title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: American fighter-bombers had been in theatre flying combat sorties since 1961, and the U.S. had many experienced pilots from the Korean War and World War II, such as World War II veteran Robin Olds. Untried MiGs and pilots of the VPAF would be pitted against some of the most combat experienced airmen of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Navy. On 3 April 1965 six MiGs took off from Noi Bai Air Base in two groups of two and four respectively, with the first acting as bait and the second being the shooters. Their target were U.S. Navy aircraft supporting an USAF 80-aircraft strike package trying to knock out the Thanh Hóa Bridge. The MiG-17 leader, Lt. Pham Ngoc Lan, attacked a group of Vought F-8 Crusaders of VF-211 from and damaged an F-8E flown by Lt. Cdr. Spence Thomas, who managed to land the aircraft at Da Nang Air Base. A second F-8 was claimed by his wingman Phan Van Tuc, but this is not corroborated by USN loss listings.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: On 4 April 1965, the USAF made another attempt on the Thanh Hóa Bridge with 48 Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs of the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) loaded with 384 x bombs. The Thunderchiefs were escorted by a MIGCAP flight of F-100 Super Sabres from the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron (416th TFS). Coming from above, four MiG-17s from the 921st Fighter Regiment bypassed the escorts and dove onto the Thunderchiefs, shooting two of them down; the leader Tran Hanh downed F-105D BuNo. "59-1754" of Major F. E. Benett, and his element leader Le Minh Huan downed F-105D BuNo. "59-1764" of Captain J. A. Magnusson. The Super Sabres engaged; one AIM-9 Sidewinder was fired and missed (or malfunctioned), and another F-100D flown by Captain Donald Kilgus fired 20 mm cannons, scoring a probable kill. Tran Hanh's wingman Pham Giay went down and was killed. No other U.S. airmen reported any confirmed aerial kills during the air battle; Tran Hanh stated that three of his accompanying MiG-17s had been shot down by the opposing USAF fighters.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: Three F-100s from the MiGCAP, piloted by LtCol Emmett L. Hays, Capt Keith B. Connolly, and Capt Donald W. Kilgus, all from the 416th TFS, had engaged the MiG-17s. The four attacking MiGs from the 921st FR were flown by Flight Leader Tran Hanh, Wingman Pham Giay, Le Minh Huan and Tran Nguyen Nam. Flight Leader Tran Hanh was the only Vietnamese survivor from the air battle and believed that the others in his flight were "... shot down by the F-105s." Based upon the report, the USAF F-100s could have been mistaken for F-105s, and the loss of three MiG-17s was attributed to Super Sabres, the first aerial victories of any American aircraft in the war. The F-100s themselves would never again encounter MiGs, being relegated to close air support. They were replaced in the MiGCAP role by faster and longer range but less manoeuvrable McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: USAF Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell was "hopping mad" to hear that two Mach-2-class F-105s had been shot down by Korean War-era subsonic North Vietnamese MiG-17s.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: In 1965, the NVAF had only 36 MiG-17s and a similar number of qualified pilots, which increased to 180 MiGs and 72 pilots by 1968. The Americans had at least 200 USAF F-4s and 140 USAF F-105s, plus at least 100 U.S Navy aircraft (F-8s, A-4s and F-4s) which operated from the aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, plus scores of other support aircraft. The Americans had a multiple numerical advantage.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: The MiG-17 was the primary interceptor of the fledgling VPAF in 1965, responsible for their first aerial victories and seeing extensive service during the Vietnam War. Some North Vietnamese pilots preferred the MiG-17 over the MiG-21 because it was more agile, though not as fast; three of the 16 VPAF Aces of the war (credited with shooting down five or more opposing aircraft) were from MiG-17s. Those were: Nguyen Van Bay (seven victories), Luu Huy Chao and Le Hai (both with six). The rest gained ace status in MiG-21s.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: This table lists VPAF and Chinese air-to-air kills. Sources include Hobson p. 271 and Toperczer (#25) pp. 88–90.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: VPAF flew their interceptors with guidance from ground controllers, who directed the MiGs to ambush American formations. The MIGs made fast attacks against US formations from several directions (usually the MiG-17s performed head-on attacks and the MiG-21s attacked from the rear). After shooting down a few American planes and forcing some of the F-105s to drop their bombs prematurely, the MiGs did not wait for retaliation, but disengaged rapidly. This "guerrilla warfare in the air" proved very successful


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: The MiG-17 was not originally designed to function as a fighter-bomber, but in 1971 Hanoi directed that United States Navy warships were to be attacked by elements of the VPAF. This would require the MiG-17 to be fitted with bomb mountings and release mechanisms. Chief Engineer of the VPAF ground crews, Truong Khanh Chau, was tasked with the mission of modifying two MiG-17s for the ground attack role; after three months of work, the two jets were ready. On 19 April 1972, two pilots from the 923rd FR took their bomb laden MiG-17s and attacked the U.S. Navy destroyer and light cruiser . Each MiG was armed with two bombs. Pilot Le Xuan Di managed to hit the destroyer's aft 5" (127 mm) gun mount, destroying it, but inflicting no fatalities, as the crewmen had vacated the turret earlier due to a malfunction with the gun system.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: From 1965 to 1972, MiG-17s from the VPAF 921st and 923rd FRs would claim 71 aerial victories against U.S. aircraft: 11 Crusaders, 16 F-105 Thunderchiefs, 32 F-4 Phantom IIs, two A-4 Skyhawks, seven A-1 Skyraiders, one C-47 cargo/transport aircraft, one Sikorsky CH-3C helicopter and one Ryan Firebee UAV., while VPAF lost 63 MiG-17s in air combat According to Russian sources, from 1965 to 1972, MiG-17s from the VPAF shot-down 143 enemy aircraft and helicopters, while VPAF lost 75 MiG-17s through all causes and 49 pilots were dead


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: The American fighter community was shocked in 1965 when elderly, subsonic MiG-17s downed sophisticated Mach-2-class F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers over North Vietnam. As a result of these experiences the U.S. Air Force initiated project "Feather Duster" aimed at developing tactics that would enable the heavier American fighters to deal with smaller and more agile opponents like the MiG-17. To simulate the MiG-17 the U.S. Air Force chose the F-86H Sabre. One pilot who participated in the project remarked that "In any envelope except nose down and full throttle", either the F-100 or F-105 was inferior to the F-86H in a dogfight. The project was generally successful in that the resulting tactics effectively minimised the disadvantages of the F-105, F-100 and other heavy American fighters while minimising the advantages of slower but more manoeuvrable fighters such as the F-86 and the MiG-17.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: Twenty countries flew MiG-17s. The MiG-17 became a standard fighter in all Warsaw Pact countries in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were also bought by many other countries, mainly in Africa and Asia, that were neutrally aligned or allied with the USSR. The MiG-17 still flies today in the air forces of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Mali, Madagascar, Sudan, and Tanzania, and by extension through the Shenyang J-5, North Korea. JJ-5s trainers are still in limited use in China as well.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: The Egyptian Air Force received its first MiG-17s in 1956, deploying them against the Israeli invasion of the Sinai during the early stages of the Suez Crisis. When Britain and France launched air attacks against Egyptian air bases on 1 November 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the Egyptian Air Force not to oppose the Anglo-French air strikes, and where possible to evacuate its aircraft to Syria or Saudi Arabia, so while Egypt lost large numbers of aircraft, including MiG-17s, losses of pilots were relatively low. The losses were quickly replaced after the end of the war, and by June 1957 Egypt had about 100 MiG-17s. Syria also operated the MiG-17, receiving 60 MiG-17Fs in 1957. The two air forces gradually switched the MiG-17 to ground-attack duties in the early 1960s, as the MiG-21 supplemented it in the interceptor role. From 1962, Egyptian forces became involved in the North Yemen Civil War, supporting the republican government, with Egyptian MiG-17s flying ground attack operations.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: The MiG-17 formed a major part of the Arab air strength during the Six-Day War in June 1967. The war started with a massive airstrike by Israel against Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi airbases, with more than 150 Egyptian aircraft destroyed or damaged. Egypt's surviving MiG-17s were heavily deployed in ground attacks against Israeli forces in the Sinai. The Soviet Union again replaced Egypt's losses after the war, and Egypt was soon involved in the War of Attrition, a sustained series of armed clashes on and over Sinai, with Egypt's MiG-17s continuing to be used in the ground attack role. While the MiG-17 was slower and shorter-ranged than the Sukhoi Su-7 that was the other main component of Egypt's ground-attack forces, the MiG-17 was more manoeuvrable and sustained lower losses. From 1970, Egypt deployed detachments of MiG-17s to Sudan to support government forces during the First Sudanese Civil War. The MiG-17 continued in use in the Yom Kippur War. Mig-17s were used during the Ofira Air Battle by Egypt. Egyptian and Syrian Mig-17s retired shortly after these wars.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: At least 24 of them served with the Nigerian Air Force and were flown by a mixed group of Nigerian and mercenary pilots from East Germany, Soviet Union, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australia during the 1967–70 Nigerian Civil War.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: Four were hurriedly supplied by the USSR to Sri Lanka during the 1971 insurgency and were used for bombing and ground attack in the brief insurgency.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: In 1958, a US Air Force Lockheed C-130 was shot down by four MiG-17 fighters when it flew into Soviet airspace near Yerevan, Armenia while on a Sun Valley Signal intelligence mission, with all 17 crew killed.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: A number of U.S. federal agencies undertook a program at Groom Lake to evaluate the MiG-17 to help fight the Vietnam War, as the kill ratio against North Vietnamese MiG-17s and MiG-21s was only 2:1. The program was code-named HAVE DRILL (see also Have Doughnut), involving trials of two ex-Syrian MiG-17F Frescos, acquired and provided by Israel, over the skies of Groom Lake. These aircraft were given USAF designations and fake serial numbers so that they may be identified in DOD standard flight logs.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: In addition to tracking the dog fights staged between the various MiG models against virtually every fighter in U.S. service, and against SAC's B-52 Stratofortresses and B-58 Hustlers to test the ability of the bombers’ countermeasures systems, they also performed radar cross-section and propulsion tests that contributed greatly to improvements in U.S. aerial performance in Vietnam.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

text: According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there are 17 privately owned MiG-17s in the US. Several MiG-17s have been seized due to questions over the legality of their import into the country.


