Jacques Doucet (born March 8, 1940)
is a Canadian radio announcer of baseball

play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

in the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

. He broadcast

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...

games for every year of the team's existence, from 1969 to 2004. He is currently the French play-by-play voice of the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

TVA Sports TVA Sports is a Canadian French-language sports specialty channel owned by the Groupe TVA, a publicly traded subsidiary of Quebecor Media. The channel is a general-interest sports network, and the first major competitor to RDS, the only other Fre ...

Early career

Doucet began his career in 1959 as a translator for the

Canadian Press The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...

news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency may ...

. After one year in 1960–1961 as a sports journalist for the short-lived '' Nouveau Journal'' daily, he went to '' La Presse'' in 1962, still as a sports journalist, where he remained until early 1972.

Sports broadcasting

During a long strike in 1964 at ''La Presse'', Doucet had a brief first experience in sports broadcasting, for

Montreal Alouettes The Montreal Alouettes (Canadian French, French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the Canadian F ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

games. He got the assignment as the Montreal Expos beat writer for ''La Presse'' as soon as the franchise was awarded to Montreal in

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

, in addition to being the

official scorer In the game of baseball, the official scorer is a person appointed by the league to record the events on the field, and to send the official scoring record of the game back to the league offices. In addition to recording the events on the field ...

for games at

Jarry Park Jarry Park (french: Parc Jarry) is an urban park in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Jarry Park has total area of 36 hectares. It is considered by the City of Montreal as one of its large park ...

. Sometime in the middle of the Expos' first season in

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

, Doucet was asked to occasionally replace

Jean-Pierre Roy Jean-Pierre Roy (June 26, 1920 – November 1, 2014) was a Canadian pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched in three games during the season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was born in Montreal, Quebec. While with the minor league Montre ...

colour commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and the ...

on the now-defunct CKLM 1570, which held the French radio broadcast rights, as Roy moved to TV broadcasts once a week.

Play-by-play

In 1972, as CKAC 730 became the Expos' new French radio flagship, Doucet was hired by the (now-defunct) Télémédia network to do play-by-play for all Montreal Expos games, in addition to the All-Star, League Championship and World Series games and a selection of pre-season Expos games. When Télémédia merged with Radiomutuel on September 30, 1994, creating the new Radiomédia network, he became an Expos employee and continued to do play-by-play but only for Montreal Expos games, which continued to be aired mostly on CKAC 730 until the end of 2003. (He was heard for a few games on CKVL 850 (now CINF 690) in 1995, and on CJMS 1040 in 2002 and 2003. CHMP-FM 98.5 took over as the French radio flagship in 2004 for the last season of the Expos in Montreal). Over his career, Doucet described more than 5,000 Major League Baseball games, including two

perfect games Perfect game may refer to: Sports * Perfect game (baseball), a complete-game win by a pitcher allowing no baserunners * Perfect game (bowling), a 300 game, 12 consecutive strikes in the same game * Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, New York ...

(by

Dennis Martínez José Dennis Martínez Ortiz (born May 14, 1955), nicknamed "El Presidente" (The President), is a Nicaraguan professional baseball pitcher. Martínez played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles, Montreal Expos, Cleveland India ...

in 1991 against the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

and by

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

pitcher

David Cone David Brian Cone (born January 2, 1963) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher, and current color commentator for the New York Yankees on the YES Network and WPIX as well as for ESPN on Sunday Night Baseball. in the Expos Hall of Fame in 2003 and in the

Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (french: Temple de la renommée du baseball canadien) is a museum located in St. Marys, Ontario, Canada. The museum commemorates great players, teams, and accomplishments of baseball in Canada. His ...

in 2004. While fans hope Doucet will be recognized by the Cooperstown

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

via the

Ford C. Frick Award The Ford C. Frick Award is presented annually by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the United States to a broadcaster for "major contributions to baseball". It is named for Ford C. Frick, former Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Before h ...

, this has not occurred (although he has been a finalist five times, including in 2011). Doucet has been described as "the French-Canadian equivalent of

Jaime Jarrín Jaime Jarrín (; born December 10, 1935) is an Ecuadorian-born American sportscaster known as the Spanish-language voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He began broadcasting for the Dodgers in 1959 and was the 1998 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Aw ...

" and even as "Canada's

Vin Scully Vincent Edward Scully (November 29, 1927 – August 2, 2022) was an American sportscaster. He was best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, beginning in 1950 (when the franchise was located ...

", but it has been noted that "because he broadcast games in French, few of the people who cast final votes for admission to Cooperstown have heard Doucet work", and that the language barrier might keep Doucet out of Cooperstown; at least one observer has suggested that Doucet has failed to win the Award because he is not an American.

Later career

In March 2005, Doucet became the official spokesperson for Encore Baseball Montreal, an organization initially created to keep the Expos in Montreal and which is now focused on promoting baseball in Quebec. In June 2005, Doucet's efforts to create a French-language version of standard baseball terminology were underlined at length in a front-page story by the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''.

Return to commentating

From 2006 to 2011, Doucet was the play-by-play voice for the home games of the

Quebec Capitales Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen p ...

. The Capitales play in the

Can-Am League The Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball, commonly known as the Can-Am League, was a professional, independent baseball league with teams in the Northeast United States and Eastern Canada, founded in 2005 as a reorganization of ...

, an eight-team

independent baseball Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

league; their games are heard on CHRC 800 in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

. In August 2011, Doucet was hired by

, a new sports television channel which went on the air a month later, as the play-by-play voice of the

Books

In collaboration with Marc Robitaille, Doucet has published a two-volume history of the Montreal Expos titled ''Il était une fois les Expos''. The first volume was published in 2009 and the second volume was published in 2011. Doucet previously published, in collaboration with Claude Raymond, a book titled ''Les secrets du baseball'' in 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doucet, Jacques 1940 births Living people Sportspeople from Montreal Montreal Expos announcers Toronto Blue Jays announcers Canadian radio sportscasters Major League Baseball broadcasters Montreal Alouettes personnel Baseball people from Quebec People from Longueuil Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductees