A good post in Nationals Journal about how the Washington Nationals have seemed to forget their history as the Expos.

Anyway, the reason for the francais today (sorry, but I don’t know how to type that little curli-cue thing under the “c” to make it properly French) is that there has been a steady stream of Montreal-area writers visiting camp in recent days, folks like Serge Touchette from Journal de Montreal, Sean Farrell from the AP, Jeff Blair from the Globe and Mail and Michael Farber from Sports Illustrated. They have all been perfectly congenial to us Washington media members, despite the inherent awkwardness. Though none of them have showed it outwardly, I can feel the sense of loss they must have in seeing their team walk away then show up in someone else’s arms. I overheard one of them marvel to another, “It’s as if the Montreal Expos never existed.” And it’s mostly true: There is virtually no evidence around the Nationals’ camp that the franchise ever existed as anything besides the Washington Nationals.

I’m not sure what they can do. Maybe arrange to broadcast games in French to Montreal. Maybe they could have the Expos logo somewhere on the scoreboard.
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It was the first day of spring traing for the Washington Nationals on Tuesday. Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post has the story.

For nearly five months, ever since Major League Baseball announced the Montreal Expos would be relocated to the District this season, the Nationals, at least as viewed locally, had been a team in concept only — made up, as best anyone could ascertain, of a business staff, a front office staff, a couple of trailers, a logo, a roster of “players.” But no faces or voices or stories to tell.
That all changed Tuesday, as the Nationals opened their first spring training camp on a glorious Florida morning. On the day pitchers and catchers reported to camp, players entered the home clubhouse at Space Coast Stadium with huge duffel bags slung over their shoulders (many of them emblazoned with the old Expos logo) and greeted each other with handshakes and hugs.

Evan Brunell comments on an article indicating that the Florida Marlins are likely to move to Las Vegas. Good for the Florida legislature to refuse public funding for a new stadium. Florida, unlike a lot of other states, makes a ton of money off baseball through spring training. I doubt the Marlins and Devil Rays add that much more to the economy. I suppose if MLB really wanted the two teams to get new stadiums, they’d threaten to move Spring Training somewhere else.

Eric McErlain at Off Wing Opinion has the story on stadium financing bill passed last night in DC. The bill calls for 50% private financing. MLB will not like that and can walk away from the District.
While I know this is a blow to fans who would like a team inside Washington proper, I say good for the Council. Taxpayers should not be responsible for these stadiums outside of infrastructure improvements to the surrounding area. As more and more cities take this position, teams will be less able to use the threat of relocation to get what they want.
Update: I’m back from Philadelphia. Thanks for all the great comments on this issue! An excellent discussion.

Shawn Bernard sends this story about a nice gesture by what’s left of the Montreal Expos.

The owners approved the move of the Expos to Washington today.

Approval was “subject to all conditions set forth in the Baseball Stadium Agreement” signed on Sept. 29 by the Expos and Washington Mayor Anthony A. Williams. That agreement called for the District of Columbia government to enact by Dec. 31 funding for a new ballpark for the team, which would be renamed the Nationals.
The D.C. Council voted earlier this week to approve funding, put placed a $630 million cap on the project — $195 million above the estimate contained in the September agreement. For the funding to become law, the Council must approve the measure again, and it must be signed by Williams, who favors the project.

What I find interesting is that this is one of the few votes in Selig’s tenure which was not unanimous.

Owners approved the move during a telephone conference call. The vote was 29-1, with the Baltimore Orioles dissenting, a baseball official said on condition of anonymity.

I’ve never quite understood why Selig doesn’t like public dissent. I wonder if all the compromising he must do to get total agreement doesn’t hurt more than help. How many good ideas went by the boards because he could not four or five owners to say yes?

There is going to be a press conference at noon today to announce the name of the Washington franchise. I don’t think the Expos?s is going to make it. 🙁
Update: Here’s the story. It’s the Nationals.

Ball-Wonk has discovered that their may be intelligence in the commissioner’s office after all.

