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My Turn At Bat
 
 

My Turn At Bat [Kindle Edition]

Claude & Myles, Stephanie Brochu

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Product Description

Product Description

The decline and fall of the Montreal Expos. In 1969, the Montreal Expos played their first game. Thirty-two years later, the team that once boasted baseball's best farm system is nearly dead. In this book, former Expos president Claude Brochu gets to the bottom of the Expos' story. From his successful marketing career at Seagram's, Claude Brochu was thrust into the role of Expos president in 1986. Back then, the Expos were a team with terrific potential. But as the years went by, attendance began to slide. Whenever owner Charles Bronfman attended a game he would shake his head, discouraged: "Why don't they come? What do we have to do?" The answer — field a winning team — seemed so simple, yet so elusive. And then, after 21 years, Bronfman decided to sell the team. He entrusted the sale to Brochu, who took up the gauntlet: "I made it a personal challenge. Businessmen are often portrayed as cold, emotionless people, who make decisions only on the eventual possibility of making a lot of money.... But that's not it at all. What fascinated me, what motivated me, was keeping the Expos in Montreal, in the hands of Quebecers. One of them being me...."

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 3217 KB
  • Print Length: 263 pages
  • Publisher: ECW Press (3 Aug 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.ą r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B005FVRNXQ
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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Claude Brochu
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Amazon.com:  7 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Forgotten Team in Baseball 12 Sep 2005
By Thomas P. Joseph - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Mr. Brochu offers both a personal vindication story aas well as the story of the downhill spiral of the Montreal Expos franchise. Most Americans may not know that Montreal has over 100 years of baseball history, including interactions with Tommy Lasorda and Jackie Robinson. In the Expos era, the team was an amazing success in the 80's, outdrawing the New York Yankees and producing great players who often left when free agency beckoned them to larger markets and more recognition than French Canada could offer. But the Expos, fighting for their own identity in the hockey capital of the world, made great strides in establishing the franchise as a model of production for young players. Some of the great "home grown"

Expos include Hall of Famer Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Steve Rogers, Tim Wallach, Marquis Grissom, Randy Johnson (yes -that Randy Johnson), Ellis Valentine, Larry Parrish, Orlando Cabrera and one who could be among the all-time greats - Vladimir Guerrero. Baseball fans and Expos fans alike should hear how the greed and personal agendas of some can take away the team that we fans give our hearts and souls. As a life-long Expos fan in the US, baseball will never be the same without "Nos

Amours."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Spreads some truth, but.. 19 Feb 2007
By ralph macchio jr. - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
First of all, I was deeply saddened when the wonderful city of Montreal lost its baseball franchise. It was an amazing experience going to an Expos game and hearing the names being announced in French! It was quite a cultural experience, ironically Bud Selig claims to want to internationalize MLB, but ridding the only French-speaking metropolis in North America of its team seems counter-productive.

Anyway, I've followed the Expos saga for years and in case you don't know, Montreal likes baseball, in fact Montreal LOVES baseball! But the way this team was run would make it hard for anybody to come out to the stadium. So don't believe Major League Baseball when they blame the fans. They sabotaged the team, not the fans. If you ever saw the movie "Major League" you'd understand better what MLB did during the last few years of the Expos existance to diminish fan support. They also did a good job keeping it on the down low to those who don't live in Quebec. But that's a whole different story.

Anyway, the book... It was originally written in French and was translated to English, I found it at many times hard to read and this probably had something to do with it. I may try to pick up a french copy someday and see if my 4 years of studying la langue did me any good.

So the book is basically an "I didn't do it!" for Claude Brochu, but he's probably just as guilty as anyone in the team's demise. So it's basically Claude pointing fingers at others who were also responsible. If you want to find out what went wrong with MLB in Montreal, I suggest doing your own research on the net, you can start by googling previous owner Jeffrey Loria. Then come back to this book when you understand Claude's role because you're not going to get it here.

I for one hope baseball returns to Montreal one day, but many obstacles need to be cleared, Bud Selig must not be commissioner and the city needs to regain the trust of MLB. A salary cap wouldn't hurt either!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Running the Expos behind the Scenes 26 Aug 2003
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Claude Brochu reveals just what it takes in running the Montreal Expos. The first-third of the book starts off well as details are provided on what are key ingredients to keep a sports franchise running: Mr. Brochu is appointed the chief of operations of an ownership consotium.

The middle-third is still entertaining but the storytelling starts to get uneven. The good parts are the downtown ballpark project and his views on each of the partners of the consortium: they were either with him or against him. However, Mr. Brochu does not shed much light into some other significant events that happened to the team during this period (such as the hiring and competence of then General Manager Jim Beattie).

The last-third imitates Brochu's last months on the job: everything starts to crumble. This is the most frustrating part to read. Only bits and pieces of a much larger puzzle are revealed.

There is an appendix at the end, with copies of faxes and letters in response to serious issues that arose with the ball club during Brochu's tenure.

All in all, a whole lot of what went on behind the scenes that was not originally revealed accurately (or without personal bias) by the Montreal press core finally is described in this book. The biggest surprise is who Mr. Brochu classifies in his good book and in his bad book.


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