Lawrence recalls playing with Walker, Big Unit, Strawberry, Gooden
They were known as the Canadian Dream Team: (From left to right) OF Scott Mann (Oshawa, Ont.), 1B-OF Andy Lawrence (Mississauga, Ont.) and Hall of Famer Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, B.C.) were all Montreal Expos prospects who played together in the club’s system in 1986 and 1987.
*This is a revised version of an article that was originally published on Canadian Baseball Network in March 2012.
January 28, 2020
By Kevin Glew
Canadian Baseball Network
After beginning his professional career with parts of five seasons in the New York Mets system, Andy Lawrence was dealt to the Montreal Expos during the 1986 campaign.
Following a solid stretch with the Expos’ double-A affiliate in Jacksonville that year, the Mississauga, Ont., native was asked to go to their class-A club in West Palm Beach to serve as their cleanup hitter during their playoff run.
“My manager was Felipe Alou,” recalled Lawrence in a 2012 phone interview. “And that’s where I met Randy Johnson, Larry Walker and Scott Mann.”
Walker (Maple Ridge, B.C.) and Mann (Oshawa, Ont.) were fellow Canadians, and the following year, Lawrence suited up with them, as well as Johnson, in Jacksonville. Walker would patrol right field, while Mann was in left. Lawrence played first base.
“We had batting practice every day and Larry would hit home runs that were golf shots,” said Lawrence. “His hands were so quick. When he made contact, he would sort of snap his wrists and the ball would jump off his bat.”
Hitting fourth behind Walker, Lawrence batted .290 and knocked in 76 runs. He was thankful, however, that he didn’t have to face Johnson.
“Randy Johnson led the minors in walks that year,” said Lawrence. “The big problem with Randy was throwing strikes, so every day before games he’d be in early and out there with Joe Kerrigan (pitching coach), going through all of the mechanics. He was 6-foot-10 and just the way he would stride to the plate, I had batters come to me at first base and say, ‘Andy, it’s the scariest sight I’ve ever seen.’ You’ve got this guy who is 6-foot-10 and then with his stride and his arm length, it looks like the ball is being thrown from 50 feet or 45 feet at 90 miles per hour and then you don’t know where it’s going.”
The team lost in the playoffs, but Lawrence would return the following campaign, but was released after 45 games.
“At that point in time, I was pretty much ready to move on,” recalled Lawrence. “It was seven and a half years and that was a long time to play in the minor leagues. That was a lot of bus travel, a lot of games played. And (Andres) Galarraga was with the Expos. He had just signed a three-year contract. I thought for sure when I went to the Expos that the opportunity (to play in the big leagues) would’ve been there. But when Galarraga came into play, I was in the same situation as I was with the Mets with Keith Hernandez.”
But the fact that he enjoyed a seven-year professional playing career was close to a miracle in itself. Born in Trinidad in 1961, Lawrence hadn’t heard of Major League Baseball until he moved to Toronto with his family when he was nine.
Lawrence’s dad attended university in the U.S. and would later become a high school teacher in Etobicoke, Ont. Lawrence first played youth baseball in Mississauga when he was 12. A natural athlete, the talented youngster would hone his skills under Toronto Blue Jays scout and longtime Mississauga Sabres coach Ron Cabot.
“When I was 18, I started being invited to games at Exhibition Stadium where a select group of players would play against U.S. teams,” recalled Lawrence. “I was this 6-foot-4, 185-pound, tall, skinny kid that played basketball, so I was athletic, but I was still too young to sign.”
In 1981, Lawrence would help lead the Intercounty League’s Brantford Red Sox to a league title, but his big break would come later that year as a member of the gold medal-winning Ontario team at the Canada Summer Games in Thunder Bay.
“In the semi-final game, I’m walking to the field all by myself, and this gentleman is walking towards me and he stops me and says, ‘Hi, my name is Joe Mason. I’m a scout for the New York Mets. How would you like to sign a professional contract to play with the Mets?’” said Lawrence. “And the first thing I said to him was, “Sorry, I can’t do that right now. I have a game to play.’ But after the game was over, I never saw him again.”
Fortunately, after Lawrence returned home, legendary Canadian baseball coach and 1998 Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, Ron Roncetti, who doubled as a Mets scout, called and told him that Mason intended to sign him but had been in a car accident. The veteran scout had called the Mets’ offices from his hospital bed and instructed them to offer Lawrence a contract and Lawrence signed with the Mets a couple of days later.
Enrolled in the business administration program at Seneca College at the time, Lawrence was also a star on the school’s basketball team. He would head to spring training in 1982, but was allowed to return to help his college hoops squad secure a bronze medal at the national tournament in Calgary.
Lawrence was signed by the Mets as an outfielder.
“My first day of spring training with the Mets in 1982, I was an outfielder and the coaches said, ‘OK, all the rookies, you’re going to this field and we’re going to do some testing,’’ recalled Lawrence in 2012. “So I’m with the outfielders and in left field, I’ve got Strawberry. In centre field, I’ve got Dykstra. And in right field with me, I’ve got Beane – so three of the organization’s best prospects.
“They hit one to Darryl on the warning track and he throws to home plate -- I’m in right field – and I can hear the ball whistling and it popped into the catcher’s glove. Then they hit one to Dykstra and he does the exact same thing from centre. And then it’s Billy Beane’s turn and he does the exact same thing from right field, and I’m going, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ Now it’s my turn and I throw a good line shot and I bounce it to the catcher.
“Well, the next day, I was called in by Sam Perlozzo, who was our coach, and he said, ‘Andy, we need you to get your first base glove, we want you to play first base.’”
After his encounter with Strawberry, Dykstra and Beane at his first spring training, he was assigned to Rookie-class Kingsport of the Appalachian League to master first base, alongside teammates like Manny Lee, Randy Myers and Dwight Gooden.
“When I first saw Doc (Gooden) throw, he was throwing 95 miles per hour,” recalled Lawrence. “The first thing that struck me was, from the release point to the pop of the glove, the ball just jumped out of his hand. He just had a fastball that would be on you or by you.”
Lawrence finished that campaign with an impressive .323 batting average in 66 games.
“The guy who led the league in hitting was Kirby Puckett, who hit like .360 (.382 to be exact),” recalled Lawrence. “Every time we would see Kirby, we would say, ‘Kirby, what are you doing man? Every time we see the box scores, you’re 4-for-4 or 5-for-5.’ When you talked to Kirby, he was the nicest guy in the world.”
Promoted to class-A Short-Season Little Falls and then to class-A Columbia the following year, Lawrence hit a combined .270 with 12 homers. But Keith Hernandez had a stranglehold on first base for the Mets and with Randy Milligan ahead of him in the system, Lawrence was starting to feel less-than-optimistic about his chances for advancement. Those feelings were exacerbated when the Mets selected highly touted first baseman Dave Magadan in the second round of the 1983 draft.
Lawrence returned to Columbia in 1984 and then toiled for Class-A Lynchburg in 1985, before reaching the Mets’ double-A squad in Jackson in 1986. But when the Mets demoted Milligan to double-A, Lawrence was dealt to the Expos.
After parts of three seasons in the Expos organization, Lawrence, along with his wife, Julie, returned to Mississauga and he has worked in managerial roles in the finance field. For 10 years following his career, he also served as a scout for the Mets and he operated a baseball camp in Mississauga for 15 years.
He coached his son, Jason Lawrence, with the Mississauga North Bengals until 2013.
Lawrence continues to savor the memories of his seven years in pro ball that afforded him the opportunity to play with and against many of the best players of his era ... including fellow Canadian and now a Hall of Famer in Walker.