BallWonk cannot imagine that all these moves show a coordinated campaign to put an African-American face on our new team, the better to promote baseball to Washington’s large black middle class and vibrant black entrepreneurial sector. No, wait, BallWonk can imagine that. What BallWonk doesn’t understand is how Emperor Selig and his dark minions could suddenly have become so smart. Working to get black families on the bandwagon from day one is a really, really good idea. DC is a majority-black city with a thriving black middle class whose major sports teams are an historically white-attracting football team, a soccer team in whose stands Spanish is a first language, a lilly-white hockey team, and a basketball team so bad that it could lose an exhibition match against the Washington Generals.
Which is not to put down on our other teams. They’re all wonderful in their own ways, but none has established itself in the heart of the black community. Why, DC United soccer games draw more fans than Washington Wizards basketball games. This gives baseball an opportunity to market itself to black families in Washington that it would not have in most other cities.
The natural conclusion of a campaign to put an African-American face on our new team would be naming it the Grays. And Major League baseball has unwittingly provided yet more evidence that it plans to do just that. The Homestead Grays’ colors were blue and gray (well, mostly; like a lot of teams back in the 1930s and ’40s, colors could change at random from year to year, but blue and gray were the defaults).
When Emperor Selig’s dark minions created an official web page for our new team, they gave it a blue-and-gray facade and a logo in, you guessed it, blue and gray.

I would remind people that working in that office is one Sandy Alderson, who is one of the smartest people in baseball. And the one thing for which I have praise for Selig’s tenure is his outreach to minorities. This is a marketing strategy that makes perfect sense. And though I’d like to see them named the Expos?s because it would be very humorous, I’d much rather see them called the Grays than the Senators.

Jean-Pierre Allard offers this essay on the demise of the Montreal Expos.
Update: Jean-Pierre blogs about the Expos here.

Bill Young attended last night’s Expos game, and sends his thoughts on the evening:

For thirty years that was how Expos? announcer Dave Van Horne would call a home run hit by a Montreal player. ?Up, up and away?..? No matter where we were, at home, or in the car, or out someplace where the radio was playing, whenever we heard Dave?s velvet voice make this call, the ears would perk up and we would smile. ?Up, Up and away?. It was a sound of our summers past, a sound of joy, a sign that something good was happening.
But last night, September 29, 2004, ?up, up and away? took on a different connotation. This time, more than just the ball was leaving the park: this time, the whole Expos team was on its way out – and they were taking with them 35 years of memories, of life experiences, of traditions. They were taking a piece of us with them, and frankly, it hurt. (And as if the sting were not sharp enough, our beloved Dave van Horn is currently the voice of the Marlins. He was in town, doing this game!)
And so on this final night, over 30,000 of us gathered together at the Olympic Stadium one last time to wish them all ?au revoir?. But it wasn?t a going away party; it was a wake. There was little joy in this Mudville.
Some of us were still in denial – one poster read ?My head says ?au revoir? my heart says see you in 2005?. Others were angry, with a typical placard calling this date Black Wednesday (as opposed to that other day of infamy, Blue Monday). There was resignation, there was gratitude, there was plenty of nostalgia, and there was sorrow.
In the beginning, there was a surprising amount of bitterness in the air ? and it was directed in an amorphous sort of way at those faceless, heartless men in suits who had allowed this thing to happen. It is convenient to blame the fans, but you might as well blame the passengers for the state of modern train service. The fans were the last to give up.
And so when Kim Richardson began to sing the American national anthem, she was greeting with loud an extended round of boos. It was disrespectful, to be sure, but it was not meant as an insult to our US neighbours. Rather, or so I believe, those doing the booing were seeking an outlet to express their profound displeasure at the way Bud Selig and his American partners in crime had done us in, and this seemed the best available. The booing was greeting immediately by an equally loud round of clapping and cheering, a kind-of, ?Hey! This is Montreal. We don?t do things that way here?.
The Canadian national anthem was received respectfully, and when the singer reached that part where she sings the English words, you could hear many voices from the crowd joining in. This was a surprise.
The pre-game ceremonies featured a muted celebration of the 1994 Expos ? the team destined to become world champions, except for the fact that the series of which they were to become champions was never played ? with starter Ken Hill the only key member present. He threw out the first pitch.
We were all hoping for a victory ? a rout would have been nice – and in the beginning the Big “O” was rocking once again. After all, the visitors were the hated Florida Marlins, Expos? nemesis and now owned by the detested Jeffrey Loria. Unfortunately, by the second inning, thanks to some shoddy pitching and sloppy defence, the Marlins had scored four runs and taken our side right out of the game,
The crowd reacted badly to this turn of events, and after another round of booing, accompanied by several objects, including a golf ball or two, tossed onto the field, the umpires issued a warning that any more of this and the game would be forfeited. Forfeiting the last game – now there?s a threat!
Frank Robinson, who has fallen deeply out of favour with the fans, over reacted and pulled his players off the field ? which just stirred things up all the more, and for a few moments it looked as though the situation might truly get out of hand. Fortunately, the androgynous Youppi, long-serving mascot and best-loved Expo of them all, reacted heroically by leaping up on the dug-out roof and leading us in a remarkable, and extended orgy of clapping and cheering and singing, reminding us once again why we were here. It worked; the sourness of the moment passed and the game went on.
As the Expos took the field at the top of the ninth, we all rose as one, and began cheering yet again, a standing ovation in a 1-9 ball game. And when they played Sarah McLaughlin?s ?We Will Remember You? over the loud speakers, even the toughest among us lost it.
After the game, the players gathered on the field, for picturing taking and to say good-bye. While the cheering continued, now more subdued, the forever-classy Claude Raymond addressed the crowd, en fran?ais, super sub Jamie Carroll followed with more words of thanks, and the heroic Livan Hernandez, a throw-back to baseball?s golden era (he had 9 complete games this year!) spoke in Spanish.
We all just hung around, for a long time. Nobody was in a rush to leave ? players and fans and staff. Nobody was ready to close the door.
When I finally made my way out sometime after 11 p.m. there were, even still, several hundred folk milling around. Every now and then one player or another would come back out and wave. And then disappear.
It was very sad. It was also very final. It is over.
For the record the Marlins won 9-1. Former Expo Carl Pavano was the winning pitcher; Sunny Kim took the loss. Juan Rivera had the last-ever hit by an Expo player at home, his third of the night. Termel Sledge (best-ever baseball name?) made the final out. Fittingly, he popped weakly to third.

