Peter Bergeron Autographed Card

Last year, I made Peter Bergeron #33 in my Expos Numbers Project. This year, he goes in as #70, with card #U-2 from Fleer/Skybox's 1999 Tradition Update set, which is his rookie card, that he signed in black sharpie:

He's worn a lot of numbers for the Montréal Expos over the years, the result of being a fringe player. I've seen him wearing #70, 30, and 77 in training camp, and 33 and 11 during regular-season play. And that's off the top of my head, although those last few seasons of baseball in town are a bit of a blur.

Oh yeah: fuck Jeffrey Loria, David Samson and Bud Selig. That will be all.

Scott Stewart Autographed Card

Well, it finally looks like summer's here, which is the perfect time to induct the first of at least two more representatives of uniform #51 in my Expos Numbers Project, Scott Stewart:

That's card #U222 from Fleer/Skybox's 2002 Fleer Tradition Update set, which he signed in blue sharpie.

Stewart was originally a 20th round pick of the Texas Rangers and toiled around in the New York Mets' system for a few summers before signing with the Montréal Expos as a minor-league free agent.

He played in Montréal for three of his four years in the MLB, from 2001 until 2003, appearing in 62, 67 and 51 games as a reliever, with a 10-4 record and 20 saves, 17 of them in 2002 as the Expos' closer, although eight pitchers combined for a total of 39 that year.

His 2004 wasn't up to par, though, splitting his time between the Cleveland Indians (0-2 record, 7.24 ERA in 23 games) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1-0, 5.84 ERA in 11 games). He fell off the grid after being let go by the San Diego Padres in 2005.

Peter Bergeron Autograph Card

Peter Bergeron played for the Montréal Expos in five of their final six seasons of existence (he spent the summer of 2003 playing exclusively in the minors, in AAA ball with the Edmonton Trappers, but was in the Expos' system from 1999 until relocation in 2004), and like the rest of the team, was an inexpensive can-do-the-job, middle-of-the-pack lead-off hitter with decent speed but a batting average below .250.

He also didn't get that many walks, but at a quarter million per year, he was basically all the team could afford, as the fans had stopped coming after all the fire sales and the certainty of the team skipping town when owner Satan Jeffrey Loria bought out all the minority stakeholders.

He never played another MLB game after his stint with the Expos, despite siging free agent contrats with the Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates. In his final season in 2007, he played in AA (for the Altoona Curve) as well as the independent Atlantic League's York Revolution.

Upon calling it quits, he ran and was an instructor at former teammate Michael Barrett's baseball school, Barrett Baseball; he also started scouting for the Los Angeles Dodgers last season.

Honestly, those last few years of the Expos are a blur. It was painful seeing them get reduced to a low-level team whose good players would be given away even before they were due to get paid, and the owner didn't care about putting a decent product on the field, or selling decent products at the stadium, let alone stop it from falling apart. I still wish him the best... of what torture has to offer.

Not so for Bergeron, though, who signed this card for me in thin blue sharpie at some point:

It's card #WW6 (of 15) of the Who To Watch subset of Fleer/Skybox's 2000 Fleer Tradition set, and shows him in the team's beautiful grey/final (away) uniform. Ironically, he's seen wearing #33 (which he wore from 1999 until 2001, but finished wearing #11), the number previously worn by Carlos Perez, whom he had been traded for.