."

After a moderate start, the Expos, went on a tear.

"Once May hit, we got going, and it was probably the best time I had going to a baseball field," said Jeff Fassero, who pitched in Montreal from 1991 to 1996.

Montreal Expos: Cliff Floyd, Jeff fesaro, Mike Lansing 1995. (The Canadian Press)

In 1994, the Expos had the second-lowest payroll at $18,955,000, according to the Baseball Cube site, which tracks payrolls by year. Only the San Diego Padres were lower.

As a comparison, the New York Yankees payroll was $44,785,334 that year, more than double the Expos.

Montreal Expos pitcher Pedro Martinez fires a pitch against the Cincinnati Reds in Montreal, April 13, 1994. It is looking more and more that the 36-year existence of the Montreal Expos is coming to an end and that their final home game will be Wednesday night at Olympic Stadium. (Marcos Townsend, The Canadian Press)

The Expos roster, however, was made up of stars, including future Hall-of-Famers Martinez and Larry Walker.

Giannis has an in-home museum of Expos merch in his basement and remembers every detail of '94: the sights, the sounds, and, regrettably, the smells.

"You try to, like, just zone out the rest of the stadium because it's, you know, it was smelly," he said. "It was, you know, old and it was just not a baseball stadium. But when you just watched the game and watched the guys, it was the best."

In the stands, you may have heard Cantin's voice as he hocked peanuts to playoff-hungry fans.

"The stadium was my second home, so I was there more often during the summer than my own house," he said.

Cantin's arm may not have had the heat of Martinez, but it did the trick.

"I had good precision for all those years," said Cantin. "That high percentage of, say, 95 per cent and maybe more."

Joining Martinez, Fassero and Walker on the field were familiar names such as Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou and Cliff Floyd.

Former Montreal Expos Larry Walker shoots a selfie with mascot Youppi as members of the 1994 team are introduced prior to a pre-season game with the Toronto Blue jays facing the New York Mets Saturday, March 29, 2014 in Montreal. Youppi survived the Expos when he became the Montreal Canadiens' mascot. (Paul Chiasson, The Canadian Press)

Fassero spent 16 years in the Major Leagues, but never had the talent that he did in Montreal.

"I played on some good teams like Seattle, St-Louis, but there was never that feel like we had in Montreal," he said.

Fairytale to nightmare

The Expos hit Aug. 12 as the best team in baseball with a 74-40 record.

Giannis already had tickets for the playoffs, shelling out nearly $2,000 for them.

"We were going to win the division, and we got a chance at the World Series and everything," he said. "I have goosebumps just saying. When they finally announced that it wasn't happening, it felt like you just got sucker punched."

Perry Giannis remembers almost every detail about 1994 as he sits in his make-shift museum in his basement.

1994 was the first year in MLB history since 1904 that the World Series was cancelled. No World Series has been cancelled since.

"We all thought, the players included, that [it would be] a short lockout and that it would all come back within a month or two, max, and that the season will continue," said Jamie Abramovitch.

By Sept. 14, Jamie was proven wrong and the season was officially over.

After the fairytale season, the rest of the Expos story turned to more of a nightmare with the team eventually leaving town a decade later in 2004.

"If I had a machine to go back in time and take out that lock out to see what would happen, that's my wish that I could do, that's for sure," said Cantin.

Sylvain Cantin was a peanut vendor at the Olympic Stadium the year the Montreal Expos were the best team in baseball.

"The pain never goes away," said Giannis. "Every time you talk about it, it just gets you, you know, riled up."

"It's so funny, I think, to how many games we were at as kids and then as bat boys, you know, on the field, and to not ever feel October baseball is the only thing that I wish we could we could get back," said Scott Abramovitch.

"I think it's just unfinished business that we never got to take care of," said Fassero.