DRAFT Chapter 1: Expos sign Williams, pursue Jackson When the rubble of the disastrous 1976 Expos'' season had subsided, president John McHale and sidekick Jim Fanning didn''t look that far in a search for a manager. Career minor league manager Karl Kuehl was a disaster in 1976 and McHale had later said it was a mistake firing Gene Mauch, who had managed the team from 1969 through 1975. So where did the Expos cast their eyes? To a former Toronto Maple Leafs'' Triple-A skipper, who was manager of the Boston Red Sox in 1967-69 and later manager of the Oakland A''s clubs that won three consecutive championships from 1972-74 and then the California Angels in 1975-76. Dick Williams was considered a turnaround maestro. He guided the Maple Leafs to two consecutive International league titles in 1965-66 and took the Red Sox Impossible Dream team led by Carl Yastrzemski to the 1967 World Series before they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals. He had spunk and didn''t care if he ruffled a player''s feelings. Fanning and McHale were familiar with Williams because he was the Expos'' third-base coach under Mauch in 1970, a brief respite for Williams after he was let go by the Red Sox following the 1969 season.
When he joined the Expos in 1970, Williams sat back and retooled his thinking strategies, while watching the tactician Mauch -- when he wasn''t hitting fungoes before games or flashing signals to runners and batters during games. The Montreal scenario gave him a different perspective on managing. So when Williams left the Angels after his stint with them ended in 1976, Williams called the Expos and asked that he be given the job. He didn''t wait for the Expos to approach him. That''s how aggressive he was. He felt confident that he would be hired and he was. Williams was given a five-year contract by the Expos. Hiring Williams was the beginning of the rejuvenation of the Expos after the 55-107 season in ''76.
"Dick was a known manager. He was feisty and we weren''t a feisty club," Bronfman said in 2017. McHale figured Williams would light a fire under his charges much like he did with the Boston, Oakland and California squads which was known for players, who would fight on occasion with each other or almost come to blows with Williams himself. The Expos'' remodelling didn''t stop with Williams or at least they made an attempt. McHale went so far as to try to entice superstar free agent Reggie Jackson to come to Montreal. Jackson had been one of Williams'' players in Oakland and they helped steer the A''s to glory. Jackson had spent the 1976 season with the Baltimore Orioles, a brief stopover during his splendid career. "Reggie was available," former Expos'' secretary-treasurer Harry Renaud recalled.
"He was such a superstar. We flew him into Montreal. We organized a reception for him the whole weekend. We met with the media, the pooh-hababs, including the mayor, Jean Drapeau. "Reggie was late. He came down to the stadium and arrived with an entourage, a bunch of them came in an in-house trailer. There were all these hangers-on. It was a travel party.
I couldn''t figure that out. They were all smoking dope. It was kind of strange with his stature. We had such a big party at Charles'' place. There were about 50 people involved. "The party ended on a Saturday night," Renaud said. "Reggie departed very sudden. Next thing, he just up and left.
There were no goodbyes. That was the end of the story." But prior to leaving Montreal, Jackson and Bronfman''s close friend Leo Kolber, a member of the team''s board of directors, tried to hammer out a deal the next night. McHale and Kolber offered Jackson a five-year deal for just under $5-million. Jackson had come to the meeting, looking and feeling like death warmed over. "Reggie had a terrible hangover and needed a hair of the dog," Kolber said. Jackson looked at Kolber''s son Jonathan and said, "Hey, kid, make me a milkshake but it has to have eggs in it."Jackson also met with the media while he was in Montreal and said he was very interested in the Expos, especially since he knew Williams from their days in Oakland.
Williams even took Jackson on a tour of Olympic Stadium as it was being prepped for the Expos'' first season there in 1977. "I want to know if these gentlemen want to build a contender. There''s a lot more than signing for a lot of money,"Jackson told the reporters surrounding him. "If Dick Williams hadn''t been here, I wouldn''t be here. People tell me that you have the most beautiful girls in the world here." The enthusiasm both sides showed prompted Bronfman to tell the media, "I think we are pretty much in agreement on fundamentals." As one of the game''s biggest stars, Jackson also drew a lot of interest from the Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres. Ultimately, Jackson accepted a much less lucrative deal with the Yankees: five years for about $3-million plus a Rolls-Royce.
As Renaud said, there were different versions as to why Jackson spurned the Expos. "It had something to do with crossing the border. He was held up by customs at the border," Renaud said. "Apparently, he had an unregistered gun. Phone calls were made to Marc Lalonde, the minister of justice, and Reggie was allowed into the country." One report suggested that he was held up at the airport in Ottawa, not at Montreal''s Dorval airport, because some marijuana was found in his clothes. Another report said Jackson was simply upset that customs people were simply rummaging through his clothes, period. McHale had told reporters that he and other team officials discussed Jackson''s drug case and came away satisfied that he was "not a historical user of drugs" and that he had talked things over with the police.
No charges were laid. "We are absolutely convinced he has no drug problem," Bronfman weighed in at the time. "I thought we had a good chance with Reggie. They negotiated at Leo''s place. Reggie left and there''s an old baseball saying, ''If he leaves without signing, he''s gone,'' "Bronfman noted 41 years later. "Reggie made the right decision, no question. George Steinbrenner said one time, ''Ray Kroc of the Padres might have McDonald''s, Bronfman might have Seagram''s but I have the Big Apple.''" Jackson and the Yankees proceeded to win the World Series in both of his first two seasons in New York, both against the Dodgers.
Years earlier on New Year''s Eve in 1974, Renaud and McHale had tried to lure another free-agent stud to the Expos. His name was Catfish Hunter. So the Expos'' duo flew on Bronfman''s Seagram jet to Hunter''s hometown of Hertford, South Carolina. "I laughed. It was a great story," Renaud said. "It was 8 in the morning and there we were in this old, small town. There was this country-type lawyer and he said, ''Would you like a Coke?'' There was no coffee. Then Catfish came in and joined the meeting.
What I remember funny about that was that Catfish came in with a stryofoam cup and was chewing tobacco and spitting in the cup. "We came out of the meeting very high. We made a great presentation. So we got back to Montreal and we were dressed to go to a New Year''s party and we heard the radio flash that he had signed with the Yankees.".