Olympic Stadium

Montreal, Canada

Philadelphia Phillies @ Montreal Expos

May 25, 2002

The Road Trip

After the game at Shea, we simply made our way back to Mike's place in Connecticut, to get a decent night's sleep before our trek up to Montreal the next day. We got up fairly early Friday morning (~9 A.M.) and hit the road northbound. We made a pit stop at a McDonald's and then continued up the New York State Thruway. We stopped at one of the state run rest areas for a restroom break and found something very interesting inside...Right near the bathroom they had a bank of gumball machines which typically no longer contain gumballs but, rather, junky toys. There were 2 machines which stood out from the others, each containing miniature human figures. One was called "Homies" which featured Black characters in stereotypically negative African-American outfits and poses, and the other machine contained "Mijos", similar but with Latino characters. We were pretty shocked by this, especially in New York. We were so shocked, appalled, and offended that we just had to buy one. We were kinda goofing semi-seriously with Vin, who's Black, about how such a liberal and diverse state can sell Homies and Mijos at a state run rest area and we vowed to take the issue up with Hillary Clinton! (which would never happen). So we took our Homie on the road with us and used a piece of bubble gum to fasten him to the dashboard so he could lead us toward the great white north. We would later come to find out that the Homies are probably available in your local mall and becoming quite popular. They even have names and personalities! We would learn that our Homie is named "Payday" and is described as follows:

"Payday is the big-money, high-rollin shot calla of the record label, Payday Records. He rolls around the hood tryin to check up on new hip hop talent coming out of the Barrio. He feels the next big wave will be Latino Hip-Hop and wants to capitalize on it by signing the Homie Rappers. The problem is all the Homies are signed to the Homie Records label and don't want to switch. Payday makes a lot of cash and is always spreading it around. He rolls in a custom Hummer and is chaufered by Big Dawg, his private security. His other Homeboy is B-Boy who is also an agent for Payday Records."

Payday might roll in a custom Hummer chaufered by Big Dawg, but we were rollin' up to Montreal in a rental mini-van chaufered by Big Dauber talking about the best shot calla of them all, Babe Ruth! As far as rollin' around the hood, we did that Thursday in Philthadelphia. We got into Montreal around 4 PM and made our way to our motel on the north side of the city. For some reason, hotels in downtown Montreal were booked solid so we ended up in some "psycho killer" Econo Lodge on the outskirts. We had 2 rooms and noticed that there was a third door in the back of the rooms, like a front door, bathroom door, and then an extra door with a deadbolt on it. We opened the door and found a back alley that connected the 2 rooms, really creepy. After settling in, a few of us went out on foot, in search of an ATM but had no luck finding one that would accept our cards. Beware when trying to use American ATM cards in Canada, the choice of networks can be different than in the U.S. What we did find was the Wonderbra factory and some guys smoking pot in a bus stop shelter, you know the little glass hut to protect you from the cold while waiting for the bus? Not quite it's intended purpose... We got back to the motel to figure out what we were going to do for dinner and noticed this creepy, bummy-type guy sleeping on a chair against some shack in the middle fo the parking lot. If you look closely, you can see that his feet aren't even touching the ground! We decided to go to a sushi bar right around the corner from the motel. Lumpy ordered an obscene amount of sushi, so much that when we all started laughing the shy Asian waitress started to get embarassed as he kept adding stuff to the order. She tried to keep her composure while taking the order and probably ran in to the kitchen and burst out in hysteria. The amount of sushi probably weighed more than the waitress! It was hysterical. We should have told her that he was the famous American sumo wrestler, "Lumpozuna".

We were in a bit of a hurry leaving the sushi restaurant as we'd probably be a little late for the game but that's par for the course. We drove down to Olympic Park and found plenty of parking available in the complex garage which seemed a bit desolated. When we packed up our stuff and headed for the stadium, we had a hard time finding the entrance because it was a ghost town. We started wandering in the wrong direction and a security guard steered us toward what was like a shopping mall, but actually contained the entrance to the stadium.

Getting Tickets

We walked into what looked like a shopping mall which housed the entrance to the stadium and were quickly met by some scalper-type guy who wanted $10 (CN) each for lower level tickets so we just gave him what he asked. That's not much more than $6 bucks to us. We looked at the tickets and saw the cost at $0.00 so he got them for free but still, 6 bucks to see a major league game?!?! Our tickets were not all together but with the stadium half empty we'd have no trouble finding seats together. As a matter of fact, they actually close off the upper deck when sales are this weak.

The Stadium

OK. So Canada decides to build the first retractable roof stadium. The idea is to build a huge tower and suspend an umbrella from it on cables. When it rains, the cables drop the unbrealla on top of the open air stadium.

Problem #1: The tower is not completed for the '76 Olympics so the roof is temporarily abandoned and the stadium opens. In come the Expos in '77 and play in an open air stadium but the hole in the roof is smaller than the field so it's kinda like having a car with a sunroof rather than a convertible. But, a sunroof that never closes, mind you. Sorta like when the motor dies on you and, of course, it dies when the sunroof is open and then a big rainstorm comes on your way to work...They don't finish the tower until 1988.

Problem #2: The tower is now up but the umbrella folding doesn't quite work. Roof is orange, takes 45min. to open, and costs almost $700k in annual maintainance. So, they leave the roof closed. Then they remove the roof in '97, play '98 open air, and then put another new roof on, this time it's colored blue and you'd never realize you're indoors because it looks just like the sky - so life-like!

