Perhaps the Montreal Expos would still be around if Tom Brady had made a different decision earlier in his career.
That’s according to Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez.
“He chose football, and I was on that team,” Martinez said recently on The Dan Le Batard Show. “We drafted him, and he chose to go to football. But I can only imagine if we were to make Brady a pitcher, and he had that kind of hose that he had with the football and pitching and he was as good? Imagine that.”
OK, there’s a lot to unpack here.
For starters, the Expos moved to the nation’s capital back in 2005. It was a long time coming after the franchises’ financial capabilities weren’t met, forcing the other 29 teams in the league to purchase it in 2002.
Before the move, however, the team had drafted a young Brady in the 18th round in 1995 out of Junipero Serra in San Mateo, Calif. He obviously made an illustrious career by choosing football, but it turns out, the guy was pretty great at baseball as well.
John Hughes, the scout who drafted Brady, then a catcher, told The Hartford Courant back in January of 2019 that if it were based on talent alone, he could have been a late second-round pick. Hughes also believed the seven-time Super Bowl champion would have made it to the bigs.
Alas, he had a football scholarship to play at Michigan.
The scouting reports surrounding Brady used the terms “tall” and “good-looking,” and even after his success in college football, it didn’t escape those around him surrounding the legitimacy of him as a baseball prospect.
But would that have saved an entire franchise?
“I would be an Expo right now, and we wouldn’t have ever left Montreal,” Martinez added.
Martinez was asked how the two possible battery mates would have matched up together. Perfect games? No hitters? Sure.
“As smart as he is, I wouldn’t second-guess anything,” Martinez added. “And the funny thing is, we were doing something at Fenway [Park], and he was throwing out the first pitch. And I got to the batting cage, and I see Tom over there grabbing the bat. And I said, ‘Tom, you wanna hit some?’ And, he had pretty good pop, and he looked to me like he could hit too.”
No surprise he’s good at everything, but Brady appears to have made the correct choice.
[The Dan LeBatard Show, The Hartford Courant]
