Beer was poured, hot dogs were steamed (buns toasted), and programs were sold. Fans, legions of them, cheered home runs, booed errors and gasped at great defensive plays, heckling in both English and French. For a pair of games on Friday and Saturday, Montreal was a Major League Baseball city for the first time since its franchise picked up and relocated to Washington DC 10 years ago.

With the 2014 season set to begin on Monday, the Toronto Blue Jays suited up to play their final exhibition games against the New York Mets wearing their home whites, a strange sight at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, once the home of the now departed Expos. With a temporary truce between intra-Canada rivals Montreal and Toronto in place, enormous crowds backed the Jays against the Spos' former National League opponents, handing baseball-starved fans two victories and a host of memories during a weekend of nostalgia. Most importantly to impassioned locals, the events provided strong evidence that Montreal is a city that deserves a second chance at hosting an MLB team.

Former Expos closer John Wetteland was in attendance. He told the Guardian:

For me, it’s extremely emotional for so many reasons … What I love is the fact that when I look out here and see all these seats filled, in their hearts, they’re demonstrating right now, their presence here tells the story.

Considering that attendance was one of the myriad of reasons that the Expos left after the 2004 season, the sheer size of the crowds were surreal – more than 96,000 fans came out for the series, packing the Pie IX Metro stop, while mammoth walk-up lines for last-minute tickets clogged the entry ways into the Stade Olympique.

“When I got to the stadium today my heart was pumping," said Claude Raymond, one of just three players born in Quebec to play for the Expos. “Because I knew there was something different today than yesterday and when I got into the stadium I said 'Wow'. Green carpet, the stands and the fans, so it’s one of the nicest sights that you want to see.”

The turnout validated and bolstered the work being carried out by the Montreal Baseball Project, a grassroots group headed by the former Expos outfielder Warren Cromartie, who started out on his mission four years ago.

We understand this is going to be a little journey. We’re making some noise, we’re doing the right protocol … Right now this is a stepping stone to the ultimate, bringing baseball back to Montreal.

John McHale Jr, MLB’s chief information officer and executive vice-president, was in attendance to monitor the goings-on for the league.

I was certainly willing to call success an average of about 25,000 fans per game. This is astonishing and, as I said and have been saying since I got here, this will be a big point of attention to Major League Baseball … There is a fire that burns brightly for Major League Baseball and that’s a message I’ll be proud to carry to the commissioner.

While McHale made sure to point out that there are no current plans to add to MLB’s 30 teams, he did say “We know there are clubs that have difficulties in their own markets,” alluding to the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, two teams in search of new stadium deals, meaning they could be considered candidates for relocation. McHale continued:

Our perception was that this market had likely lost the intense enthusiasm it once had for Major League Baseball and I think that this requires us to recalibrate our estimation of how popular our sport might be here.

Many Expos fans point to MLB as being one of the guilty parties involved in pushing the team out of La Belle Province, so to hear a high-level official, one who has Commissioner Bud Selig’s ear, utter such words must be nothing short of jaw-dropping. Even if McHale has past Expos links, his comments are an exclamation point for the fans who were finally provided with a long-awaited opportunity to honor their past.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The local press was teeming with coverage of baseball's visit to the Stade Olympique. Photograph: David Lengel/The Guardian

Their Hall-of-Fame catcher and face of the franchise, Gary Carter, who died of brain cancer in 2012, had homage paid to his memory in a pre-game ceremony on Friday. Carter’s wife, Sandy, and daughter Kimmy, joined some of his team-mates on the field for a tribute that brought tears to many who remember when "Le Kid" took Montreal to within a game of the World Series in 1981.



You saw [Tim] 'Rock' Raines go out there and Cromartie go out there and the ovation was just deafening,” said Wetteland. “And that just doesn’t happen in a place where 25 years later a player comes and walks on the field and gets this rousing ovation of appreciation. It doesn’t happen because a generation has gone by and usually those kids don’t even know who those guys are. But Montrealers keep that memory alive, they truly love their players and they love their baseball.

