SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Giants manager Felipe Alou sat in his office Sunday morning, watching the dark green blobs on the weather radar move slowly over San Juan.
A rainout on a getaway day is never what a manager is hoping for. But Alou knows things could be worse. Before he came to San Francisco, he spent nearly a quarter-century coaching and playing for the Montreal Expos.
''I don't know if it's embarrassing'' anymore, Alou said of the strange situation his former team must endure. ''Now, I don't think it is. It's finished.''
He's probably right.
The Expos are a team without a home, strangers in their own hometown of Montreal and not much of a draw in their adopted city, San Juan, where their finale in a three-game series against the Giants was postponed, with no makeup day announced.
They are owned by the other 29 teams in major league baseball, and if the owners are true to their word, the Expos will play in a new city and be under new management starting next year.
It will be a welcome relief from the state of flux that began when Alou was managing the team from 1992-2001. He went 691-717 in his nine-plus years there. In part because the team was constantly paring the roster of promising players to save money, Alou didn't have a winning record after 1996.
''The players used to come up to me and say, `What's going to happen? Where are we going?''' Alou said. ''I just said, `I don't know.' That was 10 years ago, and the worst thing was, it looked like nobody knew.''
Montreal started falling out of love with the Expos in the 1980s, when political changes in Canada began shifting many of their English-speaking fans from residences in Montreal to Toronto.
Through the 1990s, there was lots of talk about a new stadium. Alou said he still has a symbolic brick and shovel that were presented to him when the project looked like it was going to take off.
It never did.
''They were always blaming politics,'' Alou said. ''But what's the politics? Nobody knew.''
Jeffrey Loria bought the Expos from a group headed by Claude Brochu in 1999 and, two years later, Loria fired Alou in the middle of his 10th season as Montreal's manager and 23rd with the franchise.
These days, Alou sits in the San Francisco dugout and deals with the Giants' trials and travails. The series against Montreal, however, has brought back memories.
He told a funny story of being pulled away from watching a fishing show in his office to be rushed to a news conference to announce a big signing.
The player signed was minor league infielder Dave Silvestri.
''And when I got back to the office, the fishing show was over,'' Alou cracked.
The uncertainty now belongs to another veteran manager, Frank Robinson, who conceded this week that the 22 games in Puerto Rico, the limited budget and all the odd circumstances that have surrounded the Expos have had an effect.
''It's taxing. It takes its toll on you,'' Robinson said. ''But there's nothing we can do about it. We don't let it bother us. We just go play.''
But the Expos aren't playing very well right now. Unlike the last two years, when Robinson guided them to surprisingly good 83-79 seasons, Montreal looks like a confused team that's pressing too hard.
The Expos are batting .227 this season, the worst in baseball. They head back home to their real home on a four-game losing streak and with the worst record in the National League (14-29).
Still, there might be hope for the future. The recent long-term contract extensions given to Jose Vidro and Livan Hernandez are signs the Expos want to put together a good core for their next owner and maybe their next manager, too, if Robinson doesn't stick around.
Alou, meanwhile, still has a place in his heart for the Expos. He's just glad he doesn't work for them anymore.
''I'm glad there's finally going to be a decision,'' he said. ''There were so many years of indecision that affected so many people. I'm glad it's finally over.''
