Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham: We just don’t recognize life’s most significant moments while they’re happening. Back then I thought, “Well, there’ll be other days.” I didn’t realize that that was the only day.
There is a scene in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams where Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, goes back in time to meet Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, a former Major League Baseball player who played only one inning in the Majors but never got to bat. The time traveling Kinsella tries to convince “Moonlight” Graham, now an older gentleman and a successful doctor in a small town, to come back with him to Iowa for a chance to live out his wish of staring down a big league pitcher. It is a bittersweet scene about missed opportunities and what might have been had The Fates chosen a different path for Mr. Graham. I want to take this scene and rewrite it for a moment; I want to rewrite it for the missed opportunity that was so cruelly yanked away from the 1994 Montreal Expos.
20 years ago the 1994 Montreal Expos were a young and exciting team. Their pitching staff was arguably the best in the Majors featuring such aces as Pedro Martinez and Ken Hill. Hill was on pace to win 20 games that year and Martinez was striking out batters at a Martinez in-his-prime rate. They had the luxury of a strong bullpen anchored by a solid closer in John Wetteland. Their offensive lineup was as potent as any team in the league with Moises Alou, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom and Cliff Floyd. The team was skippered by popular manager Felipe Alou who would become the most successful manager in team history.
The Expos resided in the National League East, a division that the Atlanta Braves will come to dominate for the next 12 years. But, the 1994 Expos were positioning themselves to be the class of the division. For the first time in nearly a decade, fans were beginning to show more than just a passing interest in the Expos who hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1981. Attendance was up, curiosity was rising and as July marched into August the Expos had the best record in the Majors and a 6 game lead on the Braves despite having the 2nd lowest payroll in the Majors. Visions of a playoff run were becoming more than just a Canadian whiskey endorsed thought and whispers of a World Series appearance grew louder as the season went on. However, it all came to an end after midnight on August 11th, 1994. Fittingly, the last game of the season was played between the Expos and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Expos lost 4-0. And just like that it was all gone. A players strike started on August 12, 1994 and lasted until April of 1995. The ’94 season was done; the playoffs and World Series were cancelled by mid-September. The dream season of the Montreal Expos was cruelly ripped away and would never be seen again.
By the time the 1995 season started, after the strike had ended, the Expos had a fire sale. The team was gutted and their core of young and exciting talent parted to other teams. Gone was ace pitcher Ken Hill. Gone was the offense of Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker. In the ‘95 strike shortened season, the Expos finished last. In the cruelest way, order had been restored.
Had there not been a strike, had the players and owners come to some agreement, what would have become of the Montreal Expos in 1994? Could they have overcome a challenging run from the Atlanta Braves and won the National League East? Could they have gone all the way to the World Series? Could they have won it all? Had the Expos won a World Series in ’94 it would have spawned countless books about that magical season. It would have written its own 30 for 30 on ESPN if not a Disney movie starring Morgan Freeman as Felipe Alou. They would have become the little team that could, a beacon of light that every small market team would see as a legitimate reason to believe every start of a season.
———-
In my re-imagining of Field of Dreams, I see Ray Kinsella going back in time, only this time it’s 2007 or 2008, a year or two after Felipe Alou had retired from managing. It’s near midnight and Ray sees Felipe walking down the street and stops him to have a conversation. After a short talk Kinsella eventually asks him, “If you had just one wish that could come true, what would it be?”
Alou answers, “You know I … I never got a chance to finish what we started that year. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To manage a World Series with that Expos club. To look upon the fans of Montreal with a smile and a wink. Make them know that you knew all along how special this team was. That’s what I wish for. A chance to celebrate a title in a town that never thought it had a chance, the chance to look into the Commissioner’s Trophy so polished and bright it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling on your arm as the champagne runs down to your toes. To run the bases in celebration – stretch a victory lap into three, to wrap your arms around your teammates from such an incredible achievement. That’s my wish, Ray Kinsella. That’s my wish. To have 1994 back. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true? “
“What if I told you there was?” Ray asks.
“I think I would believe you.”
“Well sir, there is a place like that and if you would like to come with me I think I can make your wish come true.”
“No.” Felipe answers with a smile.
“No? 14 years ago you came within a couple months … this close to having a dream season only to have it unfairly taken away from you. It would kill some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they’d consider it a tragedy.”
“Son,” Alou says, “if I’d only gotten to play or manage baseball for a couple months, now that would have been a tragedy.
A day or so later, Ray and volunteer hostage Terence Mann see 1994 Felipe Alou walking down a dirt road on their way back to Iowa. Ray and Terence pull over, pick him up and take him to Iowa. There, at a baseball field in the middle of cornfield, Alou is reunited with his ’94 Expos team. In this field of dreams they get to finish what they started. They finally get a chance in the playoffs. The movie ends with the ghosts of ’94 playing through the night while cars coming all the way from Montreal began to pull into the farm to watch the games and remember the excitement and joy of a team that no longer exists and a time that ended too soon. The wish they were denied in reality finally happens here. If only for a night. We don’t get to see who actually won anymore than we can know who would have won if the strike had never happened. But, at least we know in some reality the Expos got their chance. As did the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Sox, L.A. Dodgers, Cleveland Indians and yes, even the Texas Rangers who had the 21st best record in the league out of 28 teams but were leading their division. Maybe like Ty Cobb, they won’t be invited.
———-
In the authentic version of Field of Dreams, the one they actually made, there is a whisper that Ray hears at a ballgame that aids him into finding “Moonlight” Graham. That whisper was “Go the distance.” In this context, that simple message means so much more. I’m sure Expos fans wish that the 1994 MLB season would have gone the distance and that the Expos might have done the same. The 1994 strike erased a lot of potentially great memories for baseball. For Montreal it practically erased a team. They never recovered from the strike. Losing seasons returned, attendance dropped and funds dried up. By 2005 the team was relocated to Washington, D.C. as the now present Nationals. At their final home game in 2004 the team revealed a banner that read “1994 Meilleure Équipe du Baseball / Best Team in Baseball.” Let’s hope somewhere there is a magical Iowa cornfield where fans of the Montreal Expos can ease their pain.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
