[Jesse Joe]

Matt Stairs climbs from N.B. to World Series

Published Wednesday October 29th, 2008

Eddie St. Pierre

Looking back
It was a perfect afternoon for baseball that Aug. 25 day in 1984.
Sitting in the stands at Moncton's Kiwanis Park, I watched, for the first time, Fredericton's Matt Stairs play with the Moncton Tim Hortons All-Stars. Moncton defeated St. Albert, Alta. 9-0 (St. André's Rheal Cormier pitched a three-hit shutout and fanned 12) to capture the Canadian midget baseball tournament championship.
Playing shortstop (he also pitched), Stairs wasn't that impressive defensively. However, when it came to hitting, it was a different story.
The 16-year-old, who had been added to the All-Stars from Fredericton, banged out key run-producing hits; posted a .500 batting average and was named MVP. Afterwards it was junior and senior ball, the baseball institute, the Olympics, a world championship and more for the personable Stairs, who signed a minor league contract with the Montreal Expos in 1991.
The rest is history: Eleven Major League teams during 16 seasons -- batting average .266; home runs 254; runs batted in 864 and a slugging percentage of .483.
Twenty-four years later, the 40-year-old Stairs and the Philadelphia Phillies are one win away from winning the World Series over the Tampa Bay Rays, holding a 3-1 games lead entering tonight's scheduled continuation of Monday's Game 5.
The inductee in the Moncton Sports Wall of Fame (2007) with the Tim Horton All-Stars and Baseball New Brunswick Wall of Fame (last Saturday) became the third New Brunswick player to see action in the Fall Classic in 90 years as a pinch-hitter in Game 4. He struck out in the Phillies 10-2 win.
The last New Brunswicker to advance to the World Series did so almost a century ago; John 'Big Larry' McLean of Fredericton, who hit .500 for the New York Giants in a 4-1 games loss to the Philadelphia Athletics in the best-of-nine 1913 series.
According to Kevin Barrett of Canadaeast News Service, McLean was once accused of stealing money in New Brunswick and asked to leave Atlantic Canada. He is said to have fought with many managers and teammates.
His death, in some ways, represented his life as he died in March, 1921 at the age of 39 when he was shot by a bartender during a bar room brawl in Boston.
The Fredericton native grew up in the Boston area but also played senior ball with the Saint John Roses and Fredericton before his major league career took off.
The first NBer to play in the World Series was Saint John native Bill O'Neill, who appeared in one game for the World Champion Chicago White Sox in 1906. Another, Saint John's Tom Daly, was a member of the Chicago Cubs' organization that lost to the Boston Red Sox in the 1918 World Series, but Daly did not play in the series after suiting up for one game during the regular season.
Meanwhile, Dorchester's Billy Harris, who was inducted in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame this June, joining O'Neill and McLean, wasn't eligible for the 1959 series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the White Sox. Nonetheless, he pitched batting practice in L.A. for the Dodgers. who won in six games.
Stairs had been close to playing in a World Series in the past, namely in 2006, when the Detroit Tigers advanced to the championship series. He joined the Tigers that year on Sept. 16 and drilled a home run when they clinched the Central Division title about a week later.
However, because he had joined the team past the Sept. 1 playoff roster deadline, he was not eligible for the Tigers playoff run.
This year, he was acquired by the Phillies from the Toronto Blue Jays on Aug. 30 in a trade, ensuring his post-season eligibility.
Stairs is also the first N.B. athlete to reach the final in one of the big four professional sports since Mike Eagles of Sussex played in the 1998 Stanley Cup final as a member of the Washington Capitals.
One Philadelphia newspaper columnist ranked Stairs' mammoth pinch-hit homer off ace reliever Jonathan Broxton (the first since May 17) in Los Angeles during Game 4 that gave the Phillies a 7-5 victory and a 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series, the third most important in the Phillies 123-year existence, behind Mike Schmidt's extra inning homer that clinched the 1980 East Division title at Olympic Stadium in Montreal (I was on hand for the unhappy occasion and got sprinkled by champagne by pitcher 'Tug' McGraw, Tim's father), and Dick Sisler's extra-inning blast on the final day of the 1950 season that sealed the 1950 NL pennant.
n A few personal series anecdotes. In 1967, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Red Sox in seven games, Stan Musial, the Cards' first-year GM, gave me two box seat tickets ($12.50) for Game 1 which were located behind the Redbird dugout.
However, they were never used when I failed to locate the person (a fellow employee) they were intended for until after the contest. He had purchased a scalper's ticket ($40).
Then, after Jim Lonborg's one-hit, 5-0 Game 2 shutout, I stood in the Cards dressing room with a handful of reporters interviewing Juian Javier, whose double with two out in the eighth had broken up the no-hit bid. He was very surly with his answers.
n 1968: I'll never forget the big smile former Moncton Mayor Lorne Mitton had on his face in the Tiger Stadium press box after his hero (Al Kaline) delivered a two-run single in Game 5, erasing a 3-2 Card lead that helped the Tigers to a 5-3 win, keeping the AL champs alive in the series.
The Tigers won the next two games in St. Louis for the championship. Mitton paid $8 for lower deck seat tickets for Games 3 and 5 and $2 for a bleacher seat ticket for Game 4. The program cost was $1.
n 1969: The late Jacqueline Kennedy and her late husband Aristotle Onasis were among celebrities at Shea Stadium for the New York Mets "Miracle Series" win over the Baltimore Orioles in five games. They were seated in an executive box a stone throw away from the media area.
n After 38 years in the journalist business, Gerard McLaughlin is retiring (Nov. 7) as a full-time writer with this newspaper. The Times & Transcript invites all family, friends, current and former co-workers to a retirement party at the Moncton City Club on Queen Street on Thursday, Nov. 6 beginning at 6 p.m.
n Passings: Second World War veteran Charlie Dickson, 90, a member of the Moncton Curlers Association...Yvon Patrick J. Daigle, Retd. C.D., 87, the father of former senior and university (Mount A) hockey star Robbie Daigle. Robbie was a member of the Miramichi Gagnon Packers that won the national Challenge Cup in 1987...Paul Melanson, 69, brother of former University of St. Joseph Blue Eagles captain (1948-49) Clarence Melanson and Moncton Slow Pokes' Roger Melanson.
n Eddie St. Pierre is a former sports editor of this newspaper. His column appears each Wednesday in the Times & Transcript.