Apr 19, 2020
Guerrero makes Expos history today on TSN
Relive history tonight on TSN2 at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT as Vladimir Guerrero becomes the first Montreal Expo to ever reach the 40-homer mark in a season in a win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
TSN.ca Staff
As baseball continues to wait things out along with the rest of the sports world, TSN digs into the archives to bring you a bundle of classic Montreal Expos games. Relive some of the best memories from the 36-year history of Canada’s first Major League franchise right here on TSN. On tap for today? Vladimir Guerrero becoming the first Montreal Expo to reach the 40-homer mark.
Many consider the cancellation of the 1994 season as the beginning of the end of the Montreal Expos. With the team in first place at 74-40, a strike halted the season and eventually cancelled the World Series for the first time since 1904.
When play returned the following April, the Expos weren’t the same. They would go on to miss the playoffs in each of the next four seasons and were limping to the end of yet another dreary campaign when they took on the Philadelphia Phillies on Oct. 2, 1999. But it wasn’t all bad.
Despite a disappointing 67-93 record, Expos fans were treated to a monster season from 24-year-old right-fielder Vladimir Guerrero. When the team traded Pedro Martinez following his Cy Young season in 1997, Expos fans were looking for a new star to build their franchise around. Guerrero filled that void almost immediately.
Nicknamed Vlad the Impaler for his rather brutal approach toward baseballs thrown in his general direction, Guerrero hit 38 home runs and drove in 109 runs in 1998. But his 1999 season was even better.
Entering game No. 161 at the now long-gone Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, Guerrero was sitting on a career-best 39 home runs and had two games to hit one more ball over the fence to become the first hitter in franchise history to reach the 40-homer plateau. It certainly wouldn’t take him long.
Catch Guerrero’s milestone home run tonight on TSN2 at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT as TSN continues its showcasing of Montreal Expos history.
On the mound for the Phillies was right-hander Paul Byrd, coming off what would turn out to be the only All-Star appearance of his career earlier that summer. But Byrd got into trouble early. He walked the first batter of the game and allowed a single two hitters later to bring Guerrero to the plate with two runners on. On the first pitch of the at-bat, Montreal’s best hitter clobbered one into the left field seats to give his team a 3-0 lead and a spot all to himself in Expos’ history with home run No. 40.
Byrd was pulled soon after, but Guerrero’s day was far from done. With two runners on and the visiting Expos on top 9-3 in the top half of the sixth, Guerrero took an Amaury Telemaco offering deep and gone to right field for his second three-run big fly of the game.
It was eerily similar to his first, coming on the first pitch of the at-bat, driving in three runs and scoring the same two runners – Peter Bergeron and Michael Barrett. Guerrero would finish the game with two home runs and a season-high six RBI. Just for good measure, he went deep again the following day in the finale to finish his season with 42 home runs. That would stand up as the team’s record for just one season until he broke it again with 44 homers in 2000.
"He’s in a league all his own," utilityman Trace Coquillette told the Montreal Gazette. "If there was a league better than this league, he’d be in it."
While there isn’t a higher league, Guerrero received the highest honour possible in his existing one as he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018 following a dominant career that saw him hit .318 over 16 big league seasons with 449 career home runs, nine All-Star appearances and an MVP Award in 2004.
After four more other-worldly seasons north of the border, Guerrero would sign with the Los Angeles Angels – then the Anaheim Angels – as a free agent in January of 2004. Although he would go into Cooperstown wearing an Angels hat, Guerrero never forgot his early days in Montreal and what they did for his career.
"I toiled over this for a long time, because the Canadian people mean a whole lot to me," he said over his decision to go in as an Angel.
TSN’s run through Expos history continues Tuesday when Tony Gwynn picks up hit No. 3,000 in a back-and-forth 12-10 victory over Montreal in August of 1999.