title: Elizabeth Reaser

text: Elizabeth Ann Reaser (born July 2, 1975) is an American film, television, and stage actress. Her work includes the films "Stay", "The Family Stone", "Sweet Land", "Against the Current", "The Twilight Saga", "Young Adult", and "", and the TV series "Saved", "Grey's Anatomy", "The Ex-List", "The Good Wife", "True Detective, The Handmaid's Tale", and "The Haunting of Hill House".


title: Elizabeth Reaser

text: Reaser was born in the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Her parents are Karen Davidson (née Weidman) and John Reaser. She is the middle of three sisters. In 1995, her mother married billionaire businessman William Davidson.


title: Elizabeth Reaser

text: Reaser attended both the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills and Avondale High School in Auburn Hills where she graduated in 1993. After high school, she attended Oakland University for one year, then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division (1995–1999, Group 28), where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1999.


title: Elizabeth Reaser

text: Reaser prepared for her role on "Saved" by spending time in an emergency room, observing the behavior of medical staff. In October 2004, "Interview" magazine hailed her as one of the "14 To Be" emerging creative women. Her work in the film "Sweet Land" earned the "Jury Award" at the Newport Beach Film Festival and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award "Best Female Lead" award. Reaser earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her recurring guest appearance throughout 2007 and 2008 on the television series "Grey's Anatomy".


title: Elizabeth Reaser

text: Reaser is best known for her portrayal of Esme Cullen in the film "Twilight", and its follow-ups "" in 2009, "" in 2010, and (2011) and (2012) of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn".


title: Clark Middleton

text: Clark Tinsley Middleton (April 13, 1957 – October 4, 2020) was an American actor. He is best known for his supporting roles in "", "Sin City", "Fringe", "Snowpiercer", and "The Blacklist".


title: Clark Middleton

text: Middleton's first step toward acting was signing up for a $15 acting class with friends at a California junior college. After participating in a little bit of theater in L.A., he moved to New York City to study acting. He took classes at the Herbert Berghof Studio, and Geraldine Page became his teacher.


title: Clark Middleton

text: He made his film debut in the 1983 TV movie, "Miss Lonelyhearts". In 1997, Middleton wrote the one-person play, "Miracle Mile," about his lifelong struggle with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. He performed it in New York City and other parts of the US.


title: Clark Middleton

text: In the 1990s, Middleton had a recurring role on "Law & Order" as forensics technician, Ellis. He also played a recurring character known as Edward Markham, a rare book dealer, in the science-fiction series, "Fringe". Middleton appeared as a recurring cast member on "The Blacklist" in which he played Glen Carter, a DMV worker who moonlights as a tracker. This is arguably his most well-known role. In 2017, he was cast as Charlie, Audrey Horne's husband, in the Showtime Network series, "Twin Peaks: The Return", the sequel to the 1990s TV series, "Twin Peaks".


title: Clark Middleton

text: His final performance, via Zoom, was in July 2020. He played a weary Times Square hotel night clerk in Eugene O'Neill's one-act play, "Hughie." He performed it from his bedroom.


title: Clark Middleton

text: Following Middleton's death, his character Glen also died of West Nile virus in "The Blacklist" season 8 episode, "The Wellstone Agency." The episode was dedicated to Middleton, and featured Huey Lewis playing himself as part of the character's memorial.


title: Clark Middleton

text: Born Clark Tinsley Middleton on April 13, 1957, in Bristol, Tennessee, he grew up in Tucson, Arizona.


title: Clark Middleton

text: Middleton learned that he had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis when he was four and a half years old. The doctors said he would probably not live through another winter in the cold, damp climate. He summarized its effects in an interview: "At first it distorted my hands. Then the cortisone I had to take made my cheeks fat. At 8, I lost movement in my neck. When I was 15, my hip snapped. After an operation, I had to be on crutches and later, after I broke my leg falling over my dog, on canes." He remained at a height of .


title: Clark Middleton

text: Middleton died of complications from West Nile virus on October 4, 2020 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 63 years old. He is survived by his wife Elissa.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Montreal Expos () were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League (NL) East division from 1969 until 2004. Following the 2004 season, the franchise relocated to Washington, D.C., and became the Washington Nationals.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Immediately after the minor league Triple-A Montreal Royals folded in 1960, political leaders in Montreal sought an MLB franchise, and when the National League evaluated expansion candidates for the 1969 season, it awarded a team to Montreal. Named after the Expo 67 World's Fair, the Expos originally played at Jarry Park Stadium before moving to Olympic Stadium in 1977. The Expos failed to post a winning record in any of their first ten seasons. The team won its only division title in the strike-shortened season, but lost the 1981 National League Championship Series (NLCS) to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team was sold in 1991 by its majority, founding owner, Charles Bronfman, to a consortium headed by Claude Brochu. Felipe Alou was promoted to the team's field manager in 1992, becoming MLB's first Dominican-born manager. He led the team to four winning seasons, including , where the Expos had the best record in baseball before a players' strike ended the season. Alou became the Expos leader in games managed (1,409).


title: Montreal Expos

text: The aftermath of the 1994 strike initiated a downward spiral as the Expos chose to sell off their best players, and attendance and interest in the team declined. Following a failed attempt to disband the Expos, Major League Baseball purchased the team prior to the 2002 season after the club failed to secure funding for a new ballpark. In their final two seasons, the team played 22 home games each year at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On September 29, 2004, MLB announced the franchise would relocate to Washington, D.C. for the season, and the Expos played their final home game in Montreal.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos posted an all-time record of 2,753 wins, 2,943 losses and 4 ties during their 36 years in Montreal. Vladimir Guerrero led the franchise in both home runs and batting average, and Steve Rogers in wins and strikeouts. Three pitchers threw four no-hitters: Bill Stoneman (twice), Charlie Lea, and Dennis Martínez, who pitched the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history. The Expos retired four numbers in Montreal, and nine former members have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, with Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines' plaques depicting them with Expos caps.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Professional baseball in Montreal dates back to 1890 when teams briefly played in the International Association. A second attempt at hosting a pro team failed in 1895. The Montreal Royals of the Eastern League were subsequently founded in 1897 and played 20 seasons. The Royals were revived in 1928 and were purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939 to serve as one of their Triple-A affiliates. Under Dodgers' management, the Royals won seven International League championships and three Junior World Series titles between 1941 and 1958. In 1946, Jackie Robinson joined the Royals and led the team to a Junior World Series title in advance of his breaking baseball's colour barrier one year later. By the late 1950s, the Royals' championship years were past, and faced with declining attendance, the team was sold and relocated following the 1960 season as the Dodgers reduced the number of teams they maintained at the AAA level.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Almost immediately upon the Royals' demise, Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau and city executive committee chairman Gerry Snyder began their campaign for a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The city, which had previously been considered a leading candidate to acquire the St. Louis Browns if the team had relocated in 1933, was too late to submit its candidacy for a team as part of the National League's (NL) 1962 expansion but presented its bid to the league's owners at the winter meetings in 1967. Aiding Montreal's bid was the fact that Walter O'Malley, who owned the Dodgers and formerly oversaw the Montreal Royals, was the chairman of the NL's expansion committee. On May 27, 1968, National League president Warren Giles announced the league would add expansion teams in San Diego and Montreal at a cost of US$10 million each.


title: Montreal Expos

text: With the franchise secured, Snyder built an ownership group of six partners led by financier Jean-Louis Lévesque and Seagram heir Charles Bronfman. Lévesque was originally tapped as chairman and the public face of the ownership group since he was a francophone. However, he bowed out, and Bronfman took over as chairman. The new group was faced with the immediate problem of finding a suitable facility in which to play for at least two years. Drapeau had promised the NL that a domed stadium–thought to be a must due to Montreal's cold weather in April, October and sometimes September–would be built by 1971. However, Snyder's successor as executive committee chairman, Lucien Saulnier, told Bronfman that Drapeau could not make such a guarantee on his own authority. As 1968 dragged on without movement from the city on a facility, Bronfman and his group threatened to walk away. While they had more than enough money between them to pay the first installment of the expansion fee, they wanted assurances that a park would be built before proceeding any further with the effort. Delorimier Stadium, which hosted the Royals, was rejected even as a temporary facility; it could not be expanded beyond its 20,000-seat capacity because it was in a residential area. The Autostade, home of the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, was ruled out due to the prohibitive cost of expanding it and adding a dome, as well as doubts that the city even had the right to make the needed renovations to the federally-owned facility.


title: Montreal Expos

text: By August 1968, the NL owners had grown increasingly concerned about the unresolved stadium question, putting the franchise's future in doubt. There were rumours of awarding the franchise to Buffalo, New York instead, whose War Memorial Stadium was ready to host a team. League president Warren Giles was reassured of Montreal's viability when shown a 3,000-seat community field in the centrally located Jarry Park that Drapeau proposed expanding to 30,000 seats as a temporary home for the Expos, at a cost of over C$1 million.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Several options for a team name were considered: "Royals" was a popular option with fans in honour of the minor-league Royals, but the name had already been taken by the Kansas City Royals. Other names considered included "Voyageurs" and "Nationals". The team settled on "Expos", a name with the same spelling in French and English, in recognition of the recently concluded Expo 67 World's Fair. Less than a year after the city was awarded a team, the Expos took to the field to begin the season.


