November 28, 2019

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Tim Raines heads a crackerjack lineup of former Expos scheduled to appear at the annual Expos Fest gala in Montreal next March.

Expos Fest founder Perry Giannias has been trying for years to get Raines to come to his event and he finally was successful this time around. The legendary Raines is a member of both the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont.

Giannias announced Wednesday that the cast for his fundraiser also includes Bartolo (Big Sexy) Colon, Rudy May, Stan Bahnsen, Barry Foote, Jeff Reardon, Rondell White, Derek Aucoin, Javier Vasquez, Cliff Floyd, Jeff Fassero and Claude Raymond. Others will be lined up in the coming months.

The affair will be held Sunday, March 22 at the Embassy Plaza in the Montreal suburb of Laval. Tickets are $150 each and that will include food, wine and autographs. Tickets will go on sale Nov. 29. The autograph session is slated to start at 3:30 E.T. with supper scheduled for 6.

The event will be held in conjunction with the two-game exhibition series at Olympic Stadium in Montreal between the Blue Jays and Yankees March 23-24. It's hopeful that Yankees announcer and former Expo Ken Singleton will be able to attend the Expos gala.

Giannias and his family have raised over $600,000 since 2016 from Expos Fest and other programs in support of the Montreal Children's Hospital and the Kat D Foundation in honour of Catherine Demes, Giannias' niece, who died July 22, 2015 at the age of 5 from diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a rare form of brain cancer.

Giannias started Expos Fest with a Sunday afternoon autograph session in March, 2016 at Place Centre-Ville in Montreal and then expanded his idea to a supper concept later that year. Last March, the gala attracted about 700 people.