The next time you see somebody protecting their head from the sun with that funny little baseball cap that seems to be missing only a propeller on top, the hat the Montreal Expos made famous, it’s worth remembering how it all began.
This may seem a stretch but…putting a major-league team in a predominantly French-speaking city that’s not grounded on American soil actually began germinating with the Bay of Pigs invasion. That was in 1962, when the U.S. attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government during the Cuban missile crisis. Other than Castro’s resume as a ballplayer, there was no apparent connection to what happened seven years later: a major-league team in Montreal.
At least, not at the time.
There is, however, a string of history linking these two events. The 1967 World Fair awarded to the USSR in 1961 was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. A year later, the USSR cancelled its plans because of “financial constraints and security concerns.” Is it not logical that the Soviets felt less secure after being forced, reluctantly, to back down and remove its missiles from Cuba?
Six months after the Soviets opted out, the World Fair was awarded to Montreal. Believed to be ill-prepared, the city overcame monstrous odds to pull off what for decades was considered the most successful World Fair in history.
It was, of course, called Expo 67. The abbreviated version of “exposition” was bilingually perfect. Ultimately the name of the baseball team that would follow, it was also bilingually perfect as The Expos and Les Expos.
The world-wide success of Expo 67 put Montreal on the map to the extent that when the National League announced plans to expand, a delegation was welcomed to make a case for what was then Canada’s largest city. Montreal was chosen — against all odds once again. It had no stadium, no players, no farm system. What it had was a reputation for staging a spectacular World Fair, a bombastic mayor (Jean Drapeau) and 11 months until Opening Day.
As an aside, there are still World Fairs today. This year it’s in Osaka, Japan, until October. But they aren’t called World Fairs any longer. They’re called the World “Expos.”
Meanwhile, back in the sixties, the common denominator in securing both Expo 67 and the Expos — and later the 1976 Olympics — was Drapeau. In his autobiography “Distilled,” original Expos owner Charles Bronfman says this of the long-time mayor: “If there was ever a big-picture man and someone who didn’t sweat the details, it was Jean Drapeau. Obstacles didn’t exist. Hurdles were for other people to worry about.”
Faced with no stadium, Bronfman resigned as an investor. Drapeau asked to give him 24 hours. He then hired architects to stay up all night designing what became Jarry Park, and Bronfman acquiesced and put away his letter of resignation.
While “Royals” was equally bilingually acceptable for the team’s name, Kansas City had that market. Bronfman and club President John McHale, separately, suggested Expos. Their team survived 36 seasons before moving to Washington, its name destined to live forever.
Had the USSR not cancelled its World Fair in 1962, would there ever have been the Montreal Expos?
