Tim Raines had to wait the maximum 10 years to make the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sunday, the Baseball Hall of Fame made Raines wait to go last before giving his acceptance speech.
Raines even tried to speak some French to honour the legacy of les Montréal Expos as the "Let's go Expos" chant echoed in the air from the multiple bus loads of fans who made the trip to Cooperstown, NY.
“First, I want to apologize to the French-Canadians,” Raines said. “I’ve been trying for over 25 years to speak your language … I still haven’t got there yet.”
"Bonjour, monsieur et … I screwed that up again! We worked on that all night. Dang!"
"I was definitely nervous. I still can't speak French, even when I'm not nervous."
Once Raines settled into the speech, he was good, steady, like his MLB career.
Raines focused on his Expos years, honouring Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Warren Cromartie, Ellis Valentine. Steve Rogers, and Tim Wallach. Raines talked about how he and Wallach started out in Double A together and played alongside each other for 10 years.
Big crowd on hand for Hall of Fame induction ceremony with #Expos Tim Raines @baseballhall pic.twitter.com/dQi0KXIPU0
— Stu Cowan (@StuCowan1) July 30, 2017
The one name Raines kept coming back to often in the speech was Andre Dawson.
"Without Andre Dawson, there is no telling what would have happened in my career. There was a point in my career that I felt I needed someone to guide me in the right direction," Raines said. "Thank you so much, Andre Dawson, for making me the player that I became."
Raines also thanked his kids, Tim Jr. with whom Raines played briefly together, and the namesake for his teammate, Andre.
Tim Raines finally makes the Baseball Hall of Fame
Raines also gave a thoughtful shout out to Jonah Keri for his persistence in getting the baseball community to pay attention to the statistics for Raines and the argument that he was a Hall of Famer.
Keri had shown Raines a picture of the two of them when Keri was about 6 years old.
"This guy told me about stats that I'm like 'Did I do that?'"
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One strike against the procedure is that the Raines speech aired outside the 3 hours scheduled by MLB Network. Hopefully you caught the speech in the rebroadcast last night. After all that unbelievable waiting for Raines to get into the Hall of Fame, the idea of making Raines go last was insulting.
We thought the MLB Network would have more shots of Expos fans in the crowd during the speech but that did not happen.
Hopefully, you can find the whole speech somewhere. What a shame that some fans missed the speech.
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Bud Selig was also inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday. Selig's speech did not go over well among the Expos crowd. Selig's story in the early years is a good one. Milwaukee had lost its baseball franchise after the 1965 season. Selig worked to get another team to come to Milwaukee.
Selig was booed alongside chants of "Let's Go Expos" during his speech over his efforts to speed up the demise of the Expos. Giving Jeffrey Loria a sweet deal to own the Expos and a reward for running the team into the ground is part of Selig's legacy. Even if Selig forgot while commissioner what it was like to lose a MLB team, the fans of Expos live in the land of je me souviens: I remember.
Selig's legacy was also shutting down the 1994 World Series, the Expos best chance at a world championship. The resulting settlement meant the Expos couldn't afford to keep the core of players and the quick dismantlement of that team in 1995 lead to disillusionment of the fan base for years to come.
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Some Hall of Fame players spend their time in the acceptance speech to promote a worthy cause, such as when Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman said Pete Rose, a one-time teammate of Raines, should be in the Hall of Fame. Raines could have taken some of the speech to talk about the Expos returning to Montréal.
That clearly wasn't Raines style; Brennaman got into the Hall of Fame as a broadcaster for speaking his mind, even when others didn't want him to do so. Unlike Raines Hall of Fame teammates with Montréal — Gary Carter and Andre Dawson — Raines wanted to go into the Hall of Fame as a Montréal Expos player.
The Montréal Expos of the early 1980s now have 3 members in the Hall of Fame. That Big Red Machine also has 3 players in the Hall of Fame: Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and (former Expo) Tony Perez. The Reds had a lot more playoff success but the Expos in that time really were good. The Hall of Fame is not the true measure of success but the hall does have some lift in the baseball argument. This day should have come a lot sooner for Tim Raines and this day could have gone better, but Raines is in the Baseball Hall of Fame where he belongs.
photos credit: MLB Network
Twitter capture: @stucowan1
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