title: Montreal Expos

text: With Gene Mauch as their inaugural manager, the Expos made their debut on April 8, 1969: an 11–10 victory over the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. The team played its first home game—and the first Major League game outside the United States—on April 14; it was an 8–7 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals before 29,184 fans at Jarry Park Stadium. Three days later, on April 17, in just the team's ninth game played in their history up to that point, Bill Stoneman pitched the first no-hitter in Expos history with a 7–0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. The excitement of the early-season heroics quickly gave way to the realities of being an expansion team as the Expos struggled for much of their inaugural season. Montreal tied their expansion cousins, the San Diego Padres for the worst record in the NL with a record of . The team fared little better in the following seasons; the Expos went 73–89 in 1970 and 71–90 in 1971.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The team's best player, and first star, in its early seasons was Rusty Staub. Acquired from the Houston Astros in a trade prior to the Expos' inaugural season, he led the Expos with 30 home runs in 1970 and, owing to his red hair, was nicknamed "Le Grand Orange". Staub was Montreal's lone representative at the All-Star Game in the team's first three seasons, and endeared himself to the local fans by learning French. Also popular was pitcher Claude Raymond, who completed his major league career with Montreal in 1972 and was the team's first French-Canadian star. Pitcher Carl Morton, who posted an 18–11 record in 1970, was the first player in franchise history to be named National League Rookie of the Year. Bill Stoneman threw his second no-hitter, and the first pitched outside the United States, in a 7–0 win over the New York Mets in Montreal on October 2, 1972.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The team failed to post a winning season in its first ten years and finished fifth or sixth in the six-team NL East eight times. Attendance declined as the initial excitement of having a team wore off. It recovered briefly in 1973 as the Expos mounted an unsuccessful charge at the NL East pennant, before declining sharply in 1974 and beyond. By 1976, attendance had dropped to just over 600,000 fans over the course of the season, less than half of what the Expos drew in their inaugural season.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The on-field performance was not the only concern for the Expos. Jarry Park was only intended to serve as a temporary home until 1971 at the latest. Even allowing for this, it left much to be desired as a baseball venue. The grandstands were completely exposed to the elements, forcing the Expos to postpone a number of early-season games. Additionally, the sun set directly in the face of first basemen, forcing delays. Due to numerous delays and cost overruns with its intended replacement, Olympic Stadium, the Expos were forced to stay in Jarry through 1976.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The team's future was also placed in doubt following an angry speech by Bronfman in which he threatened to relocate his family and the Seagram company outside Quebec if the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) won a majority government in the 1976 Quebec election. The Parti Québécois did win the election; however, Bronfman and the Expos remained in Quebec.


title: Montreal Expos

text: For the season, the Expos moved into their new ballpark, Olympic Stadium, six years later than originally scheduled. For a time in the 1976–77 offseason, however, it appeared that the Expos would have to play at least the early part of the season at Jarry Park due to delays in securing a lease for Olympic Stadium. The team broke off negotiations not long after the PQ's landslide victory in the 1976 provincial election. Negotiations dragged out through the winter, leading the Expos to begin selling 1977 season tickets under the assumption they would have to play at Jarry. However, an agreement was finally reached in early 1977. A total of 57,592 fans attended Montreal's opening day 7–2 loss to Philadelphia.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The new facility was a significant upgrade, although weather-related issues created by Montreal's harsh climate persisted until the stadium's roof was installed in 1987. Over the years, the stadium became notorious for its poor playing conditions. Players were frequently at risk for injury due to thin padding on the outfield fences, as well as the original artificial turf that remained in place for over two decades. Ultimately, the park became viewed as a white elephant. On the field, the Expos continued to fare poorly; the team won 75 games in 1977, and 76 in .


title: Montreal Expos

text: Though the losing seasons mounted, the Expos built a solid core of players, led by Gary Carter, who went on to become one of baseball's best hitting catchers, pitcher Steve Rogers and outfielders Andre Dawson and Tim Raines. They supplemented their young roster with veteran acquisitions such as future Hall of Famer Tony Pérez, and in 1977, the Expos also hired Dick Williams as the team's manager. Williams had developed a reputation for nurturing young talent; he had managed a young Boston Red Sox team to the American League pennant in and the Oakland Athletics to back-to-back World Series titles in 1972 and 1973. In , Montreal had its first winning season in franchise history; in mid-July, the Expos led the NL East by 6.5 games, before finishing second to the Pittsburgh Pirates by two games with a 95–65 record. The fans responded: Montreal drew two million fans for the first time in franchise history and it was the first of five consecutive seasons that the team was in the top-four of National League attendance. Though they won five fewer games in , the Expos finished merely one game behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the division lead. In both seasons, the Expos were in the hunt for the division title into the last weekend of the season before losing to the ultimate World Series champion.


title: Montreal Expos

text: In , Charlie Lea pitched the third no-hitter in franchise history. He defeated the San Francisco Giants by a 4–0 score on May 10, 1981. The Expos were in third place in the NL East with a 30–25 record when the season was halted for two months by a players' strike. By the time the strike ended, 713 games had been lost and could not possibly be made up. Major League Baseball chose to adopt a split-season schedule, which gave the Expos a fresh start in the second half of the season. With the team languishing near the .500 mark in post-strike play, the club fired Williams and replaced him with scouting director Jim Fanning. The team continued to struggle, though, and had a 19–19 record with 15 games left to play. Montreal won 11 of the remaining games and finished in first place, a game ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates, thereby qualifying for the franchise's first post-season berth. Terry Francona caught the final out – a fly ball hit by Dave Kingman – to seal a 5–4 victory over the New York Mets in the clinching game.


title: Montreal Expos

text: In the 1981 National League Division Series, the Expos faced the first-half winners, the defending world champion Phillies. Montreal won the first two games, at Olympic Stadium, by identical 3–1 scores before dropping the following two games in Philadelphia. In the deciding fifth game, Montreal's Steve Rogers faced Steve Carlton in a pitchers' duel. Rogers pitched a complete-game shutout as Montreal advanced to the 1981 National League Championship Series with a 3–0 win. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal split the first two games of the best-of-five series in Los Angeles before returning home for the final three games. Montreal won game three, but failed in their first attempt to close out the series by losing game four and set up a deciding fifth game. The deciding game, postponed by a day due to rain, was played October 19, 1981, in near-freezing temperatures. The game was tied at 1 entering the ninth inning when Fanning opted to have his top starter, Steve Rogers, come out of the bullpen to pitch. Rogers retired the first two batters before facing Rick Monday. What followed was the defining moment in Expos history: on a 3–1 count, Rogers hung a sinking fastball that Monday hit over the centrefield fence for the game-winning and series-clinching home run. The moment, and game, became known to Expos fans as "Blue Monday". The dramatic loss was a bitter defeat for a franchise who by that time had been adopted as Canada's most popular baseball team.


title: Montreal Expos

text: By the end of the 1979 season, the Expos had earned a reputation for having one of the strongest player development systems in baseball; the team had stockpiled young talent throughout its roster including four starting pitchers below the age of 23, and was hailed as "the team of the '80s". When Montreal hosted the 1982 Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 13, 1982, Expos fans voted four of their own into the starting lineup: Carter, Dawson, Raines and Rogers, while Al Oliver was named as a reserve. It was only the second time since 1969 the host team had four starters. The National League claimed a 4–1 victory in front of 59,057 fans in the first All-Star Game held outside the United States; Rogers was the winning pitcher. Baseball historian and author Jonah Keri argued in his book "Up, Up and Away" that "no one at the stadium could know it then, but baseball in Montreal peaked that night at the Big O."


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos were widely predicted to win the NL East in ; "Sports Illustrated", "Baseball Digest" and "The Sporting News" were among the publications that favoured Montreal. However, the team disappointed. Montreal finished third in the division with 86 wins. The Expos replaced Fanning with Bill Virdon in , and under their new manager, led the division in mid-July. However, the team faded down the stretch and finished with an 82–80 record. The Expos won more games between 1979 and 1983 than any other team in the NL East, but had only one postseason appearance to show for it.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Hoping to turn the team's fortunes around, the Expos signed 42-year-old veteran Pete Rose, who was second all-time in base hits to Ty Cobb, to a one-year contract in . Rose reached a career milestone in Montreal's home opener by recording the 4,000th hit of his career in a 5–1 victory over Philadelphia on April 13. Though players and management had praised the acquisition of Rose and predicted he would help the team win the division, he was ineffective for Montreal. Rose batted only .259 and failed to hit a home run in 95 games before he was traded back to his original team, Cincinnati, and Montreal finished with a losing record on the season.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Montreal's failed 1984 season resulted in a 31 percent decrease in attendance at the same time salaries were escalating throughout baseball. As a consequence, the Expos completed a major trade following the season, sending Gary Carter to the New York Mets on December 10, 1984, in exchange for four players. In trading Carter, the Expos gave up a team icon who, like Rusty Staub before him, endeared himself to the fans by learning French and being one of the most accessible players on the team. The trade came one year after Bronfman had called the seven-year, US$12.6 million contract Carter signed in 1981 "the biggest mistake he had made in his life".


title: Montreal Expos

text: The economics of Major League Baseball also resulted in the departure of Andre Dawson following the season. Throughout that off-season, MLB owners colluded at the behest of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth to drive salaries for free agents down. Dawson, who should have been one of the most valuable free agents on the market that year, discovered that not only was there little interest in signing him, but that the Expos were publicly commenting about his knee problems in an effort to further drive interest down. Angered by these actions, Dawson walked into the Chicago Cubs' training camp with a signed, blank contract. The Cubs agreed to sign Dawson to a one-year, $500,000 contract, less than half of his previous salary.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Tim Raines was also affected by collusion: after receiving no offer worth more than the $1.5 million he earned in 1986, Raines returned to the Expos on a three-year, $5 million contract. He had one of the best seasons of his career in 1987, leading the NL with 123 runs (in 139 games), stealing 50 bases, batting .330 and hitting 18 home runs. He was also named the most valuable player of the 1987 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, as he drove in the game's only two runs with a triple in the 13th inning. Raines was ultimately traded to the Chicago White Sox in 1990.


