Jacques Doucet turned major league baseball into a French-language soundtrack for Quebec, calling more than 5,500 games and helping build the vocabulary that made each inning intelligible. The longtime voice of the Montreal Expos died on August 27, 2026, at 86, the Society for American Baseball Research reported.

The microphone came after the printed word. Born in Montreal in 1940, Doucet began as a translator at The Canadian Press in 1959, moved through Nouveau Journal and La Presse, and received the Expos beat when the expansion club arrived. He also kept the official score at Jarry Park. A weekly turn on the broadcast gradually became a new profession, though he later recalled his early doubt: "I was a reporter at La Presse. I was used to writing, not talking."

In 1972, Doucet became the full-time play-by-play announcer on the Expos' French radio network. He stayed in that chair for 33 seasons, through the team's last Montreal campaign in 2004, while also calling All-Star Games, playoffs and World Series contests in French. His assignments included Dennis Martinez's perfect game on July 28, 1991, one of the franchise's defining performances. Global News and The Canadian Press credited him with more than 5,500 major league broadcasts over his career.

The scale of that work was not only numerical. Baseball arrived with an English vocabulary, and Doucet helped give francophone listeners precise words for what unfolded on the field. He traced part of that effort to a 1969 symposium of Quebec sportswriters who established French equivalents for American terms. "We did improve on the language over the years," he told SABR. On road trips, he also taught practical French to Expos players and coaches in informal team-arranged lessons, carrying his attention to language beyond the booth.

That clarity created intimacy. Marc Griffin, a longtime broadcast partner and mentee, told Global News and The Canadian Press that Doucet's voice "was part of our lives for generations." Colleagues described a meticulous broadcaster who prepared individual player cards before batting practice even after decades in the sport. Listeners heard the result each night: a game carefully observed, translated and paced for radio.

The Expos' departure did not end his work. Doucet moved to the independent Quebec Capitales from 2006 to 2011, then returned to major league coverage with TVA Sports in August 2011, calling selected Toronto Blue Jays games and playoff action in French. He completed his final broadcasts in September 2022. Across those chapters, the team names changed but the purpose held: connect baseball to a French-speaking audience.

Recognition accumulated along the way. Doucet entered the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Expos Hall of Fame in 2003, then received the Canadian Hall's Jack Graney Award in 2004. The National Assembly of Quebec awarded him its Medal of Honour in 2011 for his contribution to Quebec society. Elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020, he was formally inducted in 2023 after the pandemic had delayed the ceremony.

Doucet preserved the Expos in books as well as sound. With Marc Robitaille, he co-wrote the two-volume Il était une fois les Expos and the 2014 memoir Mémoires d'un micro. He also served grassroots baseball as an ambassador, fundraiser and junior-league board member, placing the experience of the major leagues in service of young players across Quebec.

The French baseball vocabulary Doucet helped shape remains in broadcast booths and ballparks, while his books keep Montreal's vanished club within reach. The broadcasters he mentored, the listeners he taught and the young teams he supported carry the work forward, one carefully chosen word and one called inning at a time.