I've spent years telling people who killed baseball in Montreal

This week, the Toronto Blue Jays won the first pennant by a team outside the United States since 1993. Naturally, the world is abuzz about the Montreal Expos.

This week, to mark Montreal hosting the first Major League game outside the United States, a documentary about the team has dropped on Netflix called "Who Killed the Montreal Expos?"

Montreal was ragged on for not supporting the Expos, but they drew more than two million fans several years in the late 70s and early 80s.

Baseball history was also made in Montreal. In addition to the Expos being the first team outside the United States, Jackie Robinson also broke the color barrier there, making his debut for the Dodgers' Triple-A team, the Montreal Royals.

During the documentary, Pedro Martinez explained, "As good as we are in hockey, Montreal is a baseball city."

They also interviewed several super-fans. One said she was about to give birth but demanded the hospital keep the TV on because the Expos game had started.

The 1994 squad had the best record in baseball at the time of the strike. That was Martinez' first year in Montreal. They put five people on the All-Star team; Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker patrolled the outfield.

Larry Walker and I have a complicated relationship. After the strike, he bailed and signed some fancy, rich contract with Colorado.

"He's Canadian," grade school Scaia explained to a lot of classmates, none of whom had asked. "If he signs anyplace else, it should be Toronto. But frankly, he should have been willing to take less money to stay in Montreal."

Some associates and I went to a Reds' game several years later and found ourselves seated in right field when the Rockies were in town. I used that opportunity to loudly make my position known to Walker in the form of incessant heckling.

The documentary helped me see a more complete picture. Walker, though he didn't mention the heckling, said 1994 was the season that could have saved baseball in Montreal. He said he wanted to stay in Montreal, but the Expos didn't offer him a contract.

"I didn't leave," he said. "I was let go."

I realized that game 30 years ago wasn't really about Larry Walker. It was about my frustration about the 1994 season being cancelled. The documentary showed me that whole team was also quite frustrated. Walker said the strike pushed the Expos to the exit; Martinez said the trade of Marquis Grissom the Braves to save money was like giving one of your best players to your "sworn enemy."

Felipe Alou said the trades killed the team.

The owner said he was losing $20 million a year, and ticket sales would evaporate after the strike, so he started selling everyone off. The next ownership group went ahead and finished the team off.

Was that next owner a smarmy art collector who seemed like the male version of the woman who inherited the Cleveland Indians in Major League? Yes, of course, no one's questioning that.

But one of his underlings says it wasn't just Jeff Loria's fault. This was a time when clubs were replacing giant cookie-cutter stadiums with smaller parks, but he said Quebec was going through job cuts and a bad economy, so the province wasn't interested in working with them on incentives. Plus, they had to pay players in American dollars, but their revenue came in Canadian at a time when the exchange rate was stacked against Canada.

But this is a time for hope. The exchange rate is even worse, but the Blue Jays are headed to the World Series. Larry Walker and I have patched things up.

This review of Who Killed the Montreal Expos points out a lot of the problems that sent the Expos to Washington still exist today, so other teams can learn.

Plus, Expos fans still talk about the team. Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my jacket was a great conversation starter during a visit a few years ago, so the excitement remains, just maybe they'd prefer a less smarmy owner who doesn't skip town with a UHaul full of stuff he swiped from the stadium.

At a time we may all feel divided, let the Expos give us hope. We can seek out the things that unite us and solve problems for a brighter future. The site now has a subscribe button, so if everyone sends in $10, we can pool our money and buy a team along with souvenir Montreal Expos cowboy hats.