Baseball à Montréal

[thurmas]

Just wondering if anyone here thinks baseball will come back in some form to montreal. I would love to see a 18000 seat AAA ballpark (Buffalo I believe has dunn tire park which seats 20,000)built for montreal and have the ballpark expandble to 36000 if the majors did ever decide to return. Obviously the Big O is useless for all pro sports teams since it killed every one of it's tennants atleast once ie:expos,concordes, maniac, machine, alouettes twice almost. I would convert the big O into the national canadian olympic training grounds by converting the Big O into a world class velodrome and a track and field venue. Montreal has too rich a baseball history to have no baseball at all.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Just wondering if anyone here thinks baseball will come back in some form to montreal. I would love to see a 18000 seat AAA ballpark (Buffalo I believe has dunn tire park which seats 20,000)built for montreal and have the ballpark expandble to 36000 if the majors did ever decide to return. Obviously the Big O is useless for all pro sports teams since it killed every one of it's tennants atleast once ie:expos,concordes, maniac, machine, alouettes twice almost. I would convert the big O into the national canadian olympic training grounds by converting the Big O into a world class velodrome and a track and field venue. Montreal has too rich a baseball history to have no baseball at all.

Well, we just replaced our triple-A ball team with a CanAm league team and Québec City's also in the league, so Montreal would nicely round out the Canadian triumvirate. I'm not sure Montreal, formerly a major league city, would be as quick to embrace a minor league team but for all the true fans of the sport it would be a treat.

The Ottawa Lynx were the Expos' farm team for years and the few games I attended were in those days (I'm not a big baseball fan). When we switched and became the farm team of the Baltimore Orioles, it was like, huh? With the new team I suspect there might be a greater attachment from fans because it's really a local team and not a farm. Montreal's ball fans would be the same - I don't think Montreal would tolerate being anyone's farm team, but having a CanAm club might just be the ticket.

[graupner]

I used to be a big baseball fan but I don't care anymore about baseball. A minor league team is an insult and is not welcome in Mtl.

Many people where desillusionized when the Expos finally left, after beeing treated like shit for many years. a sad story..

[Rico Rommheim]

I'd love to the baseball come back but I don't think it would work. The Expos proved it.

[Acajack]

I was a huge Expos fan as a kid but my perception is that baseball isn’t really on the radar screen in Montreal or in Quebec in general any more. This is ironic in that the current crop of pro players out of Quebec, though modest, is the best in generations (Gagné, Martin, Aumont, Laforest, plus French-Canadian Érik Bédard who is from Navan just outside Ottawa). Sure there are still some fans but if I think of what sports people talk about around the water cooler, baseball doesn’t even rank in the top 5 these days.

Hockey is the uncontested king, with no other sport even close. Don’t know if I have the right order here, but behind hockey are Canadian/American football, Formula 1 auto racing and soccer. Soccer’s growth is phenomenal. When the World Cup is on during the summer (as it was in 2006), it’s by far the main sports “buzz” here for the duration of the tournament. And L’Impact is doing pretty well locally also. In the Expos’ last years in Montreal, L’Impact would easily outdraw the Expos by a two-to-one margin most of the time. Now, I realize L’Impact plays fewer home games, but they are playing in the equivalent of what?, the Belgian fourth division, whereas the Expos were playing in the best baseball league in the world.

Municipalities across Quebec these days are falling all over themselves converting baseball diamonds to soccer fields, not to deliberately push soccer but in response to real demand.

[Only The Lonely..]

I loved the expos when they were around.

It's too bad you guys got the shaft.

[big W]

I don't think it will happen. Baseball as a sport has been dropping across Canada. At one time Toronto and Montreal had MLB teams while Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa all had AAA teams. Guess what only one team left and thats in Toronto. The rest of the cities have lower independant league teams but teh attendance is very low. Most people do not care about the sport and as was said earlier, soccer is gaining ground in its place with ball diamonds being converted etc. Montreal will not see another MLB team and as time goes on, the diamonds will be converted for use for soccer and football both sports that are gaining ground in this country.

[GDS]

Minor hockey can't even survive in Montreal (&no Le Junior will not make it).

How do you expect baseball to make it?

[Acajack]

I had suspected the decline of baseball (both as a spectator and participation sport) was Canada-wide.

Thinking about it a bit more, I am in my thirties and all of the people I know who are interested in sports follow hockey to some degree. Most but not all follow the CFL/NFL and close behind would be the number who follow Formula 1.

A significant number follow international soccer (including many who are not immigrants), with the vast majority paying close attention during World Cup time.

Since the Expos left, baseball appears to have been relegated to a small “niche”, similar to where basketball has always been in Quebec. In this province at least, there is no “buzz” at all about the NBA, NCAA March Madness or Canadian college championships. To most people, basketball is akin to volleyball - just a sport you played in the high school gym when you were a teenager.

[TheMeltyMan]

The Expos were there to pay off the Olympic Stadium debt and baseball never really caught