Off Wing Opinion has a number of posts on the Expos moving to Washington. Start here and keep moving forward in time. He also links to this interesting piece by Colby Cosh which indicates this deal may not be final.

A visit to a referring thread at TheInsiders.com directs my attention to this PDF file, which purports to be a copy of the statement of claim in the RICO lawsuit by the former minority owners of the Expos against Loria, Selig, and others who connived at the asphyxiation of major league baseball in Montreal. The document appears authentic. (You can tell it’s from 2002 because it looks just like those CBS memos from 1972–har har.) I haven’t read the whole statement yet–I skipped around until I found the part I was looking for:

10. Plaintiffs seek redress for their injuries, including compensatory damages, which are tripled under RICO, and punitive damages in an amount no less than US$100 million. In addition, this action seeks a constructive trust over the Montreal Expos franchise, and injunctive relief prohibiting the contraction, relocation or sale of that team.

Stay tuned.

I was mistaken in this post today. It was the ultimate game for the Expos in Montreal, not the penultimate one. Given the way Montreal played in their last series, it could not have come too soon. They lost all three, being outscored by the Marlins 18-4. Former Expos pitcher Carl Pavano won the game. It would be nice if the Expos could be moving to Washington with players like Pavano and Guerrero. I hope the Expos?s do a better job of keeping their good players.

James Joyner is covering the news about the Expos move to Washington.
I’ve been trying to come up with a good name for the new team, and I think I finally have it. It respects the history of the franchise and also fits with the new city: The Washington Expos?s!
Update: The Washington Post reports that the move is official. (Hat tip to James Joyner at the above link.)

There are some Expos fans who still care about their team. They rallied to try to save baseball in Montreal yesterday.

A reader sends this story about the Expos moving to DC. Looks like MLB is going to decide to move the team, then find a buyer. What a long strange trip it’s been.

It looks like it just got tougher to move the Expos to Washington, DC. David Gertsman mails this story about the DC elections:

The victories of Barry, Brown and Gray could have enormous implications for the direction of economic development in the city. All three called for greater emphasis on affordable housing and new development for neighborhoods. And all three say they oppose raising taxes to build a Major League Baseball stadium, a priority for Williams and for baseball officials, who are on the verge of deciding whether to move the Montreal Expos to the Washington region.

