I can believe it...
no more baseball in Montreal

Yeah, I am rather sad to see them go! They produced my favorite player (Vlad) and my favorite pitcher (Vasquez). Oh well, here's hoping that baseball finally succeeds in Washington.

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*can't imagine it feelin' much better...
i wish it would just last forever.
and so, to feel like that?
i'd pay any price just to get that back.*

That sucks large.....

shame to see them go but it's the fault of the city itself aint it.I noticed they filled the stadium for the final game but thats what they needed to do on a regular basis and they'd still be playing!
They may not be the greatest team but you have to support through thick and thin if your any kind of sportsfan!

I'm not being offensive to the fans of Montreal, but with the amount of fans that showed up in their last game, why didn't they show up in any of the previous games, especially last year.

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Where has the time gone??????

i heard that a lot of the fans never got over the strike in the early 90's. they had a really good team that year and most likely would have made it to the playoffs and done some real damage.

quote:

Originally posted by jonze234 i heard that a lot of the fans never got over the strike in the early 90's. they had a really good team that year and most likely would have made it to the playoffs and done some real damage.

I heard just a short while ago, that some Canadians, including ones from Montreal, that the strike happened because of conspiracy. MLB didn't want Canada to win another World Series. If that was the truth, I'd be mad as hell. I was ten in '94 and I was a huge Expos fan.

Ofcourse, the real truth is, players just want moo-lah.
$$

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Where has the time gone??????

I also want to thx my friend M. Loria and his homo son M. Samson

quote:

Originally posted by jonze234 i heard that a lot of the fans never got over the strike in the early 90's. they had a really good team that year and most likely would have made it to the playoffs and done some real damage.

well I was one of these fans... and I never got over it and went only twice to check the Expos since the 94 season... many of my friends did the same.

I used to go 10 to 15 times a season.

Here's an excellent article resuming the general sentiment in this fine city.

Expos deserve better

By Jim Caple
ESPN.com

Major League officials are congratulating themselves today but the announcement that the Montreal Expos are moving to Washington, D.C. is a colossal failure and a downright shame.

Everyone insists the Expos are finally moving but I'm not so sure. Remember, before the Expos move there is still the little matter of finding an owner, getting a stadium officially approved by the city and fighting off any lawsuits from Montreal. Despite what everyone is saying, I think there is at least as good a chance that the Expos will play next season in Montreal as in RFK Stadium.

And frankly, no one ever goes broke betting against baseball accomplishing an objective on time.

Even if the deal goes through as planned, it seems foolhardy. Jayson Stark reports that Orioles owner Peter Angelos has to be guaranteed revenues in order to allow the move. When you consider that, plus all the money major league teams paid out running the Expos the past couple years, wouldn't it have been much easier to have simply used that money to build the Expos a stadium in Montreal and keep them in one of North America's largest markets?

Of course, it would have. But that would have meant undermining ownership's indefensible policy of forcing communities to build stadiums at taxpayer expense. It would have meant treating fans with respect rather than disdain. So it was never even considered.

The fans in Montreal were treated abysmally in all this. They supported their team loyally for years until the 1994 strike ruined what promised to be their finest season. And after that, the city was abused and let down by baseball again and again. As the league repeatedly hinted at the Expos demise, Jeffrey Loria was allowed to purchase the team amid promises that he would oversee the team's renaissance. Instead, he ran the club into the ground, failing to put the games on radio in English at one point, and was rewarded with a sweetheart deal to go to Florida while the Expos were threatened with contraction. They also had many of their home games moved closer to Venezuela than Montreal. And baseball pointed to the low attendance as proof that the game would never be supported in Montreal.

Had any of this happened to a team in the U.S. -- the contraction policy, the shifted home games, the conflict of interests -- there would have been an enormous outcry. But because it happened to a Canadian team, no one noticed. Or cared.

That's the real crime here. Baseball treated a team and a city about as badly as it could and no one paid attention.

If tonight's game is to be the final one at Stadium Olympique, I suggest the fans enjoy some final smoked meat sandwiches, sing "O, Canada'' at the top of their lungs, cheer their Expos and then give baseball the raised middle finger it deserves.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

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quote:

Originally posted by malek quote: Originally posted by jonze234 i heard that a lot of the fans never got over the strike in the early 90's. they had a really good team that year and most likely would have made it to the playoffs and done some real damage. The fans in Montreal were treated abysmally in all this. They supported their team loyally for years until the 1994 strike ruined what promised to be their finest season. And after that, the city was abused and let down by baseball again and again. As the league repeatedly hinted at the Expos demise, Jeffrey Loria was allowed to purchase the team amid promises that he would oversee the team's renaissance. Instead, he ran the club into the ground, failing to put the games on radio in English at one point, and was rewarded with a sweetheart deal to go to Florida while the Expos were threatened with contraction. They also had many of their home games moved closer to Venezuela than Montreal. And baseball pointed to the low attendance as proof that the game would never be supported in Montreal.

i don't understand how this can be blamed on the strike. the strike affected every team in the mlb. as i recall, the yankees were also amazing that year, and i remember being devastated because it was a real chance for mattingly to make it to the postseason. for a while stadium attendance sucked, but then it started to pick up again. and 10 years later, the fans are back with force. i see the other reasons, and those kind of make sense, but i don't see how the strike should or can be blamed because as far as i can tell, everyone suffered. if montreal really wanted to keep their team, they should have rallied when the first rumors of the move started. it doesn't show devotion and love when they sit at home and go "aw man, they're gonna leave anyway."

quote:

Had any of this happened to a team in the U.S. -- the contraction policy, the shifted home games, the conflict of interests -- there would have been an enormous outcry. But because it happened to a Canadian team, no one noticed. Or cared.

THEY should have made the ruckus. it was the fans' job. i'm not trying to be all hateful ... i'm sad that they're leaving montreal, and it's not gonna be the same if they move somewhere else ... especially to dc, cause dc has the orioles and they don't need anything else as far as i'm concerned. i'm just confused is all. if a team is really what they wanted, they should have fought and fought for it instead of just giving up. remember when they wanted to move yankee stadium, or build a new one? everyone flipped out ... and God knows if they touch that stadium, there will be a beatdown

but so not hateful ... there's only love when it comes to baseball

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you won't see me cry

panik