WASHINGTON — By acquiring former Nationals relief pitcher Drew Storen, the Toronto Blue Jays have landed one of the few players in Major League Baseball who still has ties to the Montreal Expos.
Although Storen never played for the Expos (the Nationals selected him in the first-round of the 2009 MLB Draft), he spent time in the Expos clubhouse while working as a batboy from 2000 to 2004.
“At the time, I didn’t really think that I’d be playing Major League Baseball,” Storen said in a 2012 interview with the Montreal Gazette. “But as a kid and as a teenager, for me, it was a very influential time for me in my baseball career, and I kind of got a taste of it and I realized that this is pretty cool. This is as cool as it gets.”
Storen was raised in Indianapolis and served as the Expos’ batboy when the club passed through Cincinatti and St. Louis. Storen’s father Mark worked with the Expos’ Indianapolis-based Triple-A affiliate in the 1980s and developed a relationship with team trainer Ron McLean. McLean eventually moved to Montreal to work with the Expos, but he remained in touch with Mark Storen, and by the time Drew was a teenager, arrangements were made for him to serve as the club’s batboy.
“I just remember being fired up when I first started because the clubhouse in St. Louis had slush puppies, and what kid doesn’t like slush puppies? But I liked putting on the uniform, running around and catching balls during [batting practice]. And I think as time passed, I grew more comfortable with the players and talked to them more and more.”
Storen has fond memories of working the Expos clubhouse and shagging fly balls from former All-Stars Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Video.
Storen also recalled a series of conversations he had with then-Expos reliever Chad Cordero, who played in the College World Series, was drafted in the first-round and developed into a Major League closer (Storen followed a nearly identical path years later).
The Expos moved to Washington at the end of the 2004 season, but Storen and the Blue Jays will play a series of exhibition games at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in early April. This marks the third straight year that the Blue Jays will complete their spring training schedule with two games in Montreal.
