A new documentary delves into one of the most painful cold cases in Canadian sports, asking a question that still resonates in Montreal two decades later: Who killed the Expos?
It aims to examine the controversial decisions, financial setbacks, and strategic blunders that sealed the fate of Canada’s first Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The narrative is built through the testimony of an all-star cast of witnesses and key players. Hall of Famers like Pedro Martínez, Larry Walker, and Vladimir Guerrero offer the perspective from the field. Revered manager Felipe Alou recalls the highs and lows from the dugout.
However, the core of the mystery is explored through the management figures at the center of the storm: former president Claude Brochu, who oversaw the most tumultuous years, and the controversial executive David Samson, stepson of the team’s last private owner, Jeffrey Loria.
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The documentary is presented as a “cultural elegy,” an attempt to offer catharsis to a fanbase still feeling “pain” and “unresolved grief” over the loss of their team. By framing the story as an investigation to find the culprit, the film validates the fans’ feelings of betrayal and provides a narrative vehicle to process a complex, multi-faceted loss.
Beyond attendance figures and player contracts, the director suggests the Expos saga was “more than a story about baseball”; it was a “clash of cultures” between the aggressive American style of doing business, personified by Samson’s “arrogant” and “cocky” attitude, and the socio-political priorities of Quebec.
The Rise of “Nos Amours”: Chronicle of a Quebec Love Affair
To understand the magnitude of the loss, it’s crucial to understand the depth of the bond between the Expos and Montreal. Affectionately known as “Nos Amours” (Our Loves), the team was more than a sports franchise; it was a cultural institution.
Its founding in 1969 was a historic milestone, becoming the first MLB team located outside the United States. The name itself was a tribute to the acclaimed Expo 67 World’s Fair, an event that symbolized Montreal’s optimism and arrival on the world stage.
The city’s love affair with baseball didn’t come from nowhere. Montreal had a rich heritage in the sport, anchored by the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top minor league team. It was with the Royals that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball, creating a foundation of knowledge and passion long before the big leagues arrived.
The Expos reignited that flame, developing their own legends like Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines, whose Hall of Fame plaques depict them in Expos caps. Their only National League East Division title in 1981 solidified their place in history and made them a symbol of pride for all of Canada.
Ironically, the same civic ambition that brought the Expos to life also planted the seeds of their destruction. Mayor Jean Drapeau, the driving force behind Expo 67 and acquiring the baseball franchise, was also the architect of the 1976 Summer Olympics. The legacy of those games was the Olympic Stadium, a concrete colossus that, despite its grandeur, would become an “architectural disaster” and a “white elephant.” The ambition that created “Nos Amours” also gave birth to the monster that would help devour them.
The Interrupted Season: The Beginning of the End
If the Expos’ story is a murder mystery, the 1994 MLB players’ strike is the moment the fatal blow was dealt. Before the labor dispute stopped play, the Montreal team was on top of the baseball world. With a 74-40 record, they had the best record in the entire league and seemed destined to compete in the World Series. Managed by Felipe Alou, the team had a core of future Hall of Famers and played exciting, dominant baseball.
The strike, which began in August and ultimately led to the cancellation of the rest of the season and the World Series for the first time in history, annihilated those aspirations.
For the fans, it wasn’t just a labor dispute between millionaires; it was a double betrayal. First, the league and the players robbed them of their best chance at glory. Immediately after, the team’s own management would deal the second blow by dismantling their dream team.
The strike didn’t create the Expos’ financial problems, but it did expose them and make them unsustainable. The franchise was already operating on a “shoestring budget,” with ownership partners who viewed their stakes as “charitable donations” with no intention of injecting more capital. The loss of millions in revenue from the strike eliminated what little financial margin they had, transforming chronic problems, like an unfavorable exchange rate, into an acute and irreversible emergency that forced drastic decisions.
Anatomy of a Collapse: Owners, Politics, and a Stadium in Ruins
The documentary presents a figurative courtroom, examining the main suspects and the accumulated evidence that led to the franchise’s collapse.
