So long tri-colored Elb/Au Revoir tri-coloré Elb
I feel betrayed. I convinced myself it wouldn't happen. I remained hopeful to the very end. I am completely unprepared to deal with the deeper questions that Matthew brought up in an earlier blog. Did I love the players or did I love trying to save an un-loved team? I don't see myself supporting a team from Washington - I don't think I have it in me. I will have to be like those lone Brooklyn Dodger fans who couldn't love the team in Cali and couldn't replace it with another NY team.
Aside from the mayor of DC and a few other people who expect to do $well by this deal, who actually will be supporting the team in DC? I bet if they had a rally there to support the new team less than a hundred people would go and no one from Hawaii would show up, guaranteed.
Well, it is a sad day my friends. And it will be an even longer, colder winter mulling over where to place all my Spos love. Go Spos. -Mo.
4 Comments:
That is an unfair characterization. Looking back on baseball lore, you'll see that Montreal and Washington both have long histories, ones that go back to the 19th century. Washington was never given a fair chance since the 1920s, but even so, the District will be a good baseball town. Washingtonians have long trudged to Baltimore to watch their home teams play; in time, they will come to know this one; the Expos will be welcomed with open arms.
2:39 PM
Washington wasn't given a fair chance?
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2004-09-29-senators-history_x.htm
I think 70+ years is a pretty good chance. Though I think that it often comes back to ownership.
Later.
2:57 PM
It does come down to ownership. It's unfair to judge a town too harshly because it was indifferent to the 2004 Expos or 1971 Senators.
Washington is a lot like Montreal in some respects. The ownership in Washington was nothing if not terrible. The Griffith family failed to protect its investment; they did not pay what it took to maintain a very good ballclub. Because they failed to integrate until 1954 - a full eight years after Jackie Robinson played before Montreal crowds - the Senators missed out on their final opportunity to become good.
Even so, Washingtonians of all stripes were good baseball fans. Indeed, the Homestead Grays - an all-black team that also played in Griffith Stadium - often outdrew the Nats. I hinted at the Griffith family's racism earlier. Calvin Griffith, unwilling to see the wrongness of his family's ways, believed Washington's increasingly black population was to blame for the team's woes. (Imagine how poorly things would have gone if Quebec's francophone majority were kept out or harrassed when they tried to come out to Expos games.)
Even though President Eisenhower and others begged him not to, Calvin Griffith took the Senators to Minnesota upon inheriting the team from his father-in-law (his birth name was Calvin Robertson, if you were wondering; no word on whether Mr. Griffith was an art dealer).
I'm being longwinded here, so I don't wish to go on – but the people of Montreal deserved so much better, and there are worse baseball towns than Washington.
8:54 PM
I'm glad that people from DC won't have to drive to Baltimore anymore, no one deserves that, but I feel like the move kills my appeal for the team. I loved how the 'spos played hard in front of 5,000 people and at least they took themselves seriously. I'm certainly glad for the players that they might benefit financially, but they never seemed to care (openly) about that. I just feel like if you went to a game in Montreal you really just wanted to watch the game. DC is going to be a place where political schemes get laid out and Haliburton plans another war. That being said...trivia to remember, Sledge(hammer) made the last out in the Stade Olimpic (sp?). Also, now the the stadium is free in Montreal, any chance I can rent it out for my birthday party?
6:38 PM
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