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My Turn At Bat:The Sad Saga Of The Expos

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Mr. Brochu offers both a personal vindication story aas well as the story of the downhill spiral of the Montreal Expos franchise. Most Americans may not know that Montreal has over 100 years of baseball history, including interactions with Tommy Lasorda and Jackie Robinson. In the Expos era, the team was an amazing success in the 80's, outdrawing the New York Yankees and producing great players who often left when free agency beckoned them to larger markets and more recognition than French Canada could offer. But the Expos, fighting for their own identity in the hockey capital of the world, made great strides in establishing the franchise as a model of production for young players. Some of the great "home grown"
Expos include Hall of Famer Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Steve Rogers, Tim Wallach, Marquis Grissom, Randy Johnson (yes -that Randy Johnson), Ellis Valentine, Larry Parrish, Orlando Cabrera and one who could be among the all-time greats - Vladimir Guerrero. Baseball fans and Expos fans alike should hear how the greed and personal agendas of some can take away the team that we fans give our hearts and souls. As a life-long Expos fan in the US, baseball will never be the same without "Nos
Amours."

First of all, I was deeply saddened when the wonderful city of Montreal lost its baseball franchise. It was an amazing experience going to an Expos game and hearing the names being announced in French! It was quite a cultural experience, ironically Bud Selig claims to want to internationalize MLB, but ridding the only French-speaking metropolis in North America of its team seems counter-productive.

Anyway, I've followed the Expos saga for years and in case you don't know, Montreal likes baseball, in fact Montreal LOVES baseball! But the way this team was run would make it hard for anybody to come out to the stadium. So don't believe Major League Baseball when they blame the fans. They sabotaged the team, not the fans. If you ever saw the movie "Major League" you'd understand better what MLB did during the last few years of the Expos existance to diminish fan support. They also did a good job keeping it on the down low to those who don't live in Quebec. But that's a whole different story.

Anyway, the book... It was originally written in French and was translated to English, I found it at many times hard to read and this probably had something to do with it. I may try to pick up a french copy someday and see if my 4 years of studying la langue did me any good.

So the book is basically an "I didn't do it!" for Claude Brochu, but he's probably just as guilty as anyone in the team's demise. So it's basically Claude pointing fingers at others who were also responsible. If you want to find out what went wrong with MLB in Montreal, I suggest doing your own research on the net, you can start by googling previous owner Jeffrey Loria. Then come back to this book when you understand Claude's role because you're not going to get it here.

I for one hope baseball returns to Montreal one day, but many obstacles need to be cleared, Bud Selig must not be commissioner and the city needs to regain the trust of MLB. A salary cap wouldn't hurt either!

Claude Brochu reveals just what it takes in running the Montreal Expos. The first-third of the book starts off well as details are provided on what are key ingredients to keep a sports franchise running: Mr. Brochu is appointed the chief of operations of an ownership consotium.

The middle-third is still entertaining but the storytelling starts to get uneven. The good parts are the downtown ballpark project and his views on each of the partners of the consortium: they were either with him or against him. However, Mr. Brochu does not shed much light into some other significant events that happened to the team during this period (such as the hiring and competence of then General Manager Jim Beattie).

The last-third imitates Brochu's last months on the job: everything starts to crumble. This is the most frustrating part to read. Only bits and pieces of a much larger puzzle are revealed.

There is an appendix at the end, with copies of faxes and letters in response to serious issues that arose with the ball club during Brochu's tenure.

All in all, a whole lot of what went on behind the scenes that was not originally revealed accurately (or without personal bias) by the Montreal press core finally is described in this book. The biggest surprise is who Mr. Brochu classifies in his good book and in his bad book.

Brochu gives valuable insight to his tenure as Expos president and the multiple dismantlings of the team -- including the disintegration of the downtown stadium plan. However, too much of this book is him defending himself from gripings of the limited partners and the media. Brochu's continual passing of the blame gets tiresome, however much truth is in it. I wish there was a book out there with both sides of the story, as the one-sidedness comes through in "My Turn At Bat." I am convinced after reading, however, that Brochu wanted to keep the Expos in Montréal, despite conspiracy theories that state otherwise. The truth is obviously somewhere in between Brochu's account and that observers saw when the team was sold to Jeffrey Loria (whom I think DID want to move the team) in 1999.

After visiting Montreal in 2002 to see the Expos I was disappointed to hear they were moving to Washington D.C. Brochu provides his opinion and account on why the Expos were first sold to the other 29 owners in MLB and eventually moved from Montreal. Reading this book wished I could have gone to more Expos games when they were in Montreal. A good read, but keep in mind it's written from one point-of-view.

Provided that you can swallow the bile collecting in your mouth after reading anything relating to Claude Brochu, the book's not a bad, albeit biased, version of the Expos' tragic history. While Brochu spends most of the book shifting blame (as he should being as the Expos' tragedy is greatly his fault) the book does give insight into the financial mess that MLB has become. It does seem that the title is a bit ironic, as Brochu stuck out when he got up to the plate. Vive les Expos!

Brochu gives valuable insight to his tenure as Expos president and the multiple dismantlings of the team -- including the disintegration of the downtown stadium plan. However, too much of this book is him defending himself from gripings of the limited partners and the media. Brochu's continual passing of the blame gets tiresome, however much truth is in it. I wish there was a book out there with both sides of the story, as the one-sidedness comes through in "My Turn At Bat." I am convinced after reading, however, that Brochu wanted to keep the Expos in Montréal, despite conspiracy theories that state otherwise. The truth is obviously somewhere in between Brochu's account and that observers saw when the team was sold to Jeffrey Loria (whom I think DID want to move the team) in 1999.