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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I read somewhere (maybe it was the Nationals Journal, too?) that one of the grounds crew was wearing an Expos jacket to one of the games, and was promptly asked to remove it and put on a Nationals’ jacket. I can understand the logic behind that, but I wouldn’t like to see Major League Baseball (or the Nationals) pretend that the Expos never existed.
Continuing to broadcast games in French would be good. It was one of my little baseball pleasures to sometimes tune in to Expos’ French-language broadcasts during the season. “It’s baseball, Jim, but not as we know it…” 😉
I don’t see Montreal adopting the Nationals as their team. If the Jays and the Nationals were ever in the playoffs, Montreal would root for the Jays (except for those Montrealers that hate Toronto, and they’d root for anyone else).
Quebec City doesn’t root for Colorado, and Winnipeg doesn’t root for Phoenix. After a year or two, when all traces of former players are gone, these cities that lost their teams will find another more local team to root for.
To type the c with the curlicue, make sure your keyboard’s “Num lock” is on, and punch Alt-135 using the numerical keypad at right.
Montreal didn’t care about the Expos when they were in MON, never mind now.
MLB will have their most successful season ever in 2005, because they are in DC.
Tradition is just another way to do the same old tired thing…it’s time to move on.
Al – I think that’s a bit harsh. The Expos got such a rough deal from MLB that in the end there wasn’t much left for Montreal fans to care about. They started out disillusioned and ended up disenfranchised, literally.
Speaking as a Montrealer, Al, you don’t know what you are talking about. In July and August of 1994, you couldn’t believe the euphoria that was taking over Montreal. People who never went to a ball game were finally going in droves. Montreal is like New York: they support a winner. Maybe that’s not a good thing, but, the Mets fans and Yanks fans (and I’m sure plenty of other towns) are the same way. Anyway, those last days in August were incredible. The whole city was on a high. And the strike followed by the fire sale was impossible to take for many, and certainly for the new fans who came on board. Remember, the Expos fans were just getting over losing Carter, Dawson, and then Raines in their primes, in a span of a few years, arguably all the best players at their positions. So think about it. You have the best team of the late 70s, early 80s, and one by one, you lose its best players. The founder and owner, one of the richest men in the world, has enough and sells out. Then, after a few years of rebuilding, we finally get the point where the past is forgotten… and then the fire sale. The first of many. It came to the point where Pedro, a lock for the Cy Young, was also understood that he was going to be traded in the offseason. Understand the context, and you will see that 1 million Americans, transplanted to Montreal and “environs” in 1969, would have reacted exactly the same way.