The Montreal Expos enter a lame-duck 2002 season, which will presumably be
their last. Take a look at Expo history, from the beginning stages to present day.

By Jeremy Russell

SPRING 2002

Baseball has long been known as our country's national pastime. The same
cannot be said for Canada, as hockey has long dominated Canada's sporting culture.
Enter the Montreal Expos, a 33-year-old team on the brink of banishment or relocation by Major League Baseball.

Unfortunately, the Expos have subsisted in a losing environment for an extended
time. If the Expos were to start winning, would anyone care? Conversely, could they
ever win a championship with their ever-diminishing payroll? And, if nobody cares, how could the Expos raise their payroll? Expo and baseball fans have had to live with this paradox for quite some time, and to top it off, the Expo tenure is nearing an end in Montreal.

As the team enters this lame-duck season, uncertainty will be the only certainty. For the next few months, it will be my mission to report to you the ups and downs of what appears to be, to say the least, an interesting season. But first, let's see how it all happened…

The Beginning

Gerry Snyder, a Montreal city councilor and lobbyist, can be credited as the father
of the Expos. In 1962, Snyder asked then commissioner Ford Frick about the possibility of bringing a National League team outside the United States. Frick's simple response: "You need to build a stadium before you can have a franchise." Snyder, knowing then that it wasn't possible, lobbied arduously for six years. Then, in 1968, a group of investors learned from Major League Baseball that the city would be awarded a team to start play in the 1969 season, despite the fact that a stadium had still not been built.

Snyder's hard work paid off, and things looked good for baseball in Montreal.
Good fortune lasted all but two months however, as Jean-Louis Levesque, a millionaire industrialist and main financial backer of the team, told his partners that he would be withdrawing his money, leaving the team in limbo. Snyder quickly went to Seagram's entrepreneur Charles Bronfman for help. He told Snyder that the money was available and not to worry about upcoming deadlines. Bronfman stuck to his word, and when the $10 million franchise fee was due, a group of investors were able, although barely, to pay.

A stadium still had not been built, and the team also remained nameless. The
commissioner's office of Major League Baseball sent John McHale to Montreal to size
up the situation. He was just about to leave with a report that the franchise may have to move when two sports reporters came to McHale and showed him Jarry Park. McHale was satisfied, and the team decided to settle there. Weeks later, the team was to decide between the "Nationals" and "Voyageurs" as a team name. Surprisingly, McHale announced at a press conference that the team's name would be "Expos," after the Expo '67, the World's Fair that was in Montreal two years earlier. With that, the Expos were finally ready to begin play.

Jarry Park, the team's first ballpark (courtesy of Expos official website)

The Expos Play Ball

The 'Spos reported to spring training for the first time on Feb. 24, 1969, and
opened up regular season play with an 11-10 win against the Mets at Shea Stadium. On April 14, in their home opener, the Expos beat the Cardinals 8-7, as 29,184 fans looked on. The Expos recorded their first no-hitter three days later, as Bill Stoneman won 7-0 against the Phillies. On June 25, the Expos executed a rare baseball feat, their first triple play. Though they went on to finish with a 52-110 record, ownership saw the season as a success. Expansion teams historically do not fare well, yet attendance was high in Montreal. Until then, the city had only seen the Montreal Canadiens, it's hockey team, in the professional limelight.

Over the next 20 years, numerous Hall-of-Fame caliber players graced the Expos,
players like Maury Wills, Ralph Kiner, and Manny Mota, and later on, Gary Carter and Andre Dawson. Even the infamous Pete Rose spent a year in Montreal; he collected his 3,000th hit in front of Expo fans.

The team moved into Olympic Stadium in 1977, after being built in 1976 for the
Summer Olympics. In their first game in their new home, a crowd of 57,592 watched the team lose to the Phillies, 7-2.

The team, in its 33-year history, has never contended for a World Series
Championship. In 1981, the team finally reached the National League Championship,
but lost in a deciding fifth game when Rick Monday, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, hit a game-winning home run in the ninth inning.

