A few months ago at my younger cousin Brad’s house, we talked about sports as we generally do. Both being Phillies fans, we have an inborn hate for the traitorous outfielder Jayson Werth, who bashed Philly every chance he got after joining the Washington Nationals. We were both frustrated that Washington was the reigning champions for the division for the first time in team history, which he found hard to believe, and then I realized he wasn’t old enough to remember the Montreal Expos. Heck, I am barely old enough to remember myself. I decided to tell him about one of my earliest memories.

I am not entirely sure when my first ball game was, since my dad has been taking me to them for literally longer than I can remember. However, the first one I remember was against the Montreal Expos at the old Veterans Stadium. The one truly vivid memory I have from that night was Vladimir Guerrero hitting a home run, but being no older than 9 when the Expos left in 2004, I didn’t really remember too much else, including the date. My dad didn’t have any recollection of it since he has been to countless Phillies games so it was up to me and the internet to try to figure it out.

I knew it had to be before 2004, since I remember it was in Veterans Stadium, and I can’t imagine I would remember anything before I was 5 it would have to be at least 2000, giving me a 3 year window to work with. Turns out, Guerrero only hit one home run at Veterans Stadium during that time: July 24th, 2001 off of Phillies’ starter Nelson Figueroa. The Phillies would go on to win the game by a score of 10-2, with Figueroa getting the win. If you are interested in seeing the entire box score, it can be found here. The only other interesting bit of information I could find about this game was that Guerrero’s home run was the second part of back to back bombs, with the other one coming from Ryan Minor. I’m not surprised I don’t remember more about that game, since I didn’t turn 6 until exactly one month after this game took place. Regardless, it will always be one of my most cherished memories.

Vladimir Guerrero is the Montreal Expos to me. He’s the only player who I actually remember playing for that team (remember, they moved when I was 9). While he is better remembered for his MVP year with the Angels, he spent more years as a member of the Expos than any other team, never batting lower than .302 (save for his rookie season). Sadly, he never reached the postseason with the Expos, but was a four time All-Star. After Montreal, he played six seasons with the Angels, and one with each the Rangers and Orioles.

Despite making a comeback attempt with the Toronto Blue Jays, Guerrero officially announced his retirement from baseball earlier this September. He finished his 15 year career with a .318 lifetime batting average, 9 All-Star bids, an eight-time Sliver Slugger, an AL MVP, 499 home runs, and the most hits ever by a Dominican player (2590). Even if he only appeared in 1 World Series (his All-Star season with the Rangers in 2010), that still certainly sounds like a Hall of Fame resume to me. My friends and I were discussing would he go in as an Angel or an Expo. Logic says an Angel, but I like to think there is a part of him that would love to join Gary Carter and Andre Dawson as Expos in the Hall of Fame.

There are only a few former Expos who played in 2013: Bartolo Colon, Luis Ayala, Jamey Carroll and Scott Downs. Interestingly enough, as of the writing of this article, all of them are free agents, so as of this moment there are no Expos on major league rosters. Colon is a virtual lock to be signed next season, and Ayala could probably at least find work in the tragedy that is the Phillies bullpen, but the others could very well be out of baseball. My all time favorite pitcher Cliff Lee was part of the Expos minor league season before coming to over to Cleveland in the Bartolo Colon trade, but never appeared in a major league game for them. While the Expos may have left Montreal, they are not yet forgotten.

The Expos were named after the 1967 World Fair hosted in Montreal, called the Expo 67, and became the first international Major League Baseball team in 1969. The Expos home field for most of their existence, Olympic Stadium, was originally made for when Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics. Besides a handful of winning seasons, the Expos only division title and postseason appearance came on a strikeout shortened season, which was officially broken into two parts with Montreal winning the second half division title, but lost in the NLCS to the Dodgers in 5 games.

The photo above was taken at a Blue Jays game, where Expos fans to this day continue to rally in the outfield. The Expos didn’t leave because of lack of fan support; they left largely due to the fact that owner Jeff Loria didn’t want to be there anymore, who went on to sell the Expos and buy the Florida Marlins. I could go own about how he single-handledly got not one but two entire cities/fan-bases to hate him, but that deserves its own article. In 2005, the Expos became the Washington Nationals, where they reside to this day.

While I appreciate all hats, I am especially fond of the unique, the historic and the hard to find. For my 18th birthday, I bought myself the gift of finally getting a “New Era By You” cap, which you can completely customize and design exactly how you imagine it, and I decided to pay heritage to my earliest baseball memory. I will stand by my opinion that the Expos logo was the best in all of baseball. As for the colors, I just found the contrast to be a cool combination, with the blue stitching on the brim tying it all together. I can proudly say that this hat is truly one of a kind, made especially to honor a day I will never forget.