2016 All Star Game Tribute: Montreal
Oh Canada
The Beginning of the Canadian national anthem starts out, O Canada, our home and native land....Well don't tell that to the province of Quebec, pronounced Kee-bek, to those that live in Quebec. See, they believe they should be their own country and have wanted to secede from the country for years. The language in Quebec is French, while the rest of the country speaks English, and that puts them at odds with the rest of the country. They are looked at as stubborn, stuck up and assholes, quite frankly, and the Quebecer's look at the rest of the country as beneath them, so there his great hostility in the country.
That takes us to 1968, where EWB was being formed and was looking at the Great White North for a potential franchise. The choices of EWB were, Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary or Montreal. Vancouver was in the running at the beginning, but geography and lack of financial backing took them out of consideration. Calgary had a central location and financial backing, but lack of enthusiasm from fans and lack of stadium took them out of the running. So it came down to Toronto and Montreal, two cities that hated each other, think of it as Boston/NY time 2. The people of each community hated each other and would do anything to get a EWB franchise and it was more about making sure the other city didn't get one rather than wanting one.
The bid from Toronto was enticing to EWB, they were an "American" Canadian city. Very metropolitan and a good population and in a prime location, being right next to Detroit and not too far from other major EWB teams. Molson Brewing Company wanted a team in Canada and put up big dollars to get one. They had a plan to play at Exhibition Stadium, until they built a new stadium that the public would pass. Molson also knew that Toronto was the perfect city to host EWB and blew away the powers that be at EWB. They had everything that EWB was looking for and more, also they had a major brand sponsor to start the league out with and that would draw a lot of money for the league for advertising. Molson thought they were a show in for the league and even went as far as purchasing land just outside of downtown Toronto to build a new stadium, UNTIL EWB heard the offer from Montreal.
Montreal, true to fashion, didn't want a person/company to own their franchise, THEY wanted to own it. The fucking city. They poo poo everybody other than Quebecer's. They really think that their shit don't stink, those kind of people. So the Mayor of Montreal, Jean Claude Francois, put a bid together that surprised EWB, they had a proposal that mirrored the model of the NFL's Green Bay Packers, in which fans could by shares of the team and that there be a Board Of Governors that run the organization. That idea intrigued EWB and they fell in love with the idea that they could sell to the fans of the new league that you could own a piece of your favorite team. Well Molson got wind that EWB was serious about giving a franchise to Montreal and went apeshit. They committed all this money and thought they had the best bid. Molson thought about suing EWB and put on the full court press of smear ads in Montreal to dis sway any citizens to vote against this proposal. Even Toronto natives were talking trash to Montreal citizens, and of course it came in realm of hockey, calling the Montreal Canadians hockey team a bunch of "faggots" and pussies on ice talk, to which Montreal responded that the Maple Leafs were a under achieving team. Thrilling Canadian trash talk.
The bids were in and EWB chose....Montreal, to the dismay of all of Canada. Frankly, all of Canada was disgusted that Montreal got the franchise, even new Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was quoted as saying, off the record, "Jesus fucking christ, not Montreal"
Montreal started the inaugural 1970 season with a trip to the playoffs, with a 92-70 record, some of the stars on the inaugural team were LF Pedro Nunes, .319/12/96 and 1B Tyler Brewer .309/13/82 and pitchers Joseph Snyder, brother of famed radio and tv star Tom Snyder, 18-8, 2.14, 78.3 VORP...Sean Austin, 15-11, 3.13, 55.3 VORP.
Over the 45 year history of the Knights, Montreal is barely above a .500 team, with a record of 3761-3693 for a .505 winning percentage. Montreal has made the playoffs 13 times, winning their only appearance in the World Series in 2010, over Miami, they have only had 2 players in their history to ever win one of the major awards. in 2012 Dustin Hawkins won the MVP and deservedly so, he hit .312/41/132, BUT in 2009 he came from KC, a perennial All Star and a Gold Glove winner and Montreal coming off a two 5th place finishes dipped into their pockets and signed Hawkins to a 4 year deal worth 88.28 million, a HUGE contract and boy did it ever payoff. In his first season with the Knights, Hawkins single handedly took the Knights from 70-92 in 2009 to an astounding 109-53 record, a 39 GAME IMPROVEMENT !!! Surprisingly he only had a 60.3 VORP, not to say that is low, but for what Hawkins did you would thinks of that number much higher, but numbers don't always define a player of that caliber that season. Hawkins went on to win the World Series in his first season as a Knight defeating the Banditos. Surprisingly he didn't win the MVP in 2010, he lost out to Jonathan Manning, who had a great season, but we will look back on that season and people will wonder how he didn't. Dustin Hawkins is the face of Knight baseball and the most revered sports athlete in Montreal, well behind hockey players.
The other award winner was Corey Gilbert, winning the Bob Gibson award in 2010, the year the Knights won the World Series, somebody won an award for the teams performance. Gilbert was a jack of all trades in 2010, he was 15-4, 6 saves, 180 K's in 149.2 innings, with a 41.2 VORP.
In 2013, Dave Palmer won the Angel Rosa award for the Rookie of the Year. He hit .289/23/86 with a very high VORP for a rookie at 35.2
Montreal has two Hall of Fame inductee, SP Desmond MacGilp '94-'00, CL Victor Rivera '77-'87 while they have hosted a few....
1B Dave Page '03---for 44 games
1B Porter Scott '94-'95
SP George 'Slider' Banks '99 for 3 GAMES
P Mal Collier '70-79---went in as an Irish
CL Mohammed Koigi '04-'05
C Vincent Carter '95-96
Notable draftees...
1B Shannon Townsend---1986---pick 4
P Nelson Rowland---1988---pick 2
RF Albert Perez---1991---pick 5
Apparently in 1998, the Knights only had a first rd pick and that's it !!!
Some notable career stats and players...
Tommy Brown has career batting average high at .310 and for one season at .355, career slug. % .582 and for one season .658, also career leader in OPS .946 and single season VORP at 80.5 in 1996, leads RBI for single season in 1994 with 152
Albert Perez has record for most HR in a season with 49 in '94
Dustin Hawkins has the record with 383 total bases in 2012
If you had a Mt. Rushmore for hitters for Montreal it would be, Tommy Brown, Pedro Nunes, Dustin Hawkins---Nunes leads most career records for Montreal as he played 15 years with the Knights.
As for pitchers, its a mixed bag of Dave Moss, Victor Rivera, and Sean Austin. Surprisingly HOF'r Desmond MacGlip hardly at all comes up in top ten of career totals for the history of the Knights.
All in all Toronto is still awaiting an expansion team or a relocation team, in 2005 Coors merged with Molson, so maybe Denver would move to Toronto.
Montreal is an average team in the landscape of EWB, not too much interesting history or interesting players.