Cardinals at Expos - April 8th, 1970

This morning I re-discovered why I love the internet. By chance, I happened to find a great baseball gallery on a Flickr page provided by the Archives from the City of Montreal.

This galley contains 57 black and white images from the 1970 Expos home opener played at Jarry Park. It was the Expos second season of existence. Most of the images focus on the tiny ballpark (several of which you can see snow in the background) and the obviously cold Montreal fans. However, there are a few nice shots of recognizable players like Bob Gibson, Rusty Staub, and Dick Allen with Joe Torre standing on deck.

Of course I could not resist looking this game up on RETROSHEET and happily discovered that Dick Allen, playing in his first game as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, collected three hits and drove in three runs. He also smacked the first HR of the season in the eighth inning off of Expos starter Bill Stoneman. The Cardinals won the game 7-2 with Bob Gibson collecting the win after throwing eight complete innings. Based on the image order it appears there is an image from Allen's first cardinal ab (he struck out to end the first inning) and the image I have posted above is from his second at bat (a double to lead off the fourth inning).