Expos book celebrates former Stratford Hoods shortstop
Baseball fans in Stratford probably remember pitcher Larry Landreth, the local sports wall-of-famer famous in town for his seven-game stint with the Montreal Expos in the mid-'70s.
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Baseball fans in Stratford probably remember pitcher Larry Landreth, the local sports wall-of-famer famous in town for his seven-game stint with the Montreal Expos in the mid-’70s.
Landreth was the first person from Stratford to make it to the big leagues when he took the mound in Montreal on Sept. 16, 1976, and pitched six shutout innings against the Chicago Cubs, earning his first and only major league win.
Perhaps less well-known, however, is Stratford’s other connections to the former baseball franchise in Montreal, including shortstop Chris Speier, a key member of the Expos during the team’s pennant chases between 1979 and 1983.
Speier was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in 1970 only a few months after a successful summer with the Stratford Hoods, one of the city’s many former Intercounty Baseball League teams.
His time in Stratford is chronicled by author Danny Gallagher in his latest book, Never Forgotten: Tales of Ron LeFlore, Ron Hunt and other Expos yarns from 1969-2004.
“Any time I see … a Canadian or an Expo player starting his career in another Canadian city, I think it’s kind of unique,” said Gallagher, a retired sports scribe who covered the Expos beat for the short-lived Montreal Daily News and others between 1988 and 1994. “He has great memories of the Expos, especially in 1981 when they almost made it to the World Series. He was an integral part of the Expos for seven-and-a-half years, sort of underappreciated, maybe not given enough credit for the great time he spent (there) as a shortstop.”
Although the Expos unceremoniously departed Montreal in 2004, there are rumblings in Major League Baseball that a return in the future isn’t out of the question. A group of former Expos led by outfielder Warren Cromartie began pushing the idea in 2014 and, since then, Gallagher said interest in the team has spiked.
It’s one of the reasons the 70-year-old freelancer has dug deep into his contacts to revive stories about the club’s ups and downs during its run in Montreal between 1969 and 2004. Never Forgotten, which Gallagher self-published and released in April, is actually his seventh book dedicated to the Expos.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm and fever about getting a team back in Montreal,” said Gallagher, now based in Oshawa. “I’m just sort of doing my thing because I have a passion for the Expos.”
In a chapter dedicated to Speier, Gallagher speaks to the former shortstop about moving to Stratford at 18 years old. Speier was enticed to play summer ball in the IBL by Stratford’s pitcher/coach, Rolf Scheel, who also happened to be his pitching coach at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Speier recounted his part-time jobs filling up carts in a food supply warehouse and loading bathtubs onto railway cars before managing to land less strenuous work taking care of the infield and mowing the grass at the ballpark.
Of course, it was Speier’s work on the field during the team’s evening games that impressed his teammates and opponents the most, Gallagher writes.
Nicknamed the Alameda Rifle because of his strong arm, Speier led the Hoods with 130 plate appearances, 33 hits, 26 runs and 25 walks that season, adding one homer and 12 RBI.
He also appeared in all 19 of the team’s playoff games.
Stratford ended up losing the championship series to the London Pontiacs in seven games.
Speier went on to have an 18-year playing career in the majors before he retired and went into coaching, most recently as part of the Houston Astros’ staff.
Gallagher said he believes Speier’s seven-and-a-half years in Canada deserves a look from the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys.
“I think he’s a legitimate candidate for induction … based on what he’s done with the Expos and with Stratford,” Gallagher said.
Never Forgotten is available on Amazon and at Indigo.
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