title: Montreal Expos

text: On the field, the Expos won just four games more than they lost between 1986 and 1991 as the organization set about rebuilding its development system and acquiring a new generation of players. The team struggled to attract free agents to Montreal, and Bronfman had grown disillusioned with both the business of baseball and the challenge of drawing fans to Olympic Stadium for a middling ball club. He hoped to take one more chance at winning a title, however, and in , the Expos made a push for a division title by acquiring starting pitcher and pending free agent Mark Langston from the Seattle Mariners. The price would ultimately prove to be a high one as the Expos gave up future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson and two other pitchers. The trade helped propel the Expos to first place in the NL East by the All-Star break. They held the top spot into August before Langston and the team collapsed. The Expos finished fourth in the division with an 81–81 record, and Langston left Montreal as a free agent.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Bronfman grew increasingly uneasy about the reckless spending of his fellow team owners, increased strife with the players, and overall direction of MLB. According to then-team president Claude Brochu, the team's late-season decline in 1989 proved too much for Bronfman, who asked him to seek a buyer for the team.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Bronfman hoped to sell the team for around $50 million, but both he and Brochu found it impossible to find a local businessman willing to take primary ownership of the team. Groups from American cities were interested, however. One group offered to buy the club for $135 million and relocate it to Miami; however, Bronfman viewed a relocation as a last resort. Robert E. Rich Jr. offered to buy the club for $100 million and relocate it to Buffalo at their recently built Pilot Field, but received the same response. Instead, Brochu opted to lead a group himself. The city and the province agreed to fund $33 million of the $100 million sales price Bronfman had settled on, after which he and partner Jacques Ménard convinced 11 other Canadian businesses and businessmen—such as Bell Canada, Desjardins Group, the Jean Coutu Group and Loblaw Companies—to buy minority stakes. The sale was completed on November 29, 1990. However, many of the investors Brochu cajoled into joining the partnership made it clear that they considered their investments to be the equivalent of charitable donations, and were not interested in providing additional funding.


title: Montreal Expos

text: With a new ownership group in place, the Expos traded Tim Raines to the Chicago White Sox in a five-player deal.


title: Montreal Expos

text: General manager David Dombrowski fired manager Buck Rodgers, who had managed the team since 1985, after the team started the 1991 season with a 20–29 record, replacing him with Tom Runnells.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Mark Gardner pitched nine no-hit innings in a July 26, game before losing 1–0 in the 10th inning to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two days later, also in Los Angeles, Dennis Martínez achieved a rare feat, throwing the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history (based on MLB's 1991 redefinition of a perfect game), winning 2–0. Dave Van Horne's iconic call of "El Presidente, El Perfecto!" following the final out became a hallmark of Expos lore. Martinez's catcher, Ron Hassey, also caught Len Barker's perfect game ten years earlier and remains the only player to catch two perfect games in MLB history. The euphoria of the pitching feats did not last, as the Expos were rendered homeless for the final month of the season after a 50-ton beam collapsed from Olympic Stadium's structure and fell nine metres onto a public concourse hours before a motocross event on September 13. The Expos hinted that they would have to open the 1992 season elsewhere unless Olympic Stadium was certified safe. While the stadium itself was given a clean bill of health by engineers in November, it took longer to get one for the roof since it had been badly ripped in a June windstorm. Ultimately, it was decided to keep the roof closed at all times; it had only been opened 88 times in a little more than four years.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos finished 1991 with a 71–90 record, sixth in the NL East, and drew fewer than one million fans for the first time since 1976. However, the foundation of the Expos' future was establishing their places in MLB: Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields had made their debuts the season prior, and the team acquired Moisés Alou in a trade with Pittsburgh. Moises' father Felipe, who had been a long time employee of the Expos, was promoted to manager during the season and became the first native of the Dominican Republic to manage a Major League Baseball team. In , DeShields was sent to Los Angeles in exchange for Pedro Martínez; the deal was initially pilloried by the "Montreal Gazette" and other local publications as a move designed to save money rather than improve the ball club. Nonetheless, the Expos improved on the field; they won 87 games in 1992, 94 in 1993 and finished second in the NL East both seasons.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos were recognized as having a strong team entering the season, but their hopes of winning the division were significantly impacted by realignment, as the three-time defending West Division champion Atlanta Braves were shifted to the East. Atlanta opened the season with 13 wins in 14 games, and quickly opened up an -game lead on Montreal. By late June, the Expos had moved to games back when they hosted the Braves. Montreal won two out of three games in the series, including a late-game victory in the opener over future-Hall-of-Fame pitcher Greg Maddux that the players viewed as the turning point of their season. Montreal then embarked on a west coast road trip in which they won the final five games and entered the All-Star break in first place. The Expos pulled away from the Braves after the break; between July 18 and August 11, Montreal won 20 games and lost only three. For the second time in team history, five players were named all-stars: Moisés Alou, Wil Cordero, Darrin Fletcher, Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill.


title: Montreal Expos

text: An offense led by Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou, Larry Walker and Wil Cordero scored more than 5 runs per game. With a record of 74–40, on pace for a 106-win season as the pitching staff with Butch Henry, Ken Hill, Jeff Fassero and a young Pedro Martinez put up the National League's best ERA. The Expos had the best record in baseball on the morning of August 12, when MLB's players went on strike. The season began without a collective bargaining agreement as MLB's owners could not agree on how to share revenue between teams. Many teams were unwilling to agree to revenue sharing unless a salary cap was put in place, something which the Major League Baseball Players' Association (MLBPA) adamantly opposed. Unable to come to an agreement, the owners attempted to unilaterally force their system into effect, prompting the players to walk out. Most of the players believed they would be back on the field by Labour Day (celebrated on the same date in the U.S. as Labor Day) at the latest. On September 14, following a month of fruitless negotiations, the remainder of the season was cancelled. The franchise would never reach the playoffs as the Expos again.


title: Montreal Expos

text: From Brochu's perspective, a salary cap was not a major concern for the Expos as they could not afford to spend the maximum value of any negotiated cap. But when the strike ended eight months later, by the order of United States federal judge Sonia Sotomayor, the failure to implement strong revenue sharing was a major blow to the Expos. The team had already built a reputation as a penny-pinching organization (Larry Walker once complained in the media that the team asked the players to buy their own vitamins), with the second-lowest payroll in MLB in 1994. Following the strike, the team initiated a fire sale of players: Ken Hill, John Wetteland and Marquis Grissom were traded while Larry Walker was allowed to leave as a free agent. Moisés Alou, Pedro Martínez and Mel Rojas would eventually follow. In his book, "My Turn At Bat", Brochu argued that the fire sale was the only viable option, since his partners in the ownership group were not interested in financing the team's losses. Brochu estimated that had he tried to keep the 1994 team together, the Expos would have lost $25 million in 1995, which would have pushed the franchise to the edge of bankruptcy. He claimed that he would have certainly kept Hill, Wetteland, Grissom and Walker had the partners been willing to put up the money necessary to keep them in Montreal. When Brochu told general manager Kevin Malone that Hill, Wetteland, Grissom and Walker all had to go, Malone tried to persuade Brochu to keep at least one of them. It was to no avail; Brochu told Malone that they all had to be off the roster by the deadline for salary arbitration—even though this made it all but impossible to get any leverage in possible deals. As a result, the Expos got almost nothing in return.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The strike and ensuing fire sale left fans in Montreal livid. The Expos finished last in the NL East in , and average game attendance fell by nearly 26%, from 24,543 to 18,189. Interest in the Expos continued to decline in the years that followed; they would never average more than 20,000 fans per game in a season again during their tenure in Montreal. While noting the Atlanta Braves went on to win 11 consecutive NL East titles following the strike, Jonah Keri expressed the viewpoint of the fans as it related to Brochu and the team's owners: "Expos fans couldn't help but wonder if that could have been "them" celebrating every year ... had Brochu convinced the team's cheapskate owners to spend a few damn dollars, or taken a leap of faith that short-term financial pain would lead to long-term success." The media, meanwhile, had taken to calling the Expos a "Triple-A team" as the team seemed to enter a period where they would develop players only to move them on to other organizations.


title: Montreal Expos

text: In spite of a sharp decline in attendance, Brochu claimed the Expos turned a small profit in 1995. While ticket sales increased in other markets in the seasons following the strike, though, Montreal's fan base continued to erode. Even with the loss of most of their best players, the Expos were competitive in , achieving second place in the NL East with an 88–74 record. The team fared poorly in the following five seasons, however, finishing with a losing record in each year and no higher than fourth in the division. Individually, Pedro Martínez became the first native of the Dominican Republic—and only Expo—to win the National League Cy Young Award. He won the award in after recording an 18–7 record with an earned run average (ERA) of 1.90. One week after he was announced as the NL Cy Young winner, Martínez was traded to the Boston Red Sox as part of another salary purge.


