The Expos logo was never really revered or celebrated, that is, until the team left. While you'll always find a healthy dose of Expos caps and jerseys circulating around the city, the brand itself has grown its own "cult-like" following around North America - you'll find more people sporting the Expos brand as a fashion statement than you ever would when the team was around. Imagine what would happen if the team did come back?
Merchants would not be able to keep up with the demand there are no numbers supporting this, though. Contrary to what many think, Montrealers are not "happy" that the Rays are proving to be unsustainable in the Sunshine State.
As a city that has already gone through relocation, you'd be hard pressed to find many Montrealers who are openly happy that they might get a team back at the expense of another city. Having lived through the loss of the Expos, they know it was not a fun experience, and they don't not wish the same pain on any other sports fan. That being said, Major League Baseball doesn't make money off not breaking hearts. It makes money by having teams in cities that can get fans in the stands, and despite having a fairly successful team the past few seasons, the Rays have not been able to pull in high enough attendance numbers to earn the confidence of Major League Baseball's top people.
The lack of attendance in Tampa is the thing that opened this "can of worms" in the first place. This might be a bit of a reach as a reason for the return of baseball to Montreal, but it's worth a mention, at the very least. For decades, Canada has been viewed as one thing only: a hockey country. Was it and is it still warranted? Of course it is.
Canada breathes, eats, and sleeps hockey. Recently, though, numbers have shown massive participation increases in "non-traditional" Canadian sports, specifically soccer and basketball. While the increased participation hasn't made much of a difference on the pitch, the meteoric rise of Canadian basketball cannot be ignored. The rise of Canadian basketball can be, at least somewhat, related back to the relatively successful Vince Carter years of the Toronto Raptors - and it wouldn't be surprising to see a new wave come through Ontario thanks to the current popularity of the Toronto Raptors.
So who's to say the same can't happen with a return of the Montreal Expos? Baseball is still widely played throughout Quebec, and the return of baseball would only help grow the sport even further.
We usually don't make the direct association between politics and professional sports until there's a reason too, and if there ever is one it's usually for negative reasons. That's not the case here, as the election of Denis Coderre as Montreal's mayor has only helped the movement to bring baseball back to Montreal. A huge sports fan in his own right, Coderre has been vocal in his belief that Montreal is ready for a second shot at Major League Baseball, and has openly stated his support for the idea.
It's another matter entirely if he can be a key cog in making it happen, but so far all signs point to Coderre being an integral and willing part of the process. When the Montreal Expos left in , the overall Montreal sports landscape was one of the worst in North America. The hallowed Montreal Canadiens were coming off a sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs - this was one of the few bright spots of a lengthy period of futility for the Habs.
The Montreal Alouettes were consistently good, but were still practically in the infancy of their existence and were barely considered a professional sports team similar to the rest of the Canadian Football League. The Major League Soccer version of the Montreal Impact only came to be a few years ago, so suffice to say, there wasn't much going on or going right for Montreal based sports teams. Today, the Canadiens are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, the Alouettes are slowly but surely coming around after a rough start to "Life After Anthony Calvillo ," and while the Impact were downright awful this season, they are at least a legitimate professional soccer team compared to when they we're a glorified minor league entity.
Some believe the addition of a baseball team would diminish the value of the Impact and Alouettes as no one is touching the Canadiens , but the flipside of the argument is just as legitimate - how great would it be to go to a baseball game and then head over to Molson Stadium for some football, or perhaps take in a soccer game before heading to the Expos' new stadium? Many are ignoring the possibility of these teams working together to prosper at the same time and instead choose to look at the negatives, that shouldn't be the case.
It's no secret that Bud Selig is not a well-liked man in Montreal. Selig deserves at least part of the credit or as Montrealers would put it, the blame for the Expos leaving in the first place, and there was virtually no chance they would be back under his watch. With Selig on the way out and Rob Manfred on the way in , the chances of Montreal getting a team automatically rise even if it's only by a small amount. Jeremy Jeffress pitched the final two innings for the win.
Met's third baseman David Wright, a rookie in , called it a fun night. To come up to a great city with an obviously hungry fan base — it's kind of like a dress rehearsal for us.
You've got the big crowd, you get a little more excited than at a normal spring training game. Toronto got one back in the fourth on Jose Bautista's home run, but Ruben Tejada doubled and scored on Daniel Murphy's two-bagger off Casey Janssen in the fifth. Former Blue Jays prospect Travis d'Arnaud led off the seventh with a home run, but Edwin Encarnacion tied it with a two-run single in the seventh off Gonzalez Germen. Encarnacion was tagged out in a rundown after the runners scored.
The Expos, who became Canada's first major league team in , moved to Washington to become the Nationals in after a decade of fire sales of top players, dwindling attendance and timid ownership.
Cromartie and others are trying to revive baseball interest. They called on Montreal fans to turn out in large numbers to the pre-season games to show that the city will support baseball. You need that support. But it would be good for Canada. The Mets are old Expos rivals, but the crowd was behind the Jays from the start.
Beer was poured, hot dogs were steamed buns toasted , and programs were sold. Fans, legions of them, cheered home runs, booed errors and gasped at great defensive plays, heckling in both English and French. For a pair of games on Friday and Saturday, Montreal was a Major League Baseball city for the first time since its franchise picked up and relocated to Washington DC 10 years ago.
With a temporary truce between intra-Canada rivals Montreal and Toronto in place, enormous crowds backed the Jays against the Spos' former National League opponents, handing baseball-starved fans two victories and a host of memories during a weekend of nostalgia. Most importantly to impassioned locals, the events provided strong evidence that Montreal is a city that deserves a second chance at hosting an MLB team.
Former Expos closer John Wetteland was in attendance. He told the Guardian:. Considering that attendance was one of the myriad of reasons that the Expos left after the season, the sheer size of the crowds were surreal — more than 96, fans came out for the series, packing the Pie IX Metro stop, while mammoth walk-up lines for last-minute tickets clogged the entry ways into the Stade Olympique. The turnout validated and bolstered the work being carried out by the Montreal Baseball Project, a grassroots group headed by the former Expos outfielder Warren Cromartie , who started out on his mission four years ago.
We understand this is going to be a little journey. I was certainly willing to call success an average of about 25, fans per game. McHale continued:. Our perception was that this market had likely lost the intense enthusiasm it once had for Major League Baseball and I think that this requires us to recalibrate our estimation of how popular our sport might be here. Even if McHale has past Expos links, his comments are an exclamation point for the fans who were finally provided with a long-awaited opportunity to honor their past.
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