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Sean Menard, a kid from Toronto and a Blue Jays fan, produces an emotional documentary about the 1994 Montreal Expos
MONTREAL – As a Toronto kid and a committed Blue Jays fan, all Sean Menard really knew about the 1994 Montreal Expos was his father's conspiracy theory.
"All I remember is my father saying, 'the damn Americans are out to get us. They don’t want a Canadian team to win the World Series three years in a row,' " Menard says. "And he's American!"
But the young filmmaker was looking for a concept, and what stood out to him was the fact that there had never been a World Series cancelled in the game's history and when it happened, it happened to the Expos. And that a decade later, the city lost the team.
The finished product, a half-hour documentary called "The Perfect Storm - Story of the 1994 Montreal Expos", has begun airing on TSN's auxiliary networks and makes its debut on the TSN1 Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. (Well, it was supposed to; for whatever reason, there was poker on).
It almost didn't get made. Menard was self-financing the project and when it got to the point where he was going to have to pay rights fees to Major League Baseball to use the footage he needed to complete it, the well ran dry.
So he turned to crowdsourcing, Kickstarter to be precise. And thanks to 319 Expos fans, an original plan to raise $15,000 turned into over $22,000 – enough to get it done before approaching the Canadian sports networks about buying it and airing it.
As with most good things, a lot of what makes the documentary so good is random good luck, and timing. In the end, a filmmaker who wasn't so intimately emotionally involved with the magic of the era was able to cast a fresh, unjaded eye on a story that has taken on its own strict narrative through the years.
With the Blue Jays hitting Montreal for a weekend exhibition series nearly a year ago, and so many members of that 1994 squad gathering for an emotional reunion, there was never going to be a better time to tell their story.
"Major League Baseball gets a lot of written pitches and concepts, and they are very particular about their brand – especially a sensitive issue like the work stoppage," Menard said. "So foolishly – or naively – I started filming. I didn’t ask permission."
Not only were the main players all gathered in one place. Menard was able to get time with them when their emotions about the World Series that never was were at their freshest. He was the only one to sit down with the players and raid their memory banks.
"They were together again, wearing the (Expos) jerseys, coming right from a standing ovation from 50,000 people. And the first person they were talking to was me," Menard said. "They were so fresh with nostalgia."
The one missing piece, of course, was the catalyst for the entire season: one Pedro Martinez.
Menard tried for months to get time with the former Expo. But his agent really didn't know Menard from any of the other people out there clamouring for a piece of him, even in retirement. The project didn't come with any network attached to it to give it some pull, either, because Menard preferred to finish it in complete creative freedom before pitching it.
Finally, the agent called him on a Tuesday and told him that if he could get to Miami by Thursday, he could have 10 minutes with Martinez at his condo.
He made it. That 10 minutes turned into 45, and another half-hour just talking baseball after the camera stopped rollling.
"It if wasn't for God and Felipe (Alou), I wouldn't be here," Martinez told him.
Menard also touched base with writer Jonah Keri, a former Montrealer whose book about the Expos, "Up, Up and Away," was about to come out.
"If someone ever made (a film) on the 1992 Blue Jays, my favorite team of all time – if it were someone outside of Toronto – I’d hope they’d get their facts right," Menard said. "So I reached out to him to oversee it, to make sure I’m telling it properly."
Menard also had the support of the Montreal Baseball Project, the organization whose mission is to bring baseball back to the city.
With all of it, Menard was most surprised by how many people loved the 1994 team, and how many took that love with them when they left Montreal to scatter to the four corners of the globe.
"We did a screening in Montreal. People had to write in what the team meant to them and we gave away tickets to 100 people. They were emotional, grown men crying. I was by the door when they left and everyone literally stopped, just for a a 'thank you' and an appreciation," Menard said. "In some super-tiny way, the fans were like, 'Thank you for telling the story and getting the attention on this team' ".
Part of the Kickstarter scheme is a rewards program, in this case posters. "I really had no idea how many Expos fans there were, including those who moved away and had been so impacted by that team," Menard said. "Part of the reward on the Kicksterarter thing was sending out posters, I’m literally sending out these posters all over the world."