title: Montreal Expos

text: As the 1990s wore on, interest in the Expos dwindled to the point that they were barely part of Montreal's sports landscape. Alou recalled in the latter part of the decade, an old friend of his who owned a team in the Dominican Republic came to Montreal for a visit and couldn't find any downtown store that sold Expos caps, nor did he see anyone wearing an Expos cap during his weeklong stay in the city. When he took a taxi to a game at Olympic Stadium, the driver couldn't find the entrance, and there were no signs anywhere touting games. According to Alou's friend, with such lackluster marketing, it was no surprise that the Expos couldn't attract any fans. Keri later wrote that the Expos would not have been in this position had a better-financed "champion" with the resources and the patience to shepherd the team through the 1990s bought the team.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Brochu attempted to convince his partners that the only long-term solution to keep the Expos in Montreal was to replace Olympic Stadium. In addition to being poorly located—far from population centres, restaurants, and bars—fans perceived it as cavernous and unsafe. Additionally, free agents were letting it be known they were not willing to play for the Expos because of Olympic Stadium's poor playing conditions. A proposed 35,000-seat downtown facility, to be called Labatt Park, was announced in 1997 with a budgeted cost of $250 million and an anticipated opening date of 2001. It would have been a retro-classic park with a facade reminiscent of historic Bonaventure Station. According to a Montreal Gazette editorial supporting the new park, Brochu's threat to move the team unless Olympic Stadium was replaced was "simple logic." Brochu sought $150 million in funding from the provincial government, but Premier Lucien Bouchard refused, saying he could not authorize public funding for a stadium when the province was being forced to close hospitals and had still not paid the Olympic Stadium debt. Many members of the consortium instead favoured selling the team. Hoping to pressure a sale, some members began to feed anonymous tips to the French press to make internal discord between Brochu and his partners public. Attendance continued to fall, decreasing by 39 percent in to an average of 11,295 spectators per game. It was the first of five consecutive seasons in which Montreal drew fewer than one million fans. One of the few bright spots of this time was the blossoming of Vladimir Guerrero into a star; he made four consecutive All-Star Games from 1999 to 2002, each time as the Expos' sole representative. Guerrero would eventually be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.


title: Montreal Expos

text: By 1999, the partners publicly began to question Brochu's fitness to lead the organization and he was criticized by the media. Brochu was also accused of having a secret deal with MLB commissioner Bud Selig to relocate the Expos to Washington, D. C., charges he denied in a spring press conference held to answer the accusations of his partners. Brochu's rebuttals fell on deaf ears as fans sided with the consortium's smear campaign against Brochu. He was ultimately replaced as managing general partner by American art dealer Jeffrey Loria, who was initially hailed as the franchise's saviour. Loria had originally bid for the team in 1991, but Brochu and Ménard had balked at his demand for controlling interest.


title: Montreal Expos

text: When Loria took control, he let it be known that Brochu's low-budget approach—or as he called it, "business as usual"—was over. He promised to rebuild the Expos with "a winning attitude and winning players" in an effort to bring the team back to where it had been only six years earlier. To that end, he drafted a new partnership agreement that gave him the right to call for cash investments in exchange for team equity—an option that had been unavailable to Brochu. Most of the minority partners, though, continued to treat their participation as a public-relations gesture and remained uninterested in investing additional money. When Loria issued a cash call in May 2000, the only other partners to increase their contributions were Coutu, Loblaw, and Stephen Bronfman. Rather than contribute more money, the minority partners proposed trading Guererro. Loria instantly vetoed this suggestion.


title: Montreal Expos

text: As Loria increased his own financial contribution over the next two years, most of the other partners failed to do likewise, which resulted in Loria raising his share in the franchise to 92 percent. Speaking in retrospect, one of the minority partners, Mark Routtenberg, said that he was both "fooled" and "used" by Loria, and called him a carpetbagger.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The team payroll for 2000 increased to $33 million, nearly double the $17.9 million from the previous season. However, Loria's options for rebuilding the team were somewhat limited. Even with the team's renewed willingness to spend more on talent, most elite players were reluctant to play in Montreal, given the franchise's uncertain future and Olympic Stadium's poor playing conditions. As a result, most of the increased payroll came from the signings of free agent pitchers Graeme Lloyd and Hideki Irabu, as well as a three-way trade with the Rangers and Blue Jays that brought Rangers first baseman Lee Stevens to Montreal. These moves failed to translate into on-field success: Lloyd missed the entire season due to arthroscopic surgery, Irabu posted a 7.24 ERA, and Stevens only batted .265. The Expos lost 95 games. Interest in the team continued to decline, as both fans and businesses were unwilling to lend their support to a noncompetitive team.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Loria continued to pursue the construction of a new ballpark. He sought support from Major League Baseball, the Quebec government, and architectural firm HOK Sport for a cheaper and re-designed version of Labatt Park that eschewed the retro-classic concept in favour of a more modern design with curved contours and glass. HOK and MLB both thought Loria's proposed design was structurally unsound. More seriously, although Loria had been led to believe that Ménard had convinced the provincial government to contribute funding, in reality no agreement had been reached.


title: Montreal Expos

text: To bolster the team's finances, Loria tried to renegotiate the Expos' broadcasting deals, which were far less valuable than that of any other team. He broke off negotiations with The Sports Network, the largest English-language cable sports network in Canada, when it only offered the Expos $5,000 per game. Even allowing for the Expos' greatly reduced home territory compared to that of the Blue Jays (see below), TSN's offer was still a pittance compared to the $200,000 it paid the Blue Jays at the time. Loria had similar issues with prospective radio partners; the only interested parties would only air Expos games as part of a brokerage agreement in which the team paid for the airtime. The Alouettes and Canadiens had similar arrangements, which was considered highly unusual for the time.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Although the team continued its French radio coverage on the Telemedia network—whose flagship, CKAC, had carried the Expos since 1973—the Expos were unable to reach an agreement for English radio broadcasts. This resulted in the end of the Expos' longtime run on CIQC (formerly CFCF), which had been the Expos' English radio outlet for all but four years of their existence. No television coverage was available in either language. This left English-speaking fans relying on Internet audiocasts. Local fans accused Loria and his stepson, David Samson, of sabotage. In truth, though, according to longtime Montreal sportscaster Mitch Melnick, there was no anglophone radio for the 2000 season "because nobody wanted to pay for it." Years later, Samson said that he had initially hoped that if the Expos got off to a hot start, local broadcasters would initiate new negotiations, but further discussions never materialized. Dave Van Horne, the team's English-language play-by-play announcer since the team's inception, left at the season's end to work for the Florida Marlins.


title: Montreal Expos

text: In , the Expos drew only 642,748 fans, one of the smallest totals in MLB in decades. The minority partners, whose interest was now reduced to a combined seven percent, became convinced that Loria had planned his moves to force them out. When pleas to Selig and MLB officials fell on deaf ears, the group became convinced that Selig and Loria had conspired to force the Expos out of Montreal. At the same time, MLB took steps to vote on contraction of the leagues, with the Expos and the Minnesota Twins slated for elimination. On November 6, 2001, MLB's owners voted 28–2 in favour of contraction, with only the Expos and Twins opposed. Initial plans called for the Expos and Twins to play a lame-duck season in before their franchises were revoked. Both teams were saved following a legal challenge filed in Minnesota that forced MLB to honour the Twins' lease with the Metrodome, as well as challenges by the MLBPA. As MLB was unable to find another candidate team to eliminate, the immediate threat for the Expos diminished, as MLB needed to keep an even number of teams to maintain its schedule.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Shortly afterward, Loria sold the Expos to MLB and used the money he received from the sale to purchase the Florida Marlins from John Henry, who had recently purchased the Boston Red Sox. As a result of the transaction, Loria turned a significant profit on his initial $16 million investment – MLB bought the Expos from him for $120 million and gave him a $38.5 million interest free loan to complete the purchase of the Marlins. Following the sale, Loria took virtually everything of value with him to Miami, including the Expos' computers and scouting reports. His departure also marked the final end of the proposed Labatt Park, though any realistic chance of the park being built ended when the Bouchard government repeated its previous refusal to commit any public money to the project.


title: Montreal Expos

text: MLB formed Expos Baseball L.P., a partnership of the other 29 clubs, to operate the team. It appointed former Anaheim Angels president Tony Tavares as team president to oversee business operations and oversee a future move of the team, and Mets assistant general manager Omar Minaya as vice-president, general manager and operating head of the franchise. MLB's chief disciplinarian Frank Robinson was appointed as the team's manager.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Minaya, the first Latino general manager in baseball history, inherited a difficult situation. He was hired only 72 hours before the start of spring training, and there were only six other employees in baseball operations; most of the others had either followed Loria to the Marlins or taken jobs with other clubs. As the Expos began what many assumed at the time to be their final season in 2002, the mood in the Olympic Stadium for the home opener – a victory over the Marlins – was ugly. Montreal's home opener drew 34,000 fans, many of which came not only to say "goodbye" to the franchise, but also to express their disgust and anger at Loria.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Loria's minority partners, who had gone from collectively owning 76 percent of the Expos to less than seven percent of the Marlins, filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit against Major League Baseball, Selig and Loria. The partners contended that Loria and the commissioner's office had conspired to deprive them of their shares by issuing cash calls, and thus deliberately undermined the franchise's future in Montreal. The partners were ultimately unsuccessful in their suit, as it was dismissed in 2005 after an arbitration panel rejected their claims.


