Expos “big part” of new Canadian ball hall inductee Martin’s childhood

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Texte de Kevin Glew publié sur le site Internet de Canadian Baseball Network le 9 février 2024

When Russell Martin was growing up in Montreal, his father used to take him to a handful of Expos games at Olympic Stadium each year.

The price for a hot dog at the Big O was a little steep, so his dad, who made a living as a busker playing his saxophone in Montreal subway stations, often packed sandwiches.

“My dad was a great storyteller, and he would make up these stories like, ‘Here comes Russell Martin at the plate. There’s a shot deep to right field.’ He would make up stories about me hitting homers in the games,” recalled Martin. “He kind of helped me create this visual that I could get there someday.”

From the stands, a young Martin would dream of playing alongside his Expos heroes.

“It was easy to be a fan of the game of baseball. I loved it as a kid,” said Martin. “Guys like Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields, Dennis Martinez and that’s just to name a few, I could probably rattle off 30 or 40 more other [Expos] players. I was just a big fan of the game of baseball growing up and the Expos were definitely a big part of that.”

Martin’s dream to play for the Expos never came to fruition, but the newly elected Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer, who grew up to play 14 major league seasons, did have the opportunity to play an exhibition game at the Big O with the Toronto Blue Jays on April 3, 2015. And making it even more special was that his father, Russell Sr., played the national anthem on his saxophone.

“I definitely had to hold the tears in there,” recalled Martin. “Just seeing my dad in front of the stadium [crowd] and getting to share that moment . . . My dream as a kid was to play some professional games in Olympic Stadium and to get to do that in a major league uniform and then to have my dad out there to share that with him, that’s going to be in my memory bank for the rest of my days.”

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Revue de Web publiée par Jacques Lanciault