(Montreal) After three years of waiting, it is finally this Friday that Jacques Doucet will officially enter the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Elected in February 2020, the 83-year-old commentator saw the ceremony that would pay tribute to him postponed for the first time until the following summer, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scenario repeated itself in the summer of 2021, then, in 2022, an episode of anemia prevented him from going to St. Louis. Mary’s, Ontario, home to the Canadian Temple.
“My health is better, but you’re never completely safe from the weather,” Doucet said in an interview with The Canadian Press a few days ago.
However, all this expectation does not make him more serene in the face of the honor that the institution will grant him.
“I still feel nervous, even though I’ve known for three years that I’m going to be institutionalized,” he agreed.
She also didn’t make it easy to write her speech, which went through several iterations.
“My girlfriend changed more often than me! I can’t say exactly which elements were added or removed, but I do know that there were several versions,” said Doucet.
“Writing this very important speech for me has been a very long process,” he added. At the time of the ceremony, however, it should no longer change! »
Doucet became the first French-Canadian who did not play baseball and who was never part of the management of a team to be elected in the St. Mary’s on February 4, 2020. He was the voice of the Baseball Expos beginning in 1969, the Montreal team’s first season in Major League Baseball. After providing the description of about one game a week, the one who covered the club’s activities for the daily La Presse made the leap to full-time behind the microphone in 1972 until he left the club in 2004.
He wasn’t sure he liked the job, a concern he had expressed to the club’s chairman at the time, John McHale, who hired him.
“I was used to writing, not talking!” he said when he heard the news of his initiation into St. Mary’s. I think I made the right choice. Thanks to Expos for trusting me. […] I didn’t know if people would adopt me. You can do the best job as a commentator, but if people don’t like you, you won’t last long. »
His worries were quickly allayed, as once he was on the air he became inseparable from the Montreal baseball club.
He described more than 5,500 games during his glorious career, including Dennis Martinez’s perfect game on July 28, 1991, as well as numerous playoff and World Series games.
Thinking his microphone career was over, Doucet received a surprise call from Capitales de Québec of the Can-Am League, who invited him to be their commentator, a position he held from 2006 to 2011. He then accepted the offer from TVA Sports , where he described Toronto Blue Jays games as well as the Major League Baseball playoffs through last September, when he was on the air for his final career innings with the company of his former accomplices, Rodger Brulotte and Denis Casavant.
Jacques Doucet was inducted into the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002, and a year later into the Expos Hall of Fame. In 2004, he received the Jack-Graney Award, given annually to a member of the media who has made a special contribution to Canadian baseball during their career.
For this selection to the Hall, he received at least 18 out of 24 votes from the elected members of the selection committee. Of the 50 candidates running for 2020, only former Blue Jays first baseman John Olerud, British Columbian Justin Morneau and former Jays pitcher Duane Ward and he got the necessary votes. He and Olerud will be the subject of Friday’s ceremony.
In addition to Doucet on Friday, the Expos will see another of their representatives make their debut in St. Louis. Cubs and Texas Rangers pitcher Rich Harden and former Baseball Canada coach Joe Wiwchar.
