The team’s memory is kept alive by lifelong fans like Perry Giannias — organizer of Expos Fest, which doubles as a charity fundraiser — and the Gazette’s Terry Mosher, who has just released a new book.
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The Montreal Expos may have bolted town 20 years ago for allegedly greener pastures in Washington, D.C., but the baseball dream of bringing the team back here refuses to die for lifelong fans like Perry Giannias — in spite of the overwhelming odds.
“Ya gotta believe,” Giannias said softly, clad in an Expos cap and jacket while echoing the mantra of New York Mets pitcher Tug McGraw when his team was making its bid for championship glory.
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Giannias then offered his own mantra: “The Expos aren’t dead — they’re just on hiatus.”
Giannias — or Perry G., as he is known to fellow fans — is the organizer of the annual Expos Fest, which brings the team’s stars of yore back to Montreal to schmooze with fans. It doubles as a charity fundraiser dedicated to raising $3 million for the Montreal Children’s Hospital in memory of Giannias’s niece Kat Demes.
Giannias is also reputed to have the world’s largest collection of Expos memorabilia and paraphernalia crammed into his Laval basement.
Local baseball lovers are getting their dreams revived with the 20th anniversary of the team’s departure — even after hopes were dashed about a possible partnership with the Tampa Bay Rays to bring that team here for half a season.
Montreal filmmaker Robbie Hart will soon release his documentary Nos Amours, chronicling the efforts of Stephen Bronfman and others to bring Major League Baseball back to town. Netflix is also working on a French-language doc on the same theme, set to stream in 2025. Writer and Expos historian Danny Gallagher has hit the book market with his latest opus, Explosion, focusing on the highs and lows of the team’s 36 seasons here.
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And Gazette colleague Terry Mosher has just released Aislin’s Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist’s Love Affair, a 336-page compendium of cartoons and history as viewed through his inimitable lens. As the title suggests, the volume has been assembled with unabashed love for the team. This may be viewed as a departure from the oft-scathing caricatures for which Aislin has become renowned, although he doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to dealing with perceived villains in the Expos odyssey.
Mosher threw a thank-you bash Wednesday at the Atwater Library for those who counselled him in putting together the book, but was uncharacteristically silent making his entrance as Youppi!, the taciturn team mascot. That soon changed when Mosher removed Youppi!’s orange, shag-carpeted head cover.
In addition to singling out an array of sportswriters and photographers — a veritable who’s who of Gazette staffers past and present, as well as local broadcasters whose careers had interlocked with the Expos — Mosher paid particular props to Giannias, also in attendance.
“Perry is such an exceptional man,” Mosher marvelled. “Charles Bronfman is the guy who really started the ball rolling for the Expos, but Perry is really the guy keeping the dream alive.
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“Expos Fest isn’t an event sponsored by Power Corporation. This is Perry and his family who put this thing together in tribute to his niece, who was five at the time when she was diagnosed with DIPG, an aggressive type of brain tumour. When she died a year later, he was so sad and wondered what he could do. He said the only thing he really knew was the Expos. So he went with his strengths, and look what he created. He has helped raise so much money to deal with fighting the disease.
“The ball players love him. The fans love him. He is such a special man, an inspirational discovery for me while doing this book. And he knows everything about the Expos.”
Mosher will donate 10 per cent of book sales to Expos Fest to help Giannias attain his $3-million goal for the Montreal Children’s Hospital’s DIPG program.
Giannias, who has already raised $1.4 million for the cause, remains upbeat both about battling DIPG and bringing the Expos back.
“You’ve got to dream. You’ve got to hope. That’s what life is all about. What’s been so satisfying for me is to apply my love for the Expos for the greater good in honouring the memory of my niece. It brings it all to the next level. I started the Expos Fest in 2016 because I wanted to get behind a hospital fundraiser and felt there was a need to get fans and players together. And also because no one else was dumb enough to try to undertake this,” Giannias cracked.
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This year’s Expos Fest, taking place April 20 at Laval’s Embassy Plaza and celebrating the 1994 team, is already sold out, with more than 1,000 fans attending. Former Expos stars Pedro Martinez, Cliff Floyd and Rondell White and beloved manager Felipe Alou, who turns 89 in May, will be attending.
“In my heart of hearts, I hope that one day they’ll recognize Felipe (at the Baseball Hall of Fame) in Cooperstown,” Giannias said.
Giannias took a path less travelled here into baseball.
“I was one of those rare Greek immigrant kids who didn’t get drawn into hockey. My father fell in love with baseball. I started playing when I was five. And after that, how do you not fall in love with the Montreal Expos?
“Hey, we could have won the National League Championship in ’94 and maybe the World Series in the years to come had there not been that strike. I still get goosebumps thinking about that.
“Then everything fell apart in the years following. But until Major League Baseball makes an announcement about expansion not including Montreal, I’ll keep on dreaming.”
For her part, Giannias’s wife, Voula Bourdakos, also has a dream: She is hoping her husband can find a permanent museum setting for his collection — away from their home.
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“Ohmygawd, you have no idea how understanding Voula has been — a very patient woman,” noted Giannias, with Bourdakos smiling and nodding next to him.
Stephen Bronfman came up to Giannias at the library event to touch base.
“Wouldn’t this have been a perfect day for a home opener in the city?” the grinning Bronfman asked him.
“Oh yeah,” Giannias longingly shot back. “Batter up.”
Bronfman has long been banging the drum for a Major League Baseball return to Montreal and a downtown stadium for the team. The son of Charles Bronfman, largely credited for bringing Major League Baseball to Montreal in 1969 and unable to attend this thank-you affair, Stephen thought he was close in setting up a season split with the Tampa Bay Rays.
“I thought it was a done deal,” Giannias said. “It broke my heart.”
“It was not the Hollywood ending we had hoped for,” Bronfman acknowledged. “I was hopeful last year. We were really, really close. The unfortunate thing is that the world of sport has gotten so expensive.
“If expansion were to come to Montreal, it’s a whole different set of circumstances, but hopefully we don’t bring in another Loria,” he added in reference to unlamented Expos owner Jeffrey Loria. “I’ve lived baseball my whole life. You’ve got to dream and hope. Who knows what the future may bring?”
Mosher also entertains fantasies of baseball’s return.
“I’m a little more realistic and perhaps I’m a little more cynical, having specialized in politics and understanding how these people work. That might change, but there’s no taste for this now on the political level,” Mosher said.
“Felipe Alou said that before he dies he’d love to go to a baseball game in this city, and that’s my philosophy. I’d love to go to a game with one of my grandkids or, by then, with one of my great-grandkids. I want baseball in Montreal. Let’s dream.”
Aislin’s Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist’s Love Affair costs $50 and can be purchased via aislin.com.
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