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You never forget your first sports hero.

For me, that was former Expos outfielder Rusty Staub.

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Le Grand Orange.

So there were tears in my eyes Thursday morning when I learned Staub had passed away at age 73.

Staub died early Thursday morning at the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Palm Beach, Fla., due to multiple organ failure. He was initially admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, dehydration and an infection after collapsing on a golf course in February and had spent the last eight weeks in the hospital. He would have turned 74 on Sunday. Staub survived a heart attack on a flight from Ireland to New York in October 2015.

When the Expos arrived in Montreal for the 1969 season, I was about to turn 6. My birthday is in late April and every year I celebrated the same way when the Expos were in town: a game at Jarry Park and dinner at the Bar-B-Barn. When Rusty came to the plate, I prayed he’d hit one over the right-field fence and into the swimming pool. It would be the perfect birthday gift — along with a bag of peanuts thrown to me from a few sections over by “The Peanut Man”.