title: Montreal Expos

text: On the field, the 2002 Expos exceeded expectations and were in playoff contention for much of the season. As they were owned by the other teams, including their direct competitors, the Expos did not have any flexibility to increase their payroll for a last-ditch post season drive. Operating under the belief that the Expos were playing their last season in Montreal, Minaya completed a blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Indians in late June to make a final run at bringing post-season success to the city, acquiring Bartolo Colón, one of baseball's top pitchers, in exchange for several star prospects and without increasing payroll. Remembering how the Seattle Mariners had revived a stalled bid for what became Safeco Field with a playoff run in 1995, Minaya believed that if the Expos made the playoffs, the renewed public and private sector support would lead to a viable owner stepping forward who would keep the team in Montreal. Minaya made several smaller moves, but the team lost its early-season momentum; they went seven games under .500 in July and August. The Expos finished with an 83–79 record – their first winning season since 1996 – but finished second in the NL East, 19 games out of both the division lead and the wild card.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos franchise was saved by a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players that forbade contraction until at least 2006. Speculation of contraction was replaced by rumours of relocation, as it was obvious MLB did not intend to keep the team in Montreal. While MLB was not ready to relocate the Expos right away, in it sought to increase revenues by having the team play 22 of its 81 home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Expos again found themselves in contention for the playoffs: on August 29, the team was tied with four other clubs for the National League Wild Card spot. When MLB's rosters expanded on September 1, Selig announced that the Expos would not be recalling any additional players from the minor leagues: the other owners had decided against spending a few extra thousand dollars, a small fraction of the team's $35 million payroll, to bolster the team. Several players, including relief pitcher Eric Knott, were sent back to the minors due to budget constraints. The team faded again, finishing 18 games out of first in the East and eight games out of the wild card spot. Later, Minaya said that the denial of the September call-ups was "a message to the players" and "a momentum killer." Keri later wrote that MLB's refusal to authorize the September call-ups eroded what goodwill the Expos still had among the Montreal fanbase. After the season, Guererro was lost to free agency, while staff ace Javier Vázquez was traded to the Yankees.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The final season of the Montreal Expos came in , and was again split between Montreal and San Juan. The team never recovered from an April win–loss record of 5–19, and finished the season with a 67–95 record, the second-worst record in the National League. On September 29, 2004, Major League Baseball announced that the franchise would relocate to Washington, D.C. for the season. That same night, the team played its final game in Montreal: a 9–1 loss to the Florida Marlins before 31,395 fans. The team then played its final games as the Expos on the road, ending on October 3 against the New York Mets, the team they had faced in the franchise's inaugural game in 1969. In the Expos' last-ever game, the New York Mets defeated Montreal 8–1 at Shea Stadium. Jamey Carroll scored the last Expos run and Endy Chávez became the final Expos batter in history when he grounded out in the top of the ninth to end the game. The team ended their 36-year run with an all-time record of 2,753 wins, 2,943 losses and 4 ties.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The last active former Montreal Expos player in the major leagues was Bartolo Colón, who played his last MLB game with the Texas Rangers in 2018.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Nationals won the 2019 World Series, the franchise's first title in its 51 seasons, under manager Dave Martinez, who had played with the Expos from 1988 to 1991.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos logo consists of the stylized letters "eb", which stands for "Expos Baseball". When taken as a whole, the logo forms a large "M", representing "Montreal".


title: Montreal Expos

text: In 1972, the Telemedia radio network brought in Jacques Doucet and Claude Raymond to serve as the Expos' French language broadcast team. They were asked by the Carling O'Keefe brewery, the title sponsor for the French-language broadcasts, to create a French language glossary of baseball terminology. Previously, particularly in the Montreal Royals days, French broadcasters would use English for baseball concepts that didn't have a French equivalent. Through their efforts, a French language baseball lexicon was created: words like "home run" became "" and "hit" became "". A knuckleball became "", literally "butterfly ball".


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Expos introduced their first mascot during the 1978 season. Called "Souki", the mascot resembled Mr. Met with a futuristic looking uniform but was met with such a negative reaction that the team immediately retired it after one season; Souki was once attacked by a father of children frightened by it. Seeking a replacement, the Expos found a design for a mascot similar to the Phillie Phanatic in the inventory of an American mascot company that had gone bankrupt. The mascot was designed by Bonnie Erickson, who created the Phanatic as well as several Muppets characters, including Miss Piggy. The team named the new mascot "Youppi!", which is French for "Yippee!" Unlike Souki, Youppi! was immediately popular with fans upon its introduction in 1979, particularly children, and the mascot became a fixture at children's hospitals during its 25 years as the Expos mascot.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Youppi! made history in 1989 when he became the first mascot in Major League history to be ejected from a ballgame. The incident occurred during the 11th inning of a game against Los Angeles when Youppi was dancing and parading on top of the Dodgers' dugout. LA's manager, Tommy Lasorda complained to the umpires who ordered the mascot out of the game. Youppi! was eventually allowed to return with the condition that he remain away from the Dodgers' dugout. The game, coincidentally, was the longest in Expos history as Los Angeles won 1–0 in 22 innings.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The relocation of the Expos to Washington left Youppi! in limbo. Several organizations expressed interest in taking over the character, including other Montreal sports teams. After a year in storage, the mascot was sold to the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens claim Youppi! is the first mascot in professional sports to change leagues; he made his re-debut with the Canadiens on October 18, 2005.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League as an expansion franchise in 1977, and one year later met the Expos for the first time in an exhibition contest, the first of an annual series that became known as the Pearson Cup. The Expos won that first game, 5–4, in front of 20,221 fans on June 29. Eight annual exhibitions (except for 1981, due to the strike) were played between 1978 and 1986, as each team won three games, with two contests ending as ties. The teams did not meet again until 1997: With the advent of interleague play that year the first regular season meetings were held between the two ballclubs. The games boosted attendance in both Montreal and Toronto, but the two teams failed to develop a serious rivalry.


title: Montreal Expos

text: John McHale, then president of the Expos, was a strong proponent of adding a second Canadian Major League team, in Toronto. The Expos remained Canada's most popular team until their mid-1980s downturn coincided with the Blue Jays' rise, culminating in the Jays' first American League East division championship, in 1985. At the same time, the Blue Jays grew perturbed that the Expos were able to air their games in several markets in southern Ontario—such as Windsor, Belleville, and Toronto itself. The Jays lobbied MLB to designate southern Ontario as their exclusive home television territory. Bronfman opposed the request, as he feared that shutting the Expos out of Canada's largest and most lucrative television market would limit the team's fan base. As a part of the territorial changes, MLB allowed the Expos to air 15 games in the Jays' television market for free, and purchase the rights to air additional games. For the remainder of their existence, the Expos only had full broadcast rights in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The loss of viewership in southern Ontario diminished the Expos' ability to attract sponsors and corporate partners. Indeed, Keri later wrote that the Expos miscalculated when they considered the Blue Jays an ally rather than a potential threat, and missed a chance to cement their right to air their games across Canada. Keri added that the loss of this revenue stream, along with "many other poor business decisions" over the years, made it difficult for the Expos to be viable in Montreal. Longtime Expos play-by-play broadcaster Dave Van Horne later argued that the loss of badly-needed corporate support "really started a long, downward spiral" for the team.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Regardless of their disagreements over television rights, when the Blue Jays reached the 1992 World Series, the team honoured Bronfman's contributions in bringing Major League Baseball to the country by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch for the first World Series game played in Canada. However, and while Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey again acknowledged the Expos' role in his own team's existence, Godfrey nonetheless voted with the other teams to support contracting the Expos in 2001 and relocating them in 2004: "I know if it wasn't for the success of the Expos in those early years there would not be major-league baseball in Toronto. That wasn't an emotional or a baseball vote. It was a business decision." The Blue Jays' failure to stand with their fellow Canadian team offended many Expos fans.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Ten years after the Expos relocated to Washington, a two-game exhibition series between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets was held at the Olympic Stadium to conclude the spring training schedule prior to the season. For the Blue Jays, the series was intended, in part, to increase the team's following in Quebec. For others, the goal was to demonstrate that Montreal had an interest in returning to Major League Baseball. Former Expos player Warren Cromartie, who leads the Montreal Baseball Project, was among the organizers. The series was a success: A combined 96,350 fans, frequently chanting "Lets go Expos!" and "We want baseball!", attended the two games. The Blue Jays returned for a two-game series in , against the Cincinnati Reds, which was attended by a combined total of 96,545 fans. The success of the series' bolstered the Montreal Baseball Project's efforts: retiring commissioner Bud Selig was impressed by the fans in 2014 and said the city would be an "excellent candidate" for a new team. His replacement, Rob Manfred, echoed those comments in 2015. Olympic Stadium again hosted two spring training games prior to the beginning of the 2016 season between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox, with a combined attendance of over 106,000 fans. Since 2014, the Blue Jays have made it an annual tradition to host two spring training games in Montreal before the start of each season. In 2018, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Blue Jays - whose father, Vladimir Guerrero, starred for the Expos in the 1990s - hit a game-winning home run against the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition game, to the delight of the Montreal crowd.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Nine people who represented the Expos organization have subsequently gone on to gain election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Gary Carter was inducted in 2003 and was the first player whose Hall of Fame plaque depicted him with an Expos cap. The Hall's choice for his plaque logo followed initial statements by Carter that he preferred to be enshrined as a New York Met, with whom he won the 1986 World Series. He accepted the Hall's decision with grace, stating: "The fact I played 11 years in Montreal and the fact that the majority of my statistics and accomplishments were achieved there, it would be wrong, probably, to do it any other way."


title: Montreal Expos

text: Andre Dawson became the second depicted as an Expos player when he was elected in 2010. Although he had played the majority of his 21-year career with Montreal, Dawson also preferred his plaque to display a different logo: when the decision was made, he publicly expressed his disappointment, saying it was "a little gut-wrenching" to find out he would not go in as a Chicago Cub. Dawson's reluctance to be enshrined as an Expos player stemmed, in part, from the breakdown of his relationship with the team during MLB's collusion scandal of 1986–87, when he claims the team not only "threw him out" of Montreal, but tried to prevent other teams from signing him as a free agent.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The third player with an Expos logo on his Hall of Fame plaque is Tim Raines, who was inducted in 2017, his final year of eligibility.


title: Montreal Expos

text: On January 24, 2018, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced Vladimir Guerrero as an inductee into the Hall of Fame. Guerrero played eight of his 16 seasons with the Expos, being named to the MLB All-Star Game three times and winning the Silver Slugger Award three times while with the team. Nearly half of his career 2,590 hits were with Montreal (1,215), while having 234 of his 449 home runs and 702 of his 1,496 RBIs with the Expos in 1,004 games. Guerrero announced his Hall of Fame plaque will display him wearing an Angels cap.


