With Bruce Chen retiring, the race to be the Last Expo Standing is getting tight
Chen retires, leaving two active former Expos
Way back in 2013 (go ahead and feel very old for a second), when MLB announced that Montreal's Olympic Stadium would be hosting two exhibitions between the Mets and Blue Jays the next year -- the city's first professional baseball since the Expos left in 2004 -- Cut4 posed a pressing question: How many former Expos were still around, and how many would still be active in the Majors to see it?
The answer turned out to be not very many -- as Usher can attest, 2004 was a long time ago -- and the nation was put on DEFCON: Canada as an endangered species began to dwindle. So, when 17-year MLB veteran and former Expo Bruce Chen announced his retirement on Monday night, it seemed like the perfect time to dust off the Active Former Expo tracker and see where things stood.
Things are even more dire than we had imagined. In addition to Chen's departure, defensive ace Endy Chavez opted out of his Minor League contract in March, and now just two of Montreal's finest remain:
Bartolo Colon, SP, Mets, Age: 41
Maicer Izturis, SS, Blue Jays, Age: 34
Izturis is on the DL at the moment, but he's signed through this year with a club option for 2016, and at 34, he would seem to have at least a couple more years of quality play ahead of him.
As for Bartolo, sure, he may be on the wrong side of 40, and he consistently does things like this. But people have been waiting for him to hang it up for the better part of a decade now, and he keeps somehow, some way fooling Major League batters, so we won't be the ones to doubt him. Besides, look at the agility, the astounding athleticism -- is that a man on the brink of retirement? We sure hope not.
Their numbers may be dwindling, but the lone torch-bearers appear to keep chugging along, at least for now. (It's also worth mentioning that Brendan Harris is currently a member of the Detroit Tigers' Double-A affiliate.) And besides, though Father Time remains undefeated, something tells us the Expos' memory will live on.