NOTE: The following is a guest post from author Craig Colby
My love of sports, in general, and baseball, in particular, blossomed in the 1980s. I had been a physically awkward child with athletic brothers, one older and one younger. When I started playing football in grade 10, 1978, I began to explore what I had been missing.
Football was an easy first step, and I became obsessed with the sport. Baseball took a little longer. Since my family is from Michigan, we are Tigers fans and since we moved to Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1971 we didn’t see them much. When I started watching baseball, the most enticing available option was the Montreal Expos. In 1979 les Expos were a team on the rise, winning 95 games. Their lineup was loaded with exciting talent, and they were on the CBC every Saturday night. Those Expos teams planted the seed of my love of baseball. And Blue Monday showed me what sports heartbreak was all about.
I’ve documented my sports fandom, along with other important parts of life, in my book ALL CAPS: Stories That Justify an Outrageous Hat Collection. It’s not really about hats, although it has a lot of hats in it. The book was born of a pandemic project in which I wore a different hat every day once the lockdown started and would continue to do so until it was lifted. The first day, I posted a picture on Facebook of a stovepipe Pirates hat (“P” for pandemic). I thought nothing of it. Later that day, friends had posted their hats. Everyday, our hat club would play show-and-tell online. Later, I added stories to each hat. I didn’t know how long the shutdown would last or how many hats I had. People eventually ran out of hats, but would contribute album covers, autographs or bobbleheads. 125 days later I ran out of hats. I was surprised by the reaction. People were sad it was over, and not just the people who participated. The daily sharing created a connection that comforted people in a time of isolation. The stories had enough impact that I was encouraged to write a book. When an audience asks for something, you deliver it. Today, people tell me they laugh and cry reading it. ALL CAPS is now a finalist in the Canadian Book Club Awards.
Here is an excerpt from the book, all about those beautiful Expos and my friends’ muddy response to Blue Monday.
The first time I wore this, I felt like I’d been traded. Not only was I wearing another team’s hat, but the Expos hat and team were the opposites of the Tigers.
Detroit was one of the original entries to the American League in 1901. The team spanned the twentieth century, infused with baseball tradition. Their stadium predated World War I. The Tigers had worn the same home uniforms since my grandparents were young: white with a midnight Olde English D and a midnight blue hat with a slightly different white Olde English D. Classic. Even the name, Tigers, is iconic.
In contrast, the Expos were named after Expo 67, the International and Universal Exposition held in Montreal the year before the team was established. Their road uniforms were bright blue, white, and red, with a logo that takes a while to figure out. It’s an M made from a small red “e” for Expos and a blue “b” for baseball. I swear I heard that the white part is an “l” for “les Expos Baseball” but I’ve never been able to confirm it. Let’s just pretend it’s true so that all three sections of the logo have a purpose. The hats would not look out of place on a guy in face paint making balloon animals at a kid’s birthday party. But I love these hats.
I love the Expos.
When I started watching sports with my friends in high school, we watched the Expos on CBC television every Saturday night. Montreal was a great team in the 1980s. It was easy to get invested in the Kid, the Hawk, and the speedy Tim Raines. We were glued to the games when they made the playoffs in 1981. The end of the final game of their series with the Dodgers ran into our senior football practice. We had to leave—not easy to do while the score was tied.
While we were tackling each other in the cold mud, Tim Cattani, my brother Scott’s teammate on the junior football team, came running out of the school and onto the field, hands stretched in the air, cheering his lungs out. Everyone knew what that meant. Tim was the lone Dodgers fan at the school. He may have given us the details of Rick Monday’s dramatic home run as we dragged him face-first around the field. I can’t quite remember. Tim was cool with it, though. His team won.
When we got older, my friends and I would go out to watch the Expos play. One local watering hole had a TV above the bar on the first floor. When the bartender saw us walking downstairs, he’d pull out our favorite beers and have them open by the time we reached the rail. My friend JohnO, a tall, fiercely opinionated ginger, hated that. He had only himself to blame for being so predictable.
The Tigers connected me to my family in Michigan, but the Expos tied me to my friends in Thunder Bay.
About the Author:
Craig Colby is a writer, director, and producer whose productions have appeared on Discovery Channel, TSN, BBC, and Smithsonian Channel among others. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Nancy, and two sons, Shane and Curtis.
He maintains a website at https://www.colbyvision.net/ and a blog at https://www.colbyvision.net/theswissaccount
