R.I.P. Norm King

Prolific, eloquent writer for SABR  had profound love for the Expos

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

If there was one word to describe Norm King's passion for writing stories for the Society for American Baseball Research, it would be prolific.

If there was one word to describe King's love for the Expos, it would be profound.

King, 61, who spent a long career as a Canadian civil servant in the federal government system, died way too soon on July 31 in Ottawa after waging a battle with a very rare form of bile duct cancer which was diagnosed Oct. 31, 2017.

King was in relatively good health until he woke up on July 8 very ill, very disoriented and very confused so his wife Lucile McGregor arranged for an ambulance to take him to Ottawa General Hospital. He died a few weeks later at the Bruyere Palliative Care Unit.

"We knew right from the start that this form of cancer is nearly always fatal,'' McGregor said in an interview. "The cancer started in the bile duct and made its way to the liver.'' 

King volunteered to write no less than 43 profiles of major-league players, coaches, managers and executives for the SABR Bio Project series. Many of these bios were more than 2,500 words in length so he spent a lot of time in giving his subject matters tender loving care with heavy doses of eloquence, phrase turning, puns and humour sprinkled in.

"He was very funny,'' his widow said. Indeed he was.

King became a SABR member in 2010 and proceeded to write bios on Expos alumni such as Steve Rogers, Rusty Staub, Tim Raines, Chris Speier, Warren Cromartie, Tim Wallach, Larry Parrish, Ellis Valentine, Bob Bailey, Bill Stoneman, Jim Fanning, Pedro Martinez, David Palmer, Spike Owen and Dave Van Horne. Gary Carter was King's all-time favourite Expo but Carter's SABR bio had already been written by Rory Costello.

Others with Expos connections that King wrote about included Jerry Zimmerman, Bobby Winkles, Dan McGinn, Javier Vaszuez and Tim Foli. He also wrote close to 30 stories for the SABR Games Project series.

King's most esteemed project for SABR would have been Au Jeu/Play Ball: The 50 Greatest Games in the History of the Montreal Expos, which was published in the spring of 2016. He was the lead editor and contributor, writing 17 chapters. All 50 games were Expos wins. He didn't want to tackle heartbreaking losses such as the Blue Monday game, Oct. 19, 1981. King's Twitter handle became @Expos50Greatest.

Unbeknownst to many people, King had also made huge headway on another Expos book in conjunction with McFarland & Co., a publisher based in Jefferson, N.C. The working title is 1979: the Expos' First Great Season, a look at the club that gave the Expos their first season over .500 in franchise history at 95-65.

"He probably had been working on that book for two years,'' his widow said. "After the SABR book came out, he wanted to do one on his own. He sent out proposals to a number of publishers, including McFarland. In February or March of this year, McFarland emailed him and said they were very interested. A few days before he went into hospital on July 8, he was at the McCord Museum in Montreal to look at a lot of Expos photos.''  

The book will be completed by several of King's SABR friends, including Leslie Hoffmeister of Baltimore and Peter Hoyos, a diehard Expos/Tigers fan from Grand Blanc, Mich. It's possible the book will be released next year or in 2020.

"Norm's book was just about two weeks away from completion -- for him,'' Hoffmeister said. "For us, it will take a bit longer as we work to come up to speed on all things Expos. We are making great progress, but do not currently have a hard deadline that we're working toward.'' 

"Norm was almost done with the project so we're in the final stages,'' Hoyos told me.

"Norm's manuscript hasn't yet been delivered and there is still some work to do on it, primarily in the way of expansion,'' said Gary Mitchem, a chief acquisitions editor for McFarland. "He was about to begin work on a section of bios that tells the story of what happened to each of the players, coaches, and front-office types after the 1979 season.'' 

Despite a life-long disability impediment with his right hand, King didn't use it as an excuse. He pounded out tremendous copy with the fingers on his left hand. 

"Norm apparently had a stroke when he was in his mother's womb,'' McGregor said. "It was like cerebral palsy. His right side was affected. He had a bit of a limp. But it didn't stop him from writing and it didn't stop him from playing baseball.''

King was an active member of the SABR Quebec chapter and was a friendly, familiar face at SABR conventions. He attended the SABR convention in Pittsburgh one month before he died. Invariably, he would show up at functions with his Expos jersey and hat on. 

King used to tell people that he always lamented the departure of the Expos to Washington until he met people from Brooklyn. He attended his first Expos game on May 1, 1969 at Jarry Park in Montreal, a game the Expos won 3-2.

"It was quite a thrill going to that game,'' King told me in 2015. "I was 12 years old. Donn Clendenon received an intentional walk to load the bases in the bottom of the ninth and Coco Laboy hit a sac fly to score Ron Brand, who was pinch-running for Rusty Staub.''

Speaking of Staub, McGregor recalls the day King and her travelled to New York for a visit in 1997 and somehow stumbled across Staub's steakhouse on 5th Avenue. Working on the odd chance Staub might be on the premises, King walked to the middle of the restaurant and asked a waitress if he could meet the famous celebrity. Sure enough, Staub came out from a back room and talked with King for close to five minutes.

"Norm came back to the front door where I was and he was so excited,'' McGregor said. "He said, 'I met Rusty Staub, I met Rusty Staub.' We weren't dressed to eat at the steakhouse with our baseball caps and what we were wearing so we ate next door at McDonald's. It's a funny story.''

Born in Glace Bay, N.S., in a large Jewish community, King moved to Halifax at age three  and then to Montreal at age eight. He worked in Edmonton as a public servant before finding his way to Ottawa to work as a civil servant. For a number of years, he was a speech writer and program manager for Employment and Immigration and Employment Insurance. He met McGregor in 1993 and they married in 2002. She was employed as a procedural clerk in the House of Commons.

Their first date was supposed to be a 1993 game involving the Ottawa Lynx, the triple-A farm team of the Expos. In those days, it was very chic to go to a game in Ottawa because it was the first year of the Lynx's existence and they were playing in a brand-new stadium.

"I was not in any way, shape or form a baseball fan,'' McGregor recalled. "It ended up the game was sold out so we did something else.''

When King and McGregor would go on excursions to the U.S. to visit baseball parks, they would conveniently call them 'baseballmall' trips. He would do his baseball thing, she would head to the mall. King and McGregor travelled the world and that included taking in the sights and sounds of Australia, New Zealand, Egypt and most of Western Europe.

Besides his wife, King leaves his mother Shandel, brother Howard, sister Barbara, many other relatives, numerous government colleagues and Expos fans, not to mention a slew of SABR friends and editors.

Danny Gallagher's upcoming book is called Blue Monday: The Expos, the Dodgers and the Home Run That Changed Everything. It will be released by Dundurn Press Oct 13 in Canada, Nov. 6 in the U.S.