October 24, 2024

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Just prior to the start of the 1979 season, Rudy May had dropped off his wife and kids at Dorval airport in suburban Montreal for a flight to California.

Then May decided on the spur of the moment to go fishing in the town of Vaudreuil-Dorion under a bridge not far from the airport, just hours before an Expos game at Olympic Stadium against the New York Mets.

Little did May know fishing wasn't allowed there. All of a sudden, he was surrounded by police. It was a story he had never told anyone until I brought it up for my book Never Forgotten.

May said he had gone to that same fishing spot in the past with no repercussions but the rules had changed. May was detained but not arrested by police, who notified him the body of water was a sanctuary.

He called the clubhouse to say he was being questioned by police. He thinks majority owner Charles Bronfman stepped in to free him from police and he got to the game on time.

"All of a sudden, I was free to go,'' May told me.

May went on to be an integral part of the Expos pitching staff that season as the club went 95-65 before falling short of winning the NL East. The lefty compiled a 10-3 record with a 2.31 ERA that season.

May, 80, is being remembered by the baseball world this week following his passing, first reported on TikTok by writer and author Jeff Pearlman.

May told me a few years ago he had been suffering from diabetes for a long time. He said the disease had devastating effects on different parts of his body.

May was traded by the Baltimore Orioles to the Expos following the 1977 season as part of a six-player swap and he knows why he was dealt.

Orioles GM Hank Peters had found out May was a commercial scuba diver in the off-season.

"I'd get jobs to work in my gear during the winter,'' May told me a few years ago. "I'd dive for three hours each day and get about $300. That was big, good money. I was told that (diving) was the reason I was traded to Montreal.''

May was compensated for the trade after he and his agent Dick Moss advised Peters his three-year contract stipulated he should be given bonus provisions if he was traded. So, he was paid for 1977, 1978 and 1979, about $20,000 each season.

Following the Expos' last game in 1979, president and GM John McHale went up to May in the clubhouse and wanted to offer him a new contract on the spot. May told McHale to talk to Moss.

May signed a deal to go back to the Yankees, going 15-5 with a 2.46 ERA in 1980. He finished his career with New York in 1983. His lifetime body of work produced a 152-156 record, 87 complete games and an ERA of 3.46 in over 2,600 innings.

During his time in Montreal, May lived mostly on Nuns Island, renting a house owned by Canadiens hockey legend Bob Gainey.

When he retired, he resumed his scuba-diving career, entered the convenience-store business and was a franchise marketing consultant for 20 years with mega-giant British Petroleum, buying and selling gas.

For many years, he had lived in Hertford, N.C. with his wife Marion Jones.

I'll tell you this: when you have chatted with people like May a few times and you find out they've passed away, it hits you. I last talked with him earlier this year.

Godspeed, Rudy.