Carter’s team had a chance to win a title, but Wetteland and the Expos' vaunted 1994 ballclub never had that opportunity. On 11 August of that year the Expos had the best record in baseball, were winners of 20 of their prior 23 contests and six games up on the Atlanta Braves in the NL East.

“In '94 we took the field kind of knowing we were going to win,” said Canadian All-Star outfielder Larry Walker. “And I think other teams had that feeling to. You could see them in the other dugout just crapping their pants.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The 1994 Montreal Expos team was honoured at Olympic Stadium before the Toronto Blue Jays faced the New York Mets. Photograph: David Lengel/The Guardian

Felipe Alou managed the Expos for over a decade, including that ill-fated season.

I believe it is my opinion the 1994 club was hard to compare with anybody because we had three closers, incredible starting pitching, and we had speed, power and defence. Not too many teams can say that, and they were young, they were getting better.

On 12 August the players voted to strike, protesting against the owners' desire to implement a salary cap. A little more than a month later, the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs were cancelled, stopping the surging Expos dead in their tracks. Twenty years on, the team that never got their title shot finally had a chance to gather in front of their core supporters.

“I think the big part is you feel like it’s unfinished business,” said the former outfielder Cliff Floyd. “You feel like you left something unfinished and it irritates you, it gives you anxiety.”

Pitching coach Joe Kerrigan was instrumental to the staff he oversaw, one that included a young Pedro Martínez.

I never thought this day would happen where the team would be able to get together again and be recognised for what they did. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that this would happen. I thought, well, maybe the Nationals would bring us in in Washington or something like that but to come back to Montreal and to have this event happen, it really is a blessing. And we were all very appreciative of it.

The players' strike was another key reason that the Expos, a franchise that came into the league via a 1969 expansion, ultimately departed for DC a decade after the team were denied their chance at a playoffs appearance. The 1995 season saw the fiscally challenged club unable to hold on to core players such as Walker, Wetteland, Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill – frustrated fans gave up on the organisation with many never going back. Other factors in their demise included a weak Canadian dollar at the time (players are paid in US dollars and the team was collecting their revenues in a weaker currency), a stretch of unstable ownership groups, and an unwillingness by the local government to contribute funds towards a new downtown stadium, one that would have replaced the cavernous and eroding Stade Olympique. Eventually the team was sold to Major League Baseball during MLB's bid to rid themselves of franchises then seen as unhealthy. The policy was known as “contraction” and it was slated to shut down two clubs, the other being the Minnesota Twins, a team that is thriving years after the policy foundered.

Ironically, 10 years after playing a large part in the shutdown of MLB’s first international entry, the league is placing a heavy emphasis on expanding their brand via global marketing, operating the World Baseball Classic, while opening the regular season in cities such as Sydney, Australia. That’s not all that has changed – the Canadian dollar has strengthened, Quebec’s economy has improved somewhat, and the sports revenues have exploded. Between national television deals, merchandising, and money generated via their internet platforms, teams today earn upwards of $50m (£30m) before selling local TV and radio rights and tickets. These are all reasons why the Montreal Baseball Project believe the city can sustain a team again, a point that a recent feasibility study made in great detail.

Nothing on paper can replace the impact of close to 100,000 fans showing up to watch two exhibition baseball games, a good portion of whom had never seen the Expos play. Patrick Blais was at Olympic Stadium with his 13-year-old son Nicholas, part of a lost generation of would've-been Expos fans who was just three when Montreal lost the team.

When I am talking about Carter or [Ellis] Valentine, he’s like, what’s that? That’s why I want him to be here today, because for me it’s special and for him it’s new.

For now, this little taste of big league ball will have to hold the region over at least until next season, when the exhibition games could return to Montreal. As for a more permanent solution, it’s now up to Cromartie and the Montreal Baseball Project to try to take advantage of the momentum, seek to form a would-be local ownership group, secure government stadium funding and begin the process of trying to lure the two teams with outstanding stadium issues, Tampa Bay and Oakland, over to Montreal. It’s a monumental task, a longshot at best, and one that’s without a timetable. That is, unless you ask Alou, who made his schedule for a return of the Expos clear.