Musings on a Love Divided/Les rêveries sur un amour se sont divisées

Here's an added title translation for any Japanese fans out there:
愛のMusings は分かれた

So, in my post post-season daze, as I walk the streets of Boston as a lonely Yankee fan being tormented by "Believe" signs everywhere, I began to think about my time with the Expos. I joined on as a fan just a few years ago - late in the 2002 regular season, but my true love since age seven (not my first love because as a 6-year old, I was a band-wagon Cincinnati Reds fan) is the Yankees.

The motivation for becoming an Expos fan was based on the idea of balance. The Yankees are a competitive team whose owner sometimes (often - I will concede -often) spends the big bucks picking up each year's hottest free agent. The Expos don't (didn't) even have an owner. The Yankees have had a post season birth every year since 1995, the Spos have shown glimmers of talent but were basement dwellers during the three seasons of my fandom. The Yankees have the House that Ruth built and the Spos had to split their homestands between two different countries.

I believe for a short while balance was achieved. And I liked the balance; I wanted more Expos, more balance. You can see where this is leading....to a state of unbalance. As my brothers and I started planning stadium tours around the Expos, and we developped emotional connections with Patsy and JC, the Spos began to consume my time and energies. I would check their scores religiously and sometimes before the Yankees' score. Researching for and writing blogs took more time than I would ever spend on Yankees.com. Matthew professed to being late to work because of the Spos. This is not balance!

And this year, as the post season approached, I began to go even more off kilter. I began (as all true obsessed baseball fans do) to find links between the Yankees performance and the Spos. Down the stretch, I feared my joy over a Spos victory would tarnish the Yankees possibility of winning. And during the playoffs, I hid my Spos t-shirt, worn so proudly just a few weeks earlier, deep down in my drawer and tucked my Spos cap under one of my many Yankee caps. My baseball love did not multiply when I allowed the Spos in....it had divided. What kind of a Spos fan was I, hiding all traces of the team, so I could will the Yankees through the playoffs? What kind of a Yankee fan was I when I toured the country not to see them, but to see the Spos?

What kind of a person am I that I spend so much time thinking about this? (Clearly, you readers see why I sought to find more balance in my life.) Well, now that the 2004 season is behind us, and I have re-donned my Expos tuque for the chilly morning walks to work, I realize I am glad this experiment is over. I will always savor my time spent with the Expos, but I know for certain that from now on the Yankees, once again, will get all of my attention - undivided.

Frequency of Expos News/Fréquence des Nouvelles d'Expos

So I'm not the only one who hasn't been posting/writing about the Expos. And here to demonstrate that fact is Mr. Google Alerts, set to "Montreal Expos." Basically I get an email everytime Google News finds something with the words "Montreal Expos." I got the first one on 9/15/2004 at 11:15 am. I received the last one, in this graph, yesterday at 11:29 pm. It got me to thinking that I hadn't really received one in a while, which is shown below.



I got the first ten emails in about 4 days (9/15 to 9/19).
I got the second ten emails in about 7 days (9/20 to 9/27).
I got the third ten emails in about 2 days (9/28 to 9/30).
I got the fourth ten emails in about 8 days (10/1 to 10/8) - though it was almost 5 days btwn emails 39 and 40.
Since email 40, I have gotten two more emails in the span of 12 days.

As you might imagine, the time span of emails 21 to 30 (the third ten emails) is just about when Bud announced that the Expos were headed to D.C. But there is still hope!

My excuse for the lack of posts: I'm a Yankee fan.

Later.

Hotdog/Saucisse

CTV.ca | Cirque du Soleil pays $2,605 for Expos hotdog:

"The last surviving hotdog from a Montreal Expos home game has changed hands for the tasty sum of $2,605, or approximately 700 times its original price."

Later.

Still on the radar/Sur toujours le radar

Baseball Prospectus | Articles | From The Mailbag: Feedback on the Feedback:

"On the naming-rights issue, this is somewhat of a semantic argument. Let's say that, in appreciation for all his good works as baseball commissioner, I decide to buy a house and let Bud Selig live in it rent-free. Then let's say it turns out there's a treasure chest full of gold in the attic, and I tell Bud, 'Hey, you're a good guy, you went from owning two baseball teams to zero in the course of a week, you look like you could use some cheering up--go ahead, keep the gold.' Does that count as an additional cost to me, on top of the rent I'm forgoing? If not, and if you ever find a winning lottery ticket, can I have it?"

Haven't posted in a while (work, post-season games, etc), but I came across this article discussing the stadium issues in Washington DC that I thought was interesting.

Also from theinsiders.com, "an arbitration report due by Nov. 15, which could extend an injunction; and if that is favourable, at worst a final RICO decision by mid-December, as I understand it... a good Q & A at the Encore site: encorebaseballmontreal.co...ction=home"

Later.

Out of the basement/Hors du sous-sol

ESPN.com - MLB - MLB Power Alley:

"25. Expos "

The Expos pop out of the Bottom 5, which they were listed in at the penultimate ranking.

Later.

Expos Memorabilia/Articles d'Expos

National Post:

"'It's a fashion trend right now,' Peggy O'Leary, the Expos' merchandising manager, said Monday. 'It's an emotional reaction. You may have a few collectors, but it's mostly fans.'
Expos shirts and caps are in window displays in downtown shops and O'Leary said the Expos' Boutique at Olympic Stadium will open three days this week beginning Tuesday to sell off what remains of its stock.

...

"But tickets weren't torn in two as fans entered the stadium so they could be kept as souvenirs."

Did you get your Expos gear? Did they rip tickets this year at all? I thought they were all barcoded.

Bill Scheft mentions the Expos in his latest article. "The Expos are relocating to Washington, D.C. Here's what I don't get. Next season, they have to play 22 home games at the Spanish embassy."

Adolf builds a bonfire.../Adolf établit un feu...

CNNSI.com - SI Online - Sports Illustrated - Scorecard - Scorecard: Defend This - Tuesday July 23, 2002 05:58 PM:

And RICO plays with it.

"As it faces a racketeering suit, baseball should be afraid, very afraid

"Last week 14 former minority owners of the Expos filed racketeering charges against baseball commissioner Bud Selig and former Expos majority owner Jeffrey Loria. In the suit the plaintiffs contend that Selig, Loria and other baseball executives conspired to dilute their ownership and to drive down the value of the Expos as part of a plan to relocate or eliminate the franchise.

"Major League Baseball is unimpressed. 'The former limited partners of the Montreal Expos ... have decided to engage in a public relations campaign and file a frivolous lawsuit,' said baseball's chief operating officer, Robert DuPuy. Loria calls the suit 'frivolous and completely without merit.'

"The idea of Selig as a racketeer may sound far-fetched, but SI investigative reporter Lester Munson says there are four reasons why the commissioner must take the case very seriously.

1. The plaintiffs are huge engines of Canadian commerce with unlimited funds...
2. The attorneys representing the Canadian moguls, Jim Quinn and Jeff Kessler, are among the most impressive anywhere...
3. Paul Beeston, baseball's chief operating officer from 1997 to 2002, could be a critical player...
4. In the course of the pretrial skirmishing we may get our best look ever at the true state of baseball's finances..."

So get ready for the RICO case.

Follow it here at theinsiders.com.

Later.