The Fire Sale
After the strike, team president Claude Brochu ordered the general manager to drastically cut payroll. Within days, the core of the best team in baseball was dismantled. Outfielder Larry Walker left as a free agent, while closer John Wetteland, starting pitcher Ken Hill, and center fielder Marquis Grissom were traded for a fraction of their value. Brochu defended himself, arguing he had no choice due to a “dangerous depletion of capital” and his partners’ refusal to invest more money to retain the stars.
The Dollar and the Blackout
The Expos faced an insurmountable structural economic challenge: they generated revenue in Canadian dollars while paying player salaries in U.S. dollars, a gap that widened with a persistently unfavorable exchange rate. Adding to this problem was a catastrophic decision during the Jeffrey Loria era: the failure to secure English-language television and radio contracts. This move not only cut off a crucial revenue stream but also alienated a significant part of the fanbase, plunging the team into a media blackout.
The Concrete White Elephant
The Olympic Stadium was a fundamentally unsuitable home for baseball. Described as a “concrete cavern,” it suffered from poor lighting, terrible acoustics, and an artificial turf that was brutal on players’ knees. Its history was plagued by astronomical cost overruns that earned it the nickname “The Big Owe,” a retractable roof that never worked properly, and structural problems that included the fall of a 55-ton concrete beam.
The killing blow was the inability to secure public funding for a new downtown stadium. The refusal of then-Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard to allocate public funds for a stadium while being forced to close hospitals marked a point of no return.
Loria and Samson’s Final Act
The saga concluded with a series of complex and controversial financial maneuvers. Jeffrey Loria, who had become the managing partner, sold the Expos to Major League Baseball itself (an entity controlled by the other 29 team owners) for $120 million. This deal allowed Loria to use those funds to buy the Florida Marlins.
The Expos’ former minority partners, feeling cheated, filed a RICO lawsuit against Loria and MLB, accusing them of conspiring to sabotage the team’s viability in Montreal and facilitate the transaction. David Samson’s participation in the documentary is revealing; he admitted to sitting for a nine-hour interview without realizing the film’s title positioned him as one of the prime suspects.
The Last Out: A Funeral at the Olympic Stadium
The emotional climax of the Expos’ story came in their final home game, an event described not as a sporting event, but as a “funeral.” More than 31,000 fans came to the Olympic Stadium to say goodbye to their team, a stark contrast to the mere 3,000 who had attended the previous night. This massive turnout was not a show of support for the organization, but a collective wake for the team they felt had been stolen from them.
The presence of so many fans prompted a painful, unspoken question, voiced by one team member: “Where were all of you when we needed you?”
The atmosphere was charged with emotion. Fans cried in the stands, held signs expressing gratitude and anger, and gave standing ovations to the veteran players at every opportunity. The game itself, a 9-1 loss to Jeffrey Loria’s Florida Marlins, was largely forgettable. The real drama unfolded in the stands. At the end of the game, the players remained on the field, throwing signed balls and other souvenirs into the crowd in a final gesture of thanks.
Shortly after, the franchise’s relocation to Washington, D.C., where it would be reborn as the Nationals, was made official.
The Case Remains Open
“Who Killed the Montreal Expos?” does not offer a simple answer or point to a single culprit. Instead, it presents a “mosaic of influences” and a “clash of cultures” that conspired to end the team.
Although figures like Jeffrey Loria are portrayed as the “Darth Vader of it all,” the documentary makes it clear that the strike, a lack of local investment, government policy, and a failed stadium were all indispensable accomplices in the crime.
The Expos’ legacy endures in the nostalgia, in the iconic tricolor caps still seen at stadiums, and in the persistent longing for Major League Baseball to one day return to Montreal. The film presents the evidence and lets the viewer cast the final verdict.
“Who Killed the Montreal Expos?” premieres on Netflix on October 21.
