The last Expos batter became a Mets legend with one catch
Endy Chávez made the final out in Montreal Expos history at Shea Stadium in 2004. Two years later, in the same ballpark, he made one of the great catches in Mets history.
Jeff Keppinger fielded a grounder at second base, threw to first, and the Montreal Expos were finished. The batter was Endy Chávez. The date was October 3, 2004, the place was Shea Stadium, and the out ended an 8-1 Mets win and 36 seasons of Montreal baseball. I expected the man who made that out to be a footnote. His career turned out to be one of the tidiest loops I have come across in the sport.
A Mets signing before he was an Expo
Chávez was born on February 7, 1978, in Valencia, Venezuela. According to SABR's biography by Jon Springer, Mets scouts Gregorio Machado and Junior Roman signed him at 19 while he was working out at a Colorado Rockies developmental academy. Wikipedia's account adds that the Rockies had lost interest because of his slight build.
The path from there was not smooth. Kansas City took him in the Rule 5 draft on December 11, 2000, and he debuted for the Royals on May 29, 2001. Waivers moved him through the Royals, Tigers and Mets organizations before Montreal claimed him. In 2003, general manager Omar Minaya handed him regular center field duty, and Baseball-Reference shows 141 games that year and 132 more in 2004.
The out that closed a franchise
MLB had announced the move to Washington on September 29, 2004. Four days later, 33,569 people came to Shea for the Expos' last game, per the box score. Tom Glavine got the win. Jamey Carroll scored Montreal's final run, and This Day In Baseball records Chávez grounding out in the ninth as the franchise's last batter.
Somebody always has to make the last out of anything. I like that it was a player the Mets had originally signed, in the ballpark where the Expos had played their very first game in 1969.
Seven games as a National
The loop has a small middle stitch that most retellings skip. Chávez went to Washington with the franchise and played seven games for the 2005 Nationals before a trade to Philadelphia for outfielder Marlon Byrd. So he wore both names of the same club, which is a very short list of people.
Back to Shea, and over the wall
On December 23, 2005, Chávez signed a one-year, $500,000 deal with the Mets. He hit .306 in 2006 with five homers, 42 RBIs and 18 steals, according to SABR, and the Mets reached the National League Championship Series against St. Louis.
Game 7 was played at Shea on October 19, 2006. With the score tied 1-1 in the sixth inning, Scott Rolen drove an Óliver Pérez pitch toward left. Chávez leaped at the 8-foot wall, caught the ball in the tip of his glove, and his quick throw back doubled Jim Edmonds off first to end the inning, as the 2006 NLCS record describes. St. Louis still won 3-1 and took the pennant, which is exactly why fans remember the catch so fondly. It was pure joy in a night that did not end well.
Endy Chávez at a glance
- Signed by
- New York Mets scouts, at age 19
- Final Expos out
- October 3, 2004, at Shea Stadium
- 2005 Nationals
- 7 games before a trade to Philadelphia
- The catch
- 2006 NLCS Game 7, October 19, 2006, at Shea
- MLB career
- 13 seasons, 1,151 games, .270 average
The coaching chapter
Chávez's big league career ran 13 seasons, 1,151 games and a .270 average. At home he was a fixture for the Navegantes del Magallanes, starring for them across 19 Venezuelan Winter League seasons, per SABR. In February 2019 he came back to the Mets organization as a minor league coach, starting with the Brooklyn Cyclones.
Plenty of players wear three uniforms. Chávez closed one franchise's book at Shea, then wrote a famous page for another team on the same grass two years later. If you came here looking for the name behind the Expos' final out, now you have the rest of the story. For how Montreal's first and last games bookend the whole Nationals vs Mets matchup, 35 years at Shea: where the Nationals vs Mets story starts has it. We think the grounder to Keppinger was the better ending anyway. It led straight to the catch.
Sources
Every factual claim above traces to one of these. Links open in a new tab.