And good for them. I’m all for private money to build stadiums. Maybe the groups interested in putting the Expos in DC could raise private money from all the K-Street lawyers in exchange for calling the team the Capitol Lobbyists!

Soccer Dad states his dislike for Angelos and cites evidence that Washington baseball fans want their own team.
Of course, they’d have a team if they’d just come up with the extortion money.

Outside the Beltway has analysis of the story that the Expos players are being told they are likely going to be in the Washington area next year.

Off Wing Opinion links to an excellent three part series in the Washington Post on the behind the scenes scheming that will or will not bring the Expos to D.C. It’s very long, but well worth the read. To sum it up as briefly as possible, MLB uses it’s anti-trust exemption to cajole citites into paying for new stadiums. It’s using the same tactics to get suitors for the Expos to pony up for a new stadium in order to get the Expos. Selig won’t allow the team in Washington because he’s now buddy-buddy with Angelos.
There is one quote I do want to share with you. Leave it to the A’s to get things right:

The Bay Area is the prism through which Selig views the Baltimore-Washington debate. The market, he said, is not “a perfect analogy” but baseball needs to “learn from history” as it considers whether to put two teams so close together. His views were shaped by the struggles of the Giants and Athletics after A’s then-owner Charles O. Finley moved his team from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968 “without any analysis at all,” Selig said.
But recent developments have made Selig’s views, along with many of the underlying assumptions shaping the debate in Washington, appear obsolete. Buoyed by the construction of a privately funded waterfront stadium, the Giants came within eight outs of winning the 2002 World Series and won the National League West last season by 15 1/2 games. The A’s have drawn more than 2 million fans three straight seasons and had the second-best record in baseball from 2000 to ’03.
“Competition is a wonderful thing; I believe in it strongly,” said Steve Schott, the A’s owner and one of the largest homebuilders in California. “If you don’t have competition, what’s to keep the other team from being very lax and complacent about trying to bring the best product they can to the marketplace?”
The population of the Bay Area, including San Jose, is 7 million. The population of the consolidated Baltimore-Washington metropolitan areas is 7.6 million.

Eric at Off Wing is concerned that a team in DC would devestate the Orioles television revenue. I would point out that would happen only if the Washington Expos were given exclusive rights to the TV markets Baltimore now serves. Let’s follow Steve Shott’s idea and introduce competition into the market. Why not let Philadelphia/Baltimore/Washington share a TV market. Let people watch their favorite team. One of the great things about growing up in the NY broadcast area in the 1970’s was that with the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers and Islanders, there was always a game on! (And five of those teams were on one channel.) Let these teams duke it out on the dial.

The AP buried the lede on this story. It’s not about mediocrity; it’s about Angelos saying he won’t put up a fight to relocate the Expos in Washington. That’s good news. My guess is that it will help the Orioles more than it will hurt them, because more baseball = more baseball fans. And like they do in most cities, you schedule the two teams home stands separately. If I were in the Washington area, I’d be excited that I’d have the chance to see 162 home games in a season!

Silas Barnaby foreclosed on the Olympic Stadium mortgage today, leaving the Expos without a Stadium to call their own. The players can be seen during the day huddling on street corners with tin cups, begging for money to build a new ballpark, or at least bus fare to get out of Canada. Forced to play their home games in empty lots and dead end streets, Le Expos face the additional indignity of using cardboard boxes for their lockers.

“The situation is desperate,” Hall of Famer Frank Robinson opined. “Last week a ball got by Carl Everett and rolled into the sewer. We couldn’t afford to lose the ball, so Carl had to climb down there to get it. We’d call him Stinky, but we all smell pretty bad right now.”

When reached for comment, commissioner Rose said, “I used to play in Montreal. They talk funny up there. What was the question?”

The Orioles are launching a PR blitz to attract more fans from the Washington area. It appears they are doing this not only to increase attendance, but to show that a team in northern Virginia would eat into their ticket sales.

Travis Nelson debunks the notion that moving a team into the nearby area of an existing team hurts the existing team. Seems attendance has more to do with winning percentage than anything else.

Doesn’t look like the Montreal Expos will be moving to Portland, Oregon:

“I think everybody realizes that letting things drift along too much longer is a decision — whether it’s made consciously or not — not to get the Expos,” said Steve Kanter, president of the Portland Baseball Group.