title: Montreal Expos

text: For the five other inductees, their time in Montreal played lesser roles in their careers. Manager Dick Williams was a member of the Expos between 1977 and 1981 as part of a 21-year managerial career in which he took three different teams to the World Series. Tony Pérez played three years with the Expos but was primarily known for being a member of Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" teams of the 1970s. Pitchers Pedro Martínez (1994–97) and Randy Johnson (1988–89), who both played in Montreal early in their careers but spent the majority of their playing days elsewhere, were both elected to the Hall in 2015. Frank Robinson managed the team from 2002 to 2006 (spanning the franchise's move to Washington), but was elected based on his accomplishments as a player, including being the first player to win Most Valuable Player honours in both the AL and NL, a triple crown in 1966, and a rookie-record of 38 home runs while winning the NL Rookie of the Year award.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Longtime broadcaster Dave Van Horne was named the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award in 2011. The award is presented by the National Baseball Hall of Fame to honour broadcasters who make "major contributions to baseball".


title: Montreal Expos

text: When the Washington Nationals unveiled their "Ring of Honor" at Nationals Park in 2010, the franchise recognized its roots in Montreal. The ring was created to honour Hall-of-Fame players associated with Washington, D.C., baseball or the Montreal-Washington franchise, later expanded to include anyone who has made a significant contribution to the game of baseball in Washington, D.C. Two Expos players – Gary Carter and Andre Dawson – were named among the inaugural members. Frank Robinson was added to the Ring of Honor in 2015, as was Tim Raines in 2017.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The team created the Montreal Expos Hall of Fame to celebrate the franchise's 25th season in 1993. Charles Bronfman was inducted as its inaugural member. In a pre-game ceremony on August 14, 1993, a circular patch on the right field wall was unveiled with Bronfman's name, the number 83 (which he used to wear during spring training), and the words "FONDATEUR / FOUNDER". A total of 23 people were honoured by the club.


title: Montreal Expos

text: The players listed here represent the statistical leaders for the franchise's time in Montreal only. For the record holders of the franchise overall, see List of Washington Nationals team records.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Three pitchers in Expos history threw no-hitters. Bill Stoneman threw the first during the team's inaugural 1969 season. He threw a second no-hitter in 1972. Charlie Lea threw the third, nine years later in 1981. A decade after that, on July 28, 1991, Dennis Martínez threw the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history. Two other pitchers threw no-hitters in shortened games which, after a 1992 rule change, were no longer recognized by MLB as official no-hitters. David Palmer pitched a perfect five innings in a rain-shortened game against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 22, 1984. Pascual Pérez threw a five-inning no-hitter on September 24, 1988, against the Philadelphia Phillies.


title: Montreal Expos

text: Six batters hit for the cycle in Montreal's history. Tim Foli was the first to do it in 1976, and Vladimir Guerrero was the last to do so, in 2003.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Tilda Cobham-Hervey (born 1994) is an Australian actress from Adelaide, South Australia, with a background in circus and physical theatre. In 2014 Cobham-Hervey made her film debut at the age of 19 in "52 Tuesdays", a critically acclaimed independent film directed by Sophie Hyde, and has also appeared on stage. She appeared in the 2018 film "Hotel Mumbai", and starred as feminist icon Helen Reddy in the 2019 biopic "I Am Woman".


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Starting from the age of nine, Cobham-Hervey trained and performed in the Adelaide-based youth circus performance troupe Cirkidz for seven years, and was involved in five major productions. When Cobham-Hervey performed in the circus, her specialities were hula hoop, trapeze and acrobatic pitching, but the emphasis was theatrical, and the focus was on storytelling.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: She attended Marryatville High School. In 2009, Cobham-Hervey became a founding member of an Adelaide circus group called Gravity and Other Myths where she co-devised a show called "Freefall", which won the Adelaide Fringe's "Best Circus" award in 2010, the festival's Tour Ready award in 2011 and later that year won "Best Circus" in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, and she won the festival's award for "Best Emerging Circus/Physical Theatre Performer" in 2011. Cobham-Hervey also performed with Force Majeure in "The Age I’m In", a show which was part of the 2008 Sydney and Adelaide festivals, and toured to 17 regional cities in Australia, and toured in Ireland, Canada and Korea.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Cobham-Hervey played the lead role of Billie in Closer Productions' feature film "52 Tuesdays" from August 2011 to August 2012. After "52 Tuesdays" was released at the Sundance Film Festival, Cobham-Hervey was signed by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a major talent agency in the United States, and by United Management in Australia.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: In 2012, Cobham-Hervey played the supporting role in Projector Films' feature "One Eyed Girl". In 2013 she created and performed the front-of-house entertainment at the Adelaide Festival club, Barrio, and in 2014, starred in the "Find Wonderful" television commercial for the re-launch of the Myer brand, filmed in New Zealand over three days.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: In 2016, Cobham-Hervey appeared in her first play as Rosie Price in "Things I Know To be True", which was written by Andrew Bovell for a co-production between State Theatre Company of South Australia and UK's Frantic Assembly.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Cobham-Hervey played the role of Kitty in the six-part TV series "Fucking Adelaide", which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2017 and screened on ABC national television as well as iview from 2018 (still available ).


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Cobham-Hervey's directorial debut, a short film commissioned by the ABC and Screen Australia as part of the ABC ME Girls Initiative, premiered simultaneously at the 2017 Adelaide Film Festival and on ABC ME on 11 October 2017, the UN's International Day of the Girl. Made by Sophie Hyde's Closer Productions in Adelaide, "A Field Guide to Being a 12-Year-Old Girl" was awarded the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film by the Youth Jury of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival's Generation KPlus Section in February 2018. It is available on ABC iview until June 2019.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: In December 2017, she was cast as Australian singer Helen Reddy in Australian film-maker Unjoo Moon's bio-pic about the singer Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman". Filmed in Australia, Los Angeles and New York City in late 2018, the film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2019. Her performance was lauded by "The Hollywood Reporter", describing it as a "breakout performance".


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Cobham-Hervey and Dev Patel co-wrote and -directed a short film, "Roborovski", about a hamster, which premiered at Flickerfest in Sydney in January 2020. The film won three prizes at the Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes (Antipodean Film Festival) at Saint Tropez, France, in 2021: Australian Short Film Today; the Nicholas Baudin Prize; and the Audience Award.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: In 2021, Cobham-Hervey devised an interactive theatre piece entitled "Two Strangers Walk into a Bar" which was premiered in the Adelaide Fringe and had a later season at MOD., a South Australian "futuristic museum of discovery".


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: "Roborovski" won three prizes at the Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes in 2021: Australian Short Film Today; the Nicholas Baudin Prize; and the Audience Award.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: Cobham-Hervey's father is set and lighting designer and event director Geoff Cobham, and her mother is dance teacher and former dancer Roz Hervey.


title: Tilda Cobham-Hervey

text: In March 2017, Cobham-Hervey's relationship with British actor Dev Patel became public. They met nine months earlier on the set of "Hotel Mumbai".


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Amy Sherman-Palladino (born January 17, 1966) is an American television writer, director, and producer. She is the creator of the comedy-drama series "Gilmore Girls", "Bunheads", and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel".


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Sherman-Palladino has received six Primetime Emmy Awards for her work, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Music Supervision, all for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". She was the first woman to win in the comedy writing and directing categories at the Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, she received the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television from the Producers Guild of America.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Sherman-Palladino is the founder of Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions. She is known for her trademark rapid-fire dialogue, which is often full of pop culture references, and as well for her preferred master shot filming style.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Amy V. Sherman was born in Los Angeles, California. Her parents are comedian Don Sherman, who died in May 2012 (the first episode of "Bunheads" was dedicated to him), and dancer Maybin Hewes. Sherman was her father's stage name. Her father, from the Bronx, was Jewish, and her mother was a Southern Baptist from Gulfport, Mississippi. She has stated that she was raised "as Jewish. Sort of."


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: She was trained in classical ballet since she was four and took other forms of dance in her teens. Originally a trainee dancer, Sherman-Palladino had received a callback to the musical "Cats", while also having a possible writing position on the staff of "Roseanne" in rotation. When she and writing partner Jennifer Heath were asked to join the staff of "Roseanne", she left behind her dancing career — much to her mother's chagrin – and began writing for television.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Sherman-Palladino became a staff writer on "Roseanne" during the show's third season in 1990. Among the storylines and episodes she wrote was an Emmy-nominated episode about birth control.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: She left the show after season six, in 1994, and worked on several other projects, including the failed 1996 sitcom "Love and Marriage", the 1997 sitcom "Over the Top", and writing several scripts of the NBC sitcom "Veronica's Closet".


