What will MLB do with the Expos?
 

MLB apparently sent reps out to the other bidding cities this past week, including Washington DC, Dulles VA, Norfolk VA, Portland OR, Las Vegas NV, and Monterrey Mexico (Mexpos?).

Selig can't keep putting this off, where do you all think they're going to end up?

My hope: Contracted after 2006 season along with Tampa Bay or Florida.

My realistic hope: Norfolk.

Most likely: Washington (NOT NoVa).

The Expos will probably end up in Washington, although Angelos might have a coniption and really work to get them elsewhere.

My other 2 guesses would be Puerto Rico, (Mexico is too unstable) or Vegas. I think Vegas will rally hard to get it, trying to make them a legit "major" city and with the casino money would probably be able to outbid anyone else.

My hope would be much like DJ, the contraction of a few teams, but I doubt the union would allow that.

Realistically, I see MLB using the Expos to guage interest and once moved they will either move another team or 2 or flat out expand again..... (yes it really destroys the talent pool, BUT it is a quick way to bring teams millions and millions of dollars with expansion fees split among the owners. Unfortunately, most owners don't realize by expanding the value of their team goes down.)

Wouldn't it make sense to find someone to buy the team first?
Although knowing how those guys work, they probably haven't even thought about it.

they should just contract them but the players union would never let that happen imo. usually when your moving a franchise to another town, you have someone who wants to buy the team, or an existing owner who who really wants to move (cleveland to baltimore comes to mind, sorry brown fans :icare: ) from what i've read on espn, cnnsi, I don't recall any of these proposed towns pimping out to get mlb's attention. I think washington will end up with them, with angelos having a stroke when its announced.

All of these cities, as far as I know, have groups that would buy the team. That's why more logical places like Charlotte haven't been mentioned; they don't have a group.

Charlotte would be perfect, but since this is MLB, it won't happen.

And the team won't go into San Juan. There is no way they could generate the money needed from what I can guess.

It will be nice that they end up in Monterrey, but I think they will go to Washington DC

I reluctantly agree with djtestudo, I think they will pick D.C., not NoVA. Despite Peter Angelos' fear of a team in D.C., D.C. is a gigantic market that MLB will not be able to ignore. My hope, though, is that the friendship between Angelos and Selig will push the team to Dulles, my backyard, and I'll have a REAL local team. :thumbsup:

Personally, I'd like to see 'em go to Vegas. If Pete Rose gets re-instated, he'd fit right in as their manager.

But from what I've heard though, smart money's on D.C. Probably the only city that could afford MLB. Of couse affording them and supporting them are two different things altogether.

Even though I'm an AL fan, I'd like the Expos to come to Norfolk. Personally, I feel that if Washington has already had their baseball team move away TWICE then other cities should get the chance to have a franchise first before awarding another team to DC. Norfolk is the largest market in the country that has no major league franchise in any sport and we support our AAA and AHL teams and college athletics ferociously. We have a huge military population that would go to the games to see the Norfolk team play "their" team when they came to town. And hey, who cares if you're rooting for the home team or not when you paid your $$$ for the ticket and bought a few beers? Harbor Park is a beautiful minor league stadium right downtown that can easily be expanded to accommodate a major league team for a few years while we build a new stadium, which the city has already agreed to do should we get the team.

Give the team to Norfolk.

-Mikey

I agree with your point Mikey, although I believe Vegas is actually the largest market without major league sports.

DC simply doesn't deserve it.

As an update to my first post, when I said Tampa OR FLorida shoudl eb contracted with Montreal, I've decided it's Tampa. This week for the Orioles series they didn't draw more then 9,000 to any game, and on the Thursday afternoon game, from what the camera showed just panning around, there were MAYBE 3,000 there. That is shameful and Tampa should lose its team as soon as possible.

I would love to see them in Portland

There's no way there'd ever end up in San Juan, that's for sure. This year, we've been getting more fans in Montreal than they got in San Juan. Sad. :(

The way things are going, and judging by the intelligence of Bud Selig, I see the Expos to stay here - yeah, I live in Montreal - for one more year before they actually get their act together. I mean, he has to inform the other teams and the schedule makers extremely soon about the new location, otherwise it won't be going down this year.

It's a damn shame, too, because Montreal is such a great baseball city. Poor park location and the fact that we've been screwed over by MLB more times than the BoSox have lost the pennant doesn't help.

I look back as an Indians fan growing up in the 70's and 80's and see a lot of similarities with other cities.

Tampa has some decent players and in a few years may actually be a good team. Unlike the D-Backs and the Marlins (who had owners spend fortunes to win then ripped the team apart because they couldn't afford the players) Tampa and Colorado are running the same as any other expansion franchise has in its first decade. Poor attendence, poor teams. Toronto and Seattle were my youths expansion teams and they sucked until the late 80's. Seattle kept plugging away and then got some great drafts (JR. A-ROD, Johnson...) but they were almost always right around Cleveland in attendence. Toronto got lucky and in the early 90's got Gordon ash as their GM and he led them to a WS by way of FA, trades and drafts.