Colby Cosh has a list of quotes predicting the last year of the Expos, dating back to 1997.

It looks like the New Jersey Nets will be moving to Brooklyn shortly. I think it’s a great move, and I’ve felt for a while that Brooklyn would be a perfect destination for the Expos.

Sorry I missed this the other day. Fox has reached an agreement with Frank McCourt to sell the Dodgers. I don’t know anything about McCourt (and the deal still has to be approved by the owners), but my guess is that it’s a good one for the Dodgers. I’ve never been impressed with the record of media conglomerates owning teams.

Gareth Mitchell writes me about the pontential move of the Expos to Las Vegas:

I live in Las Vegas, and read the column in the Las Vegas Review Journal on Saturday mentioning the Expos moving here. A couple points from me living here for 3 years now. This town is made up of people who moved here from many locations, mostly southern California. We fail in just about every sport that comes here. We have the 51s and they only sell well on fireworks night. We have an Arena league team, but they are still new to us, so it is hard to judge, and we are just getting a AA hockey team. Mayor Goodman seems to think this is a major league town, yet we never support anything that comes here. Trying to fill a 42,000 seat stadium 81 times a year would be tough around here. We have several demographics that make anything like this difficult. Being a 24 hour town, we have a lot of people who work unusual shifts, which could make it difficult to make a night game. Also, a lot of people in this town don’t make a lot of money. Honestly, I would love to see them give this a shot, and hopefully it would work, but it makes you wonder why every other venture to come to town doesn’t work. Although one issue would already be addressed, baseball is played in the summer, and maybe people would go to Cashman Field more if it wasn’t 115 degrees during the day. Just thought you would like an opinion from a Las Vegan.

Thanks, Gareth. There are reasons major league teams might do better; for one thing, they are playing for championships instead of just trying to develop players. But your concerns are valid. The Angels were really in a similar situation for most of their existence. People who lived in Anaheim came from all over the country, and often you’d have more fans of the visiting team than the home team at Angels games. But that’s okay, as long as people come to the ballpark. Eventually, if the team wins, Las Vegans (love that term) will come to be fans of the 7-11’s.
(Note: 7-11’s is my name for the team. I’ve heard no rumors about what the team might be called. I might suggest two names depending on the situation. If they are winning, they could be called the High Rollers. If they are losing, the Craps. 🙂 )

Darren Viola sent me a link to this article about how Steve Stone has been in secret negotiations to buy the Expos and move them to Las Vegas.

Somehow Stone and his partner, Lou Weisbach, managed to keep their pursuit quiet, at least from the press, telling people only on a need-to-know basis. Of course, they’ve told Major League Baseball all about their plan. And they’ve told potential investors.
The mayor of Las Vegas knows. Cubs president Andy MacPhail has known (because, after all, he is Stone’s boss) for a while now.
Ownership groups in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Portland, Ore., have been vying for the right to save the Expos from San Juan or Monterrey or whatever foreign city commissioner Bud Selig’s dart lands on next. Most people figured the Expos would end up in or around the nation’s capital. Not so quick. Quietly, Stone might have gained an edge.
“Discretion,” Stone said, “has been a priority.”

I don’t have a problem with a team in Las Vegas per se, but I do worry about how MLB can possibly keep teams from associating with gamblers if the team is there. What does bother me is that the process of moving the team to Portland or Washington has been very out in the open. It’s not clear that either of these cities knew they were also competing with Las Vegas. That’s unfair.
I also don’t know if baseball will work as an attraction:

Stone wants to buy the vagabond Montreal Expos and move them to Las Vegas. He wants to build them an intimate domed stadium in the desert–say 42,000 seats or so. He wants to see the team become the hottest act in Vegas since Wayne Newton was cool.

I didn’t know that Wayne Newton wasn’t cool. But teams need loyal fans. If the Las Vegas 7-11’s are going to be a successful franchise, they’ll need more than tourists filling the seats. But from what I can find, Vegas has a fast growing population, so maybe that’s not a problem.
I don’t like the way MLB has gone about this, but it would not be a bad place for the Expos to move.

Darren at Baseball Primer has a link to an article about Craig Marquardo, a man who wanted to bring major league baseball to Portland. Seems his resume didn’t check out.
Reminds me of a line from Guys and Dolls about getting cider in your ear.