Scott Kazmir signs with San Francisco, Montreal Expos fans take notice

There was professional baseball being played in Montreal when Scott Kazmir was drafted back in 2002. In fact, the franchise wouldn’t move to Washington for another couple years.

Kazmir is back in the news, as the veteran left-hander has signed a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants. Kazmir hasn’t been seen in Major League Baseball since 2016, when he was a ten-game winner for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Kazmir was out of affiliated baseball in 2012 as well, when he was pitching for the Independent League Sugar Land Skeeters. He was able to parlay that time into a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians followed by a 2 YR/$22M Major League contract with the Oakland A’s.

Here he is again, trying to climb his way back to the game’s top level.

Scott Kazmir signs contract with the San Francisco Giants, making Montreal Expos fans cringe at the sight of seeing his name again.

What does Scott Kazmir have to do with the Montreal Expos? In the 2002 draft when Kazmir was selected 15th overall by the New York Mets, the Expos had the fifth selection. So what? This happens every year. A team makes the wrong selection with their pick. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

We could make the argument the Expos should have taken Zack Greinke or Prince Fielder, the two players taken directly after the Expos made their selection. Or even Cole Hamels, he was selected later in the first round.

The reason we don’t, and the reason Kazmir’s name is burned into the brains of Expos fans, specifically has to do with the player the Expos did select, with the fifth overall pick.

Clint Everts.

Everts and Kazmir pitched together at Cypress Falls High School, in Houston, Texas. Two arms like this, coming out of the same high school, both drafted in the first round. Unheard of. Well, it happened. You know if the Expos scouts had eyes on Everts, they would have seen Kazmir as well, and had the opportunity to take him.

For seven years Everts toiled in the minors. We say toiled, because he didn’t get past Single-A until year seven. The next four years he bounced back and forth between Double-A and Triple-A with the Toronto Blue Jays organization, never debuting in the Majors.

Fair or not, Everts and Kazmir will always be tied together, because they came from the same high school pitching staff. For Expos fans every time we hear the name Scott Kazmir, those old memories resurface.