Chicoutimi CP
06-14-2006, 04:31 PM
From the biography of Roland Hemond, former general manager of the Chicago White Sox (now executive advisor to the g. m.) :
"I can still speak French and occasionally do when I get calls from newspaper people in Montreal. Matter of fact, I announced a trade in French one day at the baseball convention. I asked John McHale, the president of the Montreal Expos at the time. Murray Cook was the general manager. I asked, 'Hey, how about if I announce it in French and we'll shock all the baseball people.' People got a big kick out of it. That's probably the first time in major league baseball history that a deal at the baseball convention was announced in French."
What trade was this? Shall we presume Bryan Little and Bob James for Vance Law and Bert Roberge, December 1984? Not only was it perhaps the only occasion a trade was announced at a baseball convention in French, but one of the players - Roberge - spoke French as his mother tongue. According to the Expos' 1985 media guide, Roberge was born in Maine to a French Canadian family, and he did not speak English until he began his formal education. "
Source : Maxwell Kates, SABR member.
"I can still speak French and occasionally do when I get calls from newspaper people in Montreal. Matter of fact, I announced a trade in French one day at the baseball convention. I asked John McHale, the president of the Montreal Expos at the time. Murray Cook was the general manager. I asked, 'Hey, how about if I announce it in French and we'll shock all the baseball people.' People got a big kick out of it. That's probably the first time in major league baseball history that a deal at the baseball convention was announced in French."
What trade was this? Shall we presume Bryan Little and Bob James for Vance Law and Bert Roberge, December 1984? Not only was it perhaps the only occasion a trade was announced at a baseball convention in French, but one of the players - Roberge - spoke French as his mother tongue. According to the Expos' 1985 media guide, Roberge was born in Maine to a French Canadian family, and he did not speak English until he began his formal education. "
Source : Maxwell Kates, SABR member.