Thursday night, prior to the Blue Jackets–Panthers game, the franchise recognized Jeff Rimer on ice for calling his 2,000th game as an NHL play-by-play guy.
John Davidson, the Blue Jackets' President of Hockey Operations, spent time highlighting Rimer's long and illustrious career, which includes 34 years of play-by-play work, covering the Blue Jackets and Washington Capitals, pre- and post-game shows for the Baltimore Orioles, and serving as the sports director at CFCF-Radio in Montreal for eight years.
One story, however, stood out.
“Years later in Montreal, covering the Montreal Expos, he had a great wrestling match in the Expos locker room with none other than Pete Rose,” Davidson told the Nationwide Arena crowd.
“And Jeff tells me his fight card reads 1 and 0.”
Wait, what?
Pete Rose, as some of you know, played one season in Montreal, 1984. During this time, Rimer was an anchor at CFCF-Radio in La Metropole.
For more on this story, we go to Alan Usereau's The Expos in Their Prime: The Short-Lived Glory of Montreal's Team, 1977-1984 as the Expos, mired in a slump, were fresh off losing a game to Pittsburgh, when the Pirates scored two unearned runs in the ninth:
After the game, Pete Rose said that there was just too much negativity around the team, especially by the fans and the media. The boos were part of the teams problems, according to Rose. CFCF anchor Jeff Rimer was very critical of Rose's comments, saying that he was aiming at the wrong target. Rimer also thought Rose should know better than that, having played in Philadelphia, a city with fans whose reputation was to be a lot harder on its players than Montreal's. Rose took the phone and called in himself, demanding an apology from Rimer, saying that the radio anchor was trying to ruin a reputation he took years to build. Both men stuck to their respective positions. It is worth noting that Rimer was very vocal promoting Rose's hiring by the Expos before the official signing. For weeks after the 1983 season, Rimer was praising Rose's leadership qualities and how positive his presence would be for the Expos. Nobody was happier than Rimer when the Expos announced his signing.
On Saturday, June 16, the Expos won, 3–2, in extra innings against long time nemesis Kent Tekulve. After the victory, Rimer entered the clubhouse with his tape recorder to discuss what happened the day before. As rimer later recalled: “After the game, I went to the clubhouse. When you walk in the clubhouse, there is a first set of doors. Standing there were Chris Speier and Jim Wohlford, and again these guys were my buddies, who were making light of all this and were wearing boxing gloves and making fun, as a joke. I told the guys this was not the time. So I walked into the clubhouse and went over to see Pete Rose and the players were making fun of this! Pete, Pete, Pete, Rimer, Rimer, Rimer! I walked over to Pete's locker and Pete was sitting on his chair removing his cleats. I said, “Let's discuss this as men.” I've got the cassette tape in my hand, and he pushed the cassette tape out of my hand and, the next thing I know, he's standing up. I'm not going to let him hit me, so I tried to hit the ground. He grabbed me by the shirt, ripped my golf shirt, so that I had a nice big scratch on the neck. The next thing I know I hit the ground and everybody in the clubhouse got involved. Doug Flynn came over and started kicking me. Gary Carter saw it, came over, picked me up and loosened me away and pushed Doug Flynn out of the way. At this time, John McHale, president of the team, came in, saw what was going on and went nuts! he started yelling at the players and yelling at manager Bill Virdon about why he allowed this to happen in the clubhouse.”
So there you have it. Montreal was lit in the 80s.
Rimer was livid at the time, telling UPI that he planned to file a lawsuit against Rose. The next day, however, Rose apologized to Rimer, and told the media he had only wanted to shake up and invigorate his team, but admitted it was one of the most stupid things he'd done in his career.
Video: Fox Sports Ohio