I wish baseball would just give cities like Montreal, Tampa, Miami, Minneapolis, a chance to keep their teams. Find them good owners that have city ties and market them better. Although, Montreal has had many chances for the past 10 years at least they were a farm team (much like the Indians were in my youth).

I think, also, with Montreal it is a political thing the Quebec has a predominant population that wants to seperate from Canada and there may be bigger problems in that political arena soon. And there may honestly not be an owner in Montreal that can keep them there. But Tampa, and most of all Minneapolis deserve teams and can be big markets if they could find an owner that would allow them to truly compete. Miami is iffy they have had a team the past 2 years and seems they just can't get attendence up, but then again it wasn't too long ago Huizenga burnt the city badly... so .....

I just think before you move a team or contract you need to seriously find a good owner and see what will happen first. MLB waited for Cleveland to do that in the mid 80's when the O'Neill family wanted to sell and thank God we had Jacobs come in and save the team.

I hope they dont go to washington...and are they going to change the name of the team when they move it?

I would think most likely. "Expos" refers to Expo '67, Montreal's World's Fair. Why would DC care about such a name...?

EDIT - Sorry about the double post. Browser error of some sort. Won't let me fix it. :|

Sigh. Not enough people actually know about what has happened to the Expos. The Expos were MLB's best team in '94. They were going to win the World Series. At 74-40, baseball decided to go on strike. Whoops.

After that season, it's been a fire-sale here ever since. When I hit the quote button, I felt like describing everything that's happened, but now I'm just too discouraged.

Randy Johnson
Pedro Martinez
Larry Walker
Moises Alou
Vladimir Guerrero
Marquis Grissom
Jeff Fassero
Ken Hill
Kirk Rueter
John Wettland
Ugueth Urbina
Javy Vazquez
Orlando Cabrera

Just some of the guys we've given away in the past 10 years.

Last I heard it was down to D.C and one of the Va cities.

D.C has threatened that if they don't get the team they will not loan out JFK stadium to the VA city till they build their stadium. I'm really hoping that they go to D.C. Our capital should have a team again. Word is that they'll be named The Senators :D

imo the senators would be the only apporiate name....i would like them to move to Harrisburg, PA area :lol supposedly they were trying for one but well harrisburg is only a MAJOR drive thru city...all the traffic goes thru here along with lots of MONSTER warehouses. If i am right on my geographics isnt d.c. close to baltimore? it would be like the ny city teams more or less right?

More like the San Francisco-Oakland area. Only further apart.

Also, slightly off topic, rumor around Baltimore is that the Senators are being sold by the city of Harrisburg in preperation for the Orioles AAA franchise moving there.

Ditto this ^^^^^^ They should have been contracted two years ago.

i know it wont happen lack of fan support but i would love to see them end up in indy

Indy's a good baseball city, many nights in late '94 and early '95 were spent in the old Bush stadium.

Indy has only 1 major problem,

1) they share with this with Columbus (Oh) that is the city is relied upon by a couple teams to draw fans. Cincy, the Cubs, St. Louis and to a much lesser degree the Indians and White Sox depend on Indy to draw fans.

I am not sure but isn't the Minor League team there the Expos' triple A team? I know when I lived there it was the Reds. Seems Indy is a team that is always switching affiliations.

There is a small movement to call the the team the Grays if they do go to DC, after the Homestead Grays, perhaps one of the greatest Negro League teams. I think that's particularly cool.

RFK stadium is 30-45 minutes from Camden Yards by car on the Baltimore Washington Expressway. Philadelphia is almost as close. Depending on how you add it up, the DC metro DMA is the 5th or 6th largest in the country, and Peter Angelos is sitting on it like Yertle the Turtle and doesn't want to share. Other major markets all support two teams just fine - NY Yanks and Mets, LA Dodgers and Anaheim Angels, Chicago Cubs and White Sox, SF Giants and Oakland As. The Ravens and Redskins and Eagles all seem to do quite well over in the NFL with no proximity problems.

The real problem with the Dulles/Northern VA plan is that the stadium financing is dependent on a private real estate development, and also there is no public transportation for the major metro population to get there.

The Montreal Expos' AAA affiliate is in Edmonton.

that i havent heard of i think i will have to do some research on that...but if i remember right harrisburg is the AA franchise to the Expos

I thought Portland would be the ideal relocation area, followed by D.C./NoVa then maybe Vegas. Does the lease on Olympic Stadium come up after this season? If so it'll be very difficult to have them play in Montreal in '05. If they dont get into RFK, could we have a whole year of the San Juan Expos? According to ESPN's Peter Gammons (least reliable source ever) the team will go to D.C. and be called the Lobbyists.

The Indianapolis Indians are the Milwaukee Brewers' AAA affiliate.

-Mikey

New twist in the DC Expos saga. The democratic primary on Tuesday shook up the DC council with Marion Barry and two other challengers unseating encumbents who were staunch supporters of a publicly financed stadium. MLB had a 12 hour marathon meeting with district officials yesterday, perhaps realizing that they had better get the deal done before the new council members take their seats. An official says the deal is very near, perhaps only five days away.

here's the story in today's washpost: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Sep16.html

Hopefully into the dustbin with the rest of MLB.

Sorry, bitter life long fan up until the '94 strike.

I hope they don't leave Montreal