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Sherman-Palladino is best known as the creator and executive producer of "Gilmore Girls" (2000–07), an hour-long television comedy drama that aired initially on The WB network and concluded on its successor network, The CW. A aired on Netflix in 2016. In selling the show, Sherman-Palladino says that during her pitch meeting for landing a script order, "Gilmore Girls" was presented as a last-ditch effort thought up on the spot due to a lacking response from the network executives towards her other ideas. She presented this last hope as a "show about a mother and daughter, but they're more like best friends" and the executives were all sold immediately. During a trip to Connecticut, she and husband Daniel Palladino were inspired to center the show there, allowing a rich setting for a small-town community and the divide from the WASPy social setting of Hartford, Connecticut.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: In producing the show, Sherman-Palladino and her husband wore many hats as the creative forces of the show, writing a large number of the episodes and also acting as directors, producers and show runners for six years of its seven-year run.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: On April 20, 2006, it was announced that Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel could not come to an agreement with The CW to continue their contracts. As a result, the Palladinos' involvement with "Gilmore Girls" came to an end. The official statement was as follows: "Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of "Gilmore Girls" for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of this season. Our heartfelt thanks go out to our amazing cast, hard-working crew and loyal fans." Writer and producer David S. Rosenthal replaced them.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: The couple did an interview with "TV Guide" writer Michael Ausiello, where they went further into their reasons for leaving the show.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: In a 2012 interview with "Vulture", in which Sherman-Palladino was asked to reflect on the issue, she responded It was a botched negotiation. It really was about the fact that I was working too much. I was going to be the crazy person who was locked in my house and never came out. I heard a lot of 'Amy doesn't need a writing staff because she and [her husband] Dan Palladino write everything!' I thought, That's a great mentality on your part, but if you want to keep the show going for two more years, let me hire more writers. By the way, all this shit we asked for? They had to do anyway when we left. They hired this big writing staff and a producer-director onstage. That's what bugged me the most. They wound up having to do what we asked for anyway, and I wasn't there.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: On August 1, 2006, "The Hollywood Reporter" announced that the Fox Network had ordered a pilot of a new comedy project from Sherman-Palladino. The untitled comedy, which received a pilot commitment from the network, was about two sisters who come together after years apart, when one of the sisters agrees to carry the other's baby. Sherman-Palladino wrote, executive produced and directed the pilot.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: In December 2006, at the Hollywood Radio & Television Society's Hitmakers luncheon, Palladino revealed the name of her new sitcom: "The Return of Jezebel James". The series debuted on March 14, 2008, on Fox starring Parker Posey. The show was subsequently cancelled on March 24, 2008, after only three episodes were aired.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: ABC Family picked up Sherman-Palladino's pilot, "Bunheads", to series. It premiered on June 11, 2012. The series stars Sutton Foster as a Las Vegas showgirl who, after impulsively getting married, moves to the sleepy coastal town 'Paradise' and winds up working at her new mother-in-law's dance studio: The Paradise Dance Academy. Kelly Bishop, who portrayed Emily Gilmore in "Gilmore Girls", plays the recurring role of Fanny Flowers, her mother-in-law. On July 22, 2013, five months after the end of Season 1, it was announced that "Bunheads" would not be renewed for a second season.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: In October 2015, it was reported on TVLine that Netflix struck a deal with Warner Bros. to revive the series in a limited run, consisting of four 90-minute episodes. Sherman-Palladino was in charge of the new episodes, titled "". The four episodes are named after the seasons, and all four became available on November 25, 2016.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: In June 2016, Amazon ordered an hour-long pilot from Sherman-Palladino entitled "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", about a 1950s housewife who decides to become one of the first female stand-up comics. On August 5, 2016, it was reported that Rachel Brosnahan had been cast in the lead role as Miriam "Midge" Maisel. Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle were later cast as the parents of Brosnahan's character, Abe and Rose Weissman, with Michael Zegen joining as her husband, Joel Maisel. On March 2, 2017, "Entertainment Weekly" reported that Alex Borstein would be playing Susie Myerson. "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" was made available to watch on Amazon on March 17, 2017, as a part of Amazon Studios' spring pilot season, with viewers having the option to vote for it to be ordered to series. On April 10, 2017, it was announced that "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" had received an "unprecedented" 2-season order from Amazon. The series was critically acclaimed; it won a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy at the 75th Golden Globe Awards, and a Peabody Award in "Entertainment" at the 77th Annual Peabody Awards. Sherman-Palladino won Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Series at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". The success led an overall deal at Amazon Studios.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Sherman-Palladino is married to Daniel Palladino, who has served as co-executive producer, writer, and director on all of her shows.


title: Amy Sherman-Palladino

text: Dialogue in Sherman-Palladino's work involves heavy use of pop culture references, delivered in a fast repartee, screwball-comedy style. Palladino is also very particular with her selection and use of music in her work. In an interview with "OutSmart" magazine, she explained how lazy and instructional its use is on most television shows:I think music on television is just uniformly dreadful. It is mundane, it says nothing. They use it to say, "Here's a funny moment!" ... you know? It's not an extension of the drama, it's distraction. It's like, "I'll distract you, so you won't know how shitty the show is...like a laugh track. That, to me, is what music on television is. They score everything from beginning to end so that after a while the music is just like white noise. It's not giving it its due, its place. Everything has its place. Shows would go by, and we wouldn't put a lot of music in because to me the music was an extension of the drama, so if you just throw it in under everything, it's like throwing a washing-machine sound effect in there, it's not the point of it. It's like having two characters have a long, not very interesting discussion for no other reason except to fill up screen time.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: What Lies Beneath is a 2000 American supernatural horror thriller film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a couple who live in a haunted house. It was the first film by Zemeckis' production company ImageMovers. The film opened in 2,813 theaters in North America, and grossed $291 million at the worldwide box office, becoming the tenth-highest-grossing film of the year. It received mixed reviews, but was nominated for three Saturn Awards.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Former cellist Claire Spencer and her husband Norman, an accomplished scientist and professor, live a quiet life in Vermont. Their relationship seems slightly strained, particularly after Claire's daughter, Caitlin, leaves for college. Claire notices the new neighbors, Mary and Warren Feur, appear to have a volatile relationship. After Mary is unseen for several days, Claire suspects Warren may have killed her.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: While by the lake next to their house, Claire believes she sees a woman's body in the water. She later discovers an odd key inside a heater vent. After unusual occurrences and sensing a presence in the house, Claire and her mystic friend, Jody, hold a failed séance. Claire later finds the bathtub filled with hot water and, "You know," written on the steamy mirror. Claire's computer inexplicably types "MEF" repeatedly. Claire becomes convinced it is the missing Mary's spirit, but Norman discounts this. Several days later, Mary returns home alive and well, explaining she went to her mother's in Providence after a fight with Warren.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: A framed newspaper article about Norman mysteriously falls off his desk and shatters. On the article's reverse side, Claire reads a piece about a missing woman named Madison Elizabeth Frank ("MEF"). Claire tracks down and visits Madison's mother, who shows her Madison's bedroom. While there, Claire steals a lock of Madison's hair, and notices a photo of her wearing an unusual necklace.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Later that night, Claire, holding Madison's hair, performs a ritual from a book. She conjures Madison, whose spirit possesses her. While still possessed, Claire aggressively seduces Norman. Madison, speaking through Claire, shocks Norman. Claire, dropping the lock of hair, immediately becomes herself again. She then recalls a repressed memory about Norman's affair with a student. Norman admits it happened during a rough patch in their marriage. Claire leaves and spends the night with Jody, who reveals that a year earlier, she saw Norman arguing with a blonde woman at a café in Adamant, a nearby town.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Claire returns home and finds Norman unconscious in the tub. He seemingly recovers and claims it was an accident and not a suicide attempt. He denies killing Madison. Norman later finds Claire standing on the lake dock. Claire, holding Madison's hair, is pulled into the water by an unseen force. Dragged to the bottom, she sees a jewelry box with the same symbol as Madison's necklace. Before she can grab it, Norman has jumped in and pulls her to the surface. They then burn the lock of hair.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Claire later visits a shop in Adamant, where she sees a jewelry box with the same design as the one in the lake. Claire recovers the box from the lake and unlocks it with the key she previously found. Inside is Madison's necklace. Norman changes his story, claiming Madison killed herself in their house. He says he pushed her car into the lake with her body inside. Norman agrees to confess to authorities, but Claire discovers he dialed 411, and faked the conversation. Norman paralyzes Claire with halothane, and admits he murdered Madison when she threatened to expose their affair to the dean.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Norman places Claire in the bathtub, filling it with water to stage her suicide. He spots Madison's necklace around Claire's neck. When Claire's face seems to contort into Madison's corpse, Norman jerks back and smashes his head on the bathroom sink, rendering him unconscious. As the water level rises, Claire recovers enough from the paralysis to partially close the tap and then dislodge the stopper, barely surviving drowning. Norman has left the bathroom and she finds him seemingly unconscious downstairs. She flees in the couple's truck. As she crosses the bridge over Lake Champlain, Norman, hiding in the truck bed, attacks Claire, who frantically dials 911 on her cell phone. The truck careens down the embankment into the lake. As it sinks, it dislodges Madison's car. Madison's body floats toward the couple as Norman tries to drown Claire. Madison grabs Norman's arm, shocking him, which allows Claire to escape. Norman drowns and Madison's ghost drifts away. Later that winter, Claire places a red rose on Madison's grave.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Documentary filmmaker Sarah Kernochan had adapted a personal experience with the paranormal as a script treatment featuring a retirement aged couple dealing with restless but compassionate spirits. DreamWorks commissioned a rewrite from actor-writer Clark Gregg. This script was later delivered in 1998 by Steven Spielberg himself to his director friend Robert Zemeckis, who had signed a deal for DreamWorks to distribute the films of newly founded production company ImageMovers, and announced interest in doing a thriller film. Harrison Ford then signed to star on the film, even agreeing to clear room in his schedule for the project. Michelle Pfeiffer then followed as DreamWorks started to deal with 20th Century Fox regarding the film's distribution. Ford and Pfeiffer were Zemeckis' first and only choices for the lead roles. Fox agreed to distribute both "What Lies Beneath" and Zemeckis' other project "Cast Away", with the thriller having DreamWorks doing the domestic distribution and Fox the international one.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: Zemeckis filmed "What Lies Beneath" while "Cast Away" was shut down to allow Tom Hanks to lose weight and grow a beard for his character's development. As Gregg had to remain with production for rewrites, he had to decline Aaron Sorkin's offer to read for a major role in "Sports Night" - though Sorkin would later write for Gregg a minor role in the final episodes of the series.


title: What Lies Beneath

text: "What Lies Beneath" opened in 2,813 theaters in North America and grossed $29,702,959 for an average of $10,559 per theater. It reached the number one spot at the box office upon opening, beating "X-Men". The film ended up earning $155,464,351 domestically and $135,956,000 internationally for a total of $291,420,351 worldwide, close to triple its production budget of $100 million.