The Outside of Olympic Stadium, the Expos current home (courtesy of Ballparks.com)

In 1994, the Expos were experiencing their best regular season ever. They were
34 games over .500 and were six games in front of the Braves for the National League East Title. As the hard-luck Expos would have it, the players union decided to strike that year, ending all hopes of what could have been their first World Series in team history.

Michael Ferraro of the Poughkeepsie Journal

"Of all the tragedies that arose from the 1994 strike, the fall of the Montreal
Expos was the most disheartening of all. The '94 Expos had a chance to stake their claim of being one of the most talented teams of the decade, but they were denied a chance to compete in the post-season because the powers that be did not allow it.

It is fascinating to look at that team now and still see the number of core players
that are contributors, albeit elsewhere, eight years later. Granted, some of these guys are a lot closer to the end of the line than others, but Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Jeff Fassero, Greg Colbrunn, Delino DeShields, Darrin Fletcher, and Marquis Grissom all have tasted success in their post-Expo careers.

If it wasn't bad enough, what followed definitely was, as the team slipped farther
and farther from contention every year since the strike ended in 1995. What was an
organization known for one of the finest farm systems in the game is now just a sad
symbol of everything that is wrong with Major League Baseball."

The Growth of Disinterest and Disparity

After the player lockout of 1994, baseball saw radical changes. With no salary
cap to suppress contracts, owners with the willingness to spend, dished out money to
superstar free agents, while the low-budget teams were forced to lose their talent and
work with less-talented players. This, of course, didn't help raise money for teams in this situation, and ever since, the disparity continues to grow. The unequivocally perfect example of this is the Expos.

Attendance throughout baseball dropped as many fans lost interest in the
greediness of players and owners alike. This, along with the fact that talent diminished with each passing season, left more and more empty seats year after year. When Pedro Martinez signed with the Boston Red Sox in the beginning of the 1998 season, it became evident to fans that the Expos would not be able to financially keep their star players.

Where are they now?

Jeffrey Loria bought the Expos in 1999, and arguably ran them into the ground for
the next three years. In 2000, Loria decided to cut off all English radio broadcasts, and in 2001, the Expos played without a television deal. Both moves drastically hurt advertising revenue, as the payroll for the 2001 season was $34 million, one of the lowest in the league. For comparison, the New York Yankees spent well over $100 million. Another move that marred the relationship between fans and Loria was the firing of long-time manager Felipe Alou. Alou has been credited with the development of countless quality players in the major leagues, and was a popular figure both to players and fans alike.

This past winter, Jeffrey Loria bought the Florida Marlins upon the approval of
Bud Selig, baseball's acting commissioner. Even before the sale, the Expo situation
seemed uncontrollable, as the team was spiraling toward hopelessness. So, on Oct.
29, Selig formally announced that contraction in baseball would be, and still is, a
possibility. He was ready to ultimately eliminate two teams from Major League Baseball. The Miami Herald reported earlier that the two most likely candidates were the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins.

After baseball's winter meetings, House Judiciary Committee meetings, and
Minnesota State Appeals, and nine days before spring training began, it was announced that contraction would be called off for the 2002 season.

VAS SENATORS!! -A French Canadian's viewpoint on where the Expos will be playing next summer

 

In the end, Jeffrey Loria moved his entire Montreal staff with him to Florida.
John Henry, previous owner of the Marlins, obtained, with a group of investors, the
Boston Red Sox for a record $700 million. After all the smoke cleared, the Expos were left without an owner, leaving Major League Baseball to run the team.

The MLB bought the team for $120 million, and named Frank Robinson manager,
Tony Tavares team president, and Omar Minaya general manager. All players have
reported to spring training, and are seemingly ready to start the season. Both Robinson and Minaya have vowed to win, and fans can only hope for the best.

Lastly…

Watch our upcoming issues for the continuation of this series, as I plan to get an
inside look at how the Expos and their fans deal with the final season of Montreal
baseball. As one French-Canadian fan put it, "Les Expos de Montreal a vas-y
Washington, DC 2003. VAS SENATORS!" Translation: The Montreal Expos are going to Washington, DC in 2003. Go Senators! Is that the mutual feeling in Montreal? Only time will tell.

 

If you have an questions, feel free to e-mail me.