Is this Canada or Poland were talking about here? Is this Olympic Stadium or Skydome? The Canadian formula for baseball must be:

1 part space ship looking stadium

1 part retractable roof

1 part adjacent observation tower

5,000 fans

50,000 bottles of Molson

= 1 crappy-ass baseball experience

We found very little difference between our experience at Olympic Stadium and that of Skydome, we even had extra-innings walk-off wins at both parks! Is this uncanny or what? We did feel some sympathy for the handful of Expos fans who actually embrace baseball and are facing the potential contraction of their team but you'd have a hard time convincing us that keeping the Expos in Montreal is really good for baseball. We've seen no indication that baseball is thriving in Canada and maybe it's time to cut bait and move on.

The stadium concourse is all under ground and you feel like you're in a subway station that serves beer. So far, the only dome we've really enjoyed is Metrodome, mostly because the fans there are very supportive of the Twins and they have some real baseball history. One great thing about Olympic Stadium is they sell beer up until the end of the game not like us Americans who can't handle our booze and need to be cut off in the 7th. Even with all the drunks, no one was tempted to smack the crap out of this stupid mascot, you must have to be a first base coach to deserve that.

*data - www.ballparksofbaseball.com

The Town

Anyone who has visited Montreal would have to expect that we'd like it and they'd be absolutely right! This is a town to party in. Fortunately we were there on a Saturday night and the streets were packed with people. Montreal is famous for it's strip joints but as baseball fans, we would never patronize such an establishment now, would we? Let's just say that we heard from a friend that St. Catherine Street is the area you want to go to and Club Super Sexe is one of the best "venues". Just beware of one thing, the clubs may say there is no cover but there really is as the person who seats you will demand to be paid and it basecally just works out to be like $5 each so it's a "cover". When everything started closing up around 2 AM we asked on of the bouncers where to go for after hours and he told us that "Sauna" was the place. Now keep in mind with the French accent it sounded like "So-nah" so we didn't catch on. We'd stop and ask another bouncer where to go and he told us the same place, so like foolish Americans, we thought, "let's go!". Well, it turns out that "Sauna" is a gay swinger sex club where you walk in and they hand you a rusty padlock and a (clean?) towel and direct you to the locker room. Not like, uh, any of us went in or anything...a friend told us. They must have a "coalition of bouncers to screw with Americans" that sends all their friends from the south to the town's gay club. Apparently, sending us Celine Dion wasn't enough punnishment...

The Game

We once again missed the Canadian National Anthem as we strooled in near the end of the first with trays full of Molson. We were scattered about as we had tickets all over the place but we eventually all settled in behind 3rd base at the back of the lower level. Lumpy tried to waltz right into the box seats behind the dugout but we watched a security guard trolling behind him the whole way and promptly oust him when he attempted to sit down there. Unfortunately our cameras were still all bundled up and we weren't able to get a shot of it. We had decent seats but occasionally some rude fans would stand in our way like you can see in this picture.

The fans here were much better than their Ontario counterparts as they kinda seemed into the game but that's probably because at the time, Bud Selig was trying really hard to get them the hell out of Montreal. There were a few signs scattered about the stadium promoting organizations trying to "Save the Expos". We were more concerned with getting primed for the night of partying we had ahead of us. Lumpy shows us how it's done.. We spent most of the game drinking beer, converting metric dimensions, and practicing our French.

No, the ACTUAL game...

Tonight's game would be a pitching nightmare with Coggin vs. Pavano that would result in 5 wild pitches, a hit batter and a blown save, sounds like plenty of heckling fodder, eh? We got settled in our seats in the top second, just in time to see recently acquired Jeremy Giambi blast a bomb to right field for a 2-0 Philly lead. The Expos would come back in the bottom half thanks to some wildness on the part of Coggin along with some bats (including a single by Pavano) to win the inning and lead 4-2. A wild pitch in the bottom 3rd would allow Montreal to expand their lead 5-2. In the top 4th, Giambi would continue to wreak havoc with a lead off homer. A single and a hit batter later would bring the end of Coggin's start as Ricky Ledee would come in to pinch hit. This also sent Pavano to the clubhouse as Yoshii would come on for the Expos. Throw 2 errors and a wild pitch into the mix and the Phills tie it at 5. A 2 run homer by Burrell got the Phills a 7-5 lead at the end of the 5th which would carry through the 7th as we'd actually witness some effective pitching.

Philly would add one in the top 8th but Bottalico would get touched up and the game would be tied at 8. Scott Rolen would lead off the 9th with a single and a wild pitch would put him on second and allow him to score the go ahead run and bring Mesa on in the bottom 9th for a chance to close out a 9-8 lead. He would be very, very lucky to end up with just a blown save and not a loss as Vidro would score after a leadoff infield single, but Vlad Guerrero and Troy O'Leary would be stranded on the bases after a sacrifice, Tatis strikeout, and ground out by Barrett. So we'd end up with another blown save and extra-inning game.

At this point we were thinking about giving up on the game and heading out to the bars but decided to hang out for another inning. Philadelphia would get a leadoff walk in the 10th but couldn't get the runner home. Mercado came in for Mesa in the bottom 10th and walked the first batter he faced, Wilkerson. Another walk to Cordero and an attempted sacrifice bunt-turned-single by Tucker would bring up Jose Vidro with the bases juiced. Vidro smoked one over the left field wall and unlike Robin Ventura in previous years, actually made it around the bases to record a grand slam for a 13-9 walkoff win. We immediately noticed something ridiculously funny on the scoreboard as it said "Grand Chelem!" What the heck is a "Chelem"? Obviously it's "Slam" in French but between our collective French studies, we couldn't actually figure out the true root of the word, "Chelem". Anyone? Does Denny's offer the "Grand Chelem Breakfast" in Montreal?

Thrill Factor: (4/5)