January 3, 2021

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

The Expos family lost too many people in 2020.

In what is believed to be a record for one year, seven former players and two former coaches died last year.

Damaso Garcia, Rich Hacker, Remy Hermoso, Bob Sebra, Hal Dues, Johnny Paredes and Derek Aucoin were the ex-players that passed away, while coaches Bobby Winkles and Billy DeMars both died in their 90s.

Add in Johnny Elias, who was a batting-practice pitcher in the early days of the Expos.

The death of Sebra probably symbolized how precious and fragile life can be. He spent close to 365 consecutive days languishing at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami before dying July 22.

Sebra had suffered for a number of years from multiple-organ failure. He scuffled through several failed multi-visceral transplants involving various parts of his body. His bravery, courage and resilience in the face of adversity was commendable.

Garcia died of issues related to a brain tumour, while Hacker's death was attributed to leukemia. Dues died of a heart attack, Paredes succumbed to cancer and Hermoso's cause of death was not given.

Aucoin (Lachine, Que.) passed away after a valiant 18-month battle with brain cancer.

Winkles had suffered from dementia for a number of years and DeMars died of old age. Elias had been suffering from Alzheimer's for a number of years but officially died from the effects of a stroke. I was a 1988 teammate of his in a suburban Montreal league in 1988.

Tim Kuziomko, who I played with in the early 1990s in suburban Montreal, was claimed by COVID-19 and my 1969-70 Douglas Expos teammate Rod Wilcox passed away from complications due to hip problems.

As the proverbial expression goes, Kuziomko could "hit a ball a mile'' and was a Blue Jays prospect in 1982-83 as a member of Medicine Hat Blue Jays. I paid tribute to him in a Toronto Star story that ran last spring.

Now that we are into another year, hopefully the number of obituaries will be minimal as we continue to fight the pandemic.

Despite the pessimism and bleakness ahead of us, most organizations are planning for the future. The Hockey Hall of Fame based in Toronto decided that it would not conduct an election process for its class of 2021.

Instead, the hall made a decision to honour only its 2020 class in 2021. That way, the hall explained, each of its 2020 inductees would be properly honoured and not be lumped in on awards night with the 2021 class. So instead of dealing with maybe eight inductees from two years, the hall will deal with half that many.

The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont. and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. have proceeded with elections for its 2021 class. The pandemic washed out their 2020 induction weekends last year and hall officials in both venues are hoping they will combine two induction events into one this year.

Both the St. Marys and Cooperstown halls are planning in this manner, in the event they will get clearance, despite the prospects of the pandemic not ending anytime soon.

Many of us would like to head to St. Marys and Cooperstown this summer but it's a pipe dream right now. Just because many people are getting vaccines doesn't mean we will stop wearing masks and stop resorting to physical distancing. With COVID-19 cases skyrocketing in Canada and the U.S., the future of events involving large amounts of people is very much under scrutiny.

If there is an event in St. Marys, you won't see people jammed inside the tent on induction day.

As for Cooperstown, most definitely you will not see 75,000 to 100,000 from all over the U.S. and Canada allowed to be crammed beside each other on a field to see Derek Jeter, Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, B.C.) and the others inducted. A fraction of that, if any. What about 7,500 or 750 allowed in through a lottery contest?