The 1981 Expos
Part 3: The Regular (Sort of) Season
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| Montreal centre fielder Andre "The Hawk" Dawson |
After falling short of the
National League East division crown two years in a row, the Montreal Expos
entered 1981 as one of the favourites. And rightly so. They had solid pitching,
led by Steve Rogers, Bill Gullickson and Charlie Lea, a cornerstone catcher,
Gary Carter, three young potential All-Stars in the outfield, Andre Dawson and
rookies Tim Raines and Tim Wallach, and an experienced manager in Dick
Williams, who had managed the Boston Red Sox to an American League Championship
in 1967, and then led the Oakland Athletics to two of their three straight
World Championships in 1972 and 1973.
And Montreal got off to a flying
start, winning 11 of their first 13 games, including a three game sweep of the
team that broke their hearts in 1980, the Philadelphia Phillies. By the middle
of May, however, the Expos had started to stumble, right out of first place and
fell four games behind Philadelphia by May 20th. However, they put
together a bit of run that saw them close the gap to just ½ game by the end of
the month.
June, however, was a disaster.
After losing three of four to St. Louis, the Expos were then swept by the
Cincinnati Reds and were four games behind again. But then the baseball world
was turned upside down.
On June 12, the Major League
Baseball Players Association went on strike due to a labour dispute and the
season was abruptly stopped. It would be another two months before play resumed
after the players and owners had agreed to a new collective bargaining
agreement. However, the head offices had to figure out what to do with the two
months’ worth of games that were lost.
MLB decided that the best way to
rekindle the interest of the fans, who were hurt most of all by the greed of
both sides (my, nothing has changed has it?) would be to institute a
split-season format. Basically, it meant that whoever was in first place in all
four divisions would automatically qualify for the post season as the
first-half division champions. The slate would be wiped clean, all teams
starting at 0-0, and the winner of the second half in each division would meet
the first-half champ in a best-of-five division series—the same first round
type of match up that was brought in full time in 1995 and is still in use
today.
But as the second half got
underway, the Expos were sluggish and it was St. Louis that charged to the lead
in the N.L. East. By September 7th, the Expos were 14-12 and trailed
the Cardinals by 1 ½ games. In an effort to provide a spark to their team,
Montreal management decided to fire manager Dick Williams, a proven success as
a big league manager, and hire the inexperienced Jim Fanning. It appeared to be
the wrong decision as the Expos then lost three of the first five games under Fanning
and dropped to 2 ½ back.
But things turned around quite
quickly. Montreal got on a roll, winning eight of ten, while St. Louis stumbled
losing seven of ten. On the final weekend of the season, the Expos led by a ½
game. In the first game of the final series against the Mets, the Expos won
3-0, while St. Louis was losing their game to Pittsburgh, 8-7. Needing only one
game to clinch the second half division, Montreal fell behind New York early,
3-0. But the Expos rallied to take the game 5-4, and thus win the second half
and earn the right to face the Phillies in the first ever NLDS.
There was some injustice in the
final standings. First, the Expos won the second half by a mere ½ game from St.
Louis. When the second half of play resumed, the schedule wasn’t altered and
therefore, the Expos—as a result of the original schedule—played one more game
the Cardinals. That one game was the difference. Second, the other bit of
injustice, for the Cards anyhow, if you take the overall results from the games
and not divide the season into halves, St. Louis had a better record than both
Montreal and Philadelphia, but missed out on the postseason.
However, the Expos had taken
advantage of the breaks presented before them and now it was on to their first
ever postseason appearance: a best of five series against the Philadelphia
Phillies.
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