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For the past six weeks or so I’ve been meaning to discuss a topic that has been weighing on my mind, and now, with the election done and my mind empty of anything truly important, I have the chance.
Although the World Series is over and Red Sox Nation is still trying to come to grips with the fact they can’t be depressed this off-season, I would like to discuss another group of fans who do have a reason to be depressed this off-season: Expos Nation.
Major League Baseball has finally pulled the plug on a move to Washington after an overly arduous and disgusting treatment of the Montreal Expos and their fans. Wait a minute, what’s so disgusting about moving a team that had consistently been playing in a falling apart concrete pit of a stadium in front of less than 10,000 uncaring French-speaking fans? What’s wrong with moving the national pastime to the nation’s capital — especially moving it from the land of hockey where they don’t care about baseball?
Well first, to believe that the Expos have always been a team of poor attendance and apathetic fans is to forget about the Expos Nation from 1969 to 1994. Montreal used to be a thriving baseball town with the Expos known as “Nos Amours” or “our loved ones.” They frequently filled Olympic Stadium with more than 40,000 fans every game — especially in 1994 when they were baseball’s best team before the strike.
OK, so fans used to come, but they stopped after the strike. Sure, but can you blame them? Maybe it had something to do with former owner Jeffrey Loria’s disgraceful ownership that wouldn’t allow games to be broadcast on English radio and that shipped all-star players out of town faster than Federal Express. Maybe it had to do with Major League Baseball telling Montreal fans for almost five years that they would be losing their team the next season — whether by relocation or elimination. Maybe it had to do with baseball clearly doing everything they could to remove the Expos from Montreal rather than keeping them there. Any way you crack it, how can you blame the fans for coming out when it was so dreadfully apparent that the team’s ownership under Loria and later Major League Baseball itself couldn’t have cared less about them?
Numerous people have said that if baseball had put as much effort into keeping the Expos in Montreal as they have in moving them to Washington (and Puerto Rico for games during the past two seasons) baseball could once again be thriving in la belle province (that’s Quebec for you Americans). Sure, it would have taken a new stadium to replace the absolutely decrepit Big-O — I’ve been there, it really is terrible — but given the problems Washington is facing right now to secure hundreds of millions of dollars for a new stadium and the renovation of interim RFK Stadium, it’s a safe bet that MLB could have just as easily worked with the city of Montreal, the province of Quebec and local investors.
But the real problem lies with the fact that baseball had its mind set on getting the Expos franchise out of Montreal. MLB and Commissioner Bud Selig had their minds set on getting rid of the Minnesota Twins too, but Twins fans garnered sympathy from the nation when the media covered the local public outcry that ensued after they were also put on the contraction block with the Expos. No such sympathy was going to be heard about the Expos because they were up in the frigid confines of Canada. MLB knew that no American would care if Canada lost another team, just as nobody cared when the Winnipeg Jets, the Quebec Nordiques and the Vancouver Grizzlies moved south of the border.
Quite frankly, the whole Expos situation wouldn’t have occurred had they been playing in an American city rather than in Canada. There were certainly other cities and teams that deserved to be moved other than the Expos with just as little support but with much less history. Tampa Bay has averaged the same amount of fans as the Expos since almost day one of its meager six-year history filled with five consecutive last-place victories and one fourth place. The Florida Marlins play in a stadium almost as bad as the Expos, and their fans only come out when their team manages to make the playoffs. Oakland also has a terrible stadium and struggles to attract fans with a consistent winning team.
But baseball had its mind set about getting the Expos out of Montreal. This isn’t an issue of America versus Canada, it’s about MLB treating the once loyal and large Montreal fan base with total disregard and completely without class. Shame on baseball, and vive les Expos de Montreal.
Submitted 11-18-2004
MALIBU, CA
