NEWS: Montreal Expos Leave for D.C. -- Canadians Try to Care

meh.

i had been to 3 games @ olympic stadium in the past 5 or so years....
i feel bad because the satdium was soooo oversized that whatever crows managed to show up looked like the crowd at an air supply reunion concert

they had some die hard fans - but for the most part it really didnt seem like anyone cared.... they didnt put much of a fight to keep them , so it just makes sense to bring them where they'll be $watched$

hopefully philly will have a new intraleague rival

I was an Expos fan growing up but after the strike in '94 when they could have won it all and instead had to sell off the team, I've never really forgiven baseball.

I went to Montreal this weekend and thought about going to a game, knowing this is the end, but I looked at the roster and decided why bother. It's not my team anymore...MLB owns it and they could care less.

Wait a minute... there's a country called Canada?

if I recall correctly, the Expos didn't even televise their own games as of late.

[Edited on Sep 29, 2004 by Cash]

I have been to a few Expos games just cause it felt more like going to watch a local beer league...very personal because well, if there were any less people at the game I would have been on the expos bench...
But like someone has already mentioned, after the 94 strike and the many hockey strikes my interest in professional sports had all but vanished.

this sucks, but doesn't surprise me.

people generally don't turn out for pro games anyymore... unless you suddently make it big.

prime example, the calgary flames last year... most did'nt give two shits about that team, until everyone thought we had a chance at winning the cup.

same is there. probably quite a few montreal peeps that will complain, but only after the fact.



this sucks.

I think it's great because Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who hasn't fielded a winning team in seven years, will be forced to do something or lose all his DC/Northern VA fans to a better team and a nice new stadium (in a few years). How about spreading some money around like your buddy Steinbrenner?

Seconded. It kinda sucks, but meh. It's not like they're moving les Canadiens or something.

It'll be nice to have a team closer than Baltimore to go and see.

They still televise games in French, although not in English.

As an ex-Montrealer and lifelong Expos fan, I should point out that there was a substantial fan base in Montreal; it's not true that there was never interest in baseball. (The team was one of the top draws in baseball for 4 years starting in 1979.) I would also submit that almost no market would support a team with the post-1994 history of the Expos. Had the Expos hired the right manager after firing WIlliams in 1981, or had there not been a strike in 1994...baseball could have thrived in Montreal.

I'm not so sure about that. Since '94, the Expos haven't been consistently the worst in their division, much less the worst in baseball. They've finished last twice, 4th five times and second two times. I think the Expos were cursed by the division they were in, having to compete with Atlanta, Florida and New York. Plenty of other cities have had teams with a worse track record and still fill their stadiums or at least draw more than 5,000 people a game.

[Edited on Sep 29, 2004 by charmcitysean]

Is that supposed to be funny ?

so no all Canada world series - not that any of the Canadian teams had Canadian players. And the expos had a dumb name.

...and too bad that stadium never worked.

No! It's a STATE!

Part of me thinks it's too bad. Then the rest of me remembers I just don't care about baseball.

OK, but you have to consider the context: the best team in baseball dismantled for scrap iron after 1994, on top of the bitter disappointment of the early 80s, and (most importantly) an ownership that was unwilling to make any investment in the team. In a few years the team was OK, but everybody knew they wouldn't keep a team long enough to be a contender. I don't think that's analagous to any successful franchise. If they never drew well that would be one thing, but they did. A properly capitalized and well managed team could have survived in Montreal. (That's not to say they shouldn't be moved now; there were no local ownership options, and I think that at this point the situation is beyond help.)

best of luck to that franchise under a new owner, with a fan base. If they had the resources of even a small market american team, the Braves wouldnt be winning the NL East every year.

U! S! A!

U! S! A!

You mean the worst team in baseball is now going to be the Washington Senators?

Hell, while we're at it, let's persuade the Dodgers to move back to Brooklyn.

It'll be 1953 all over again.

[Edited on Sep 30, 2004 4:38AM]

I live in the DC area and I will never go see this team. What little enthusiasm I have for any baseball team (I tend to feel like Sphinx) is reserved for the Orioles (although the Os have an annoying habit of beating Boston and losing to New York).

It'll be nice for the city to have yet another mediocre-to-awful pro team in the area that is completely ignored in favor of the Redskins, because the Redskins are all anybody cares about here. DC will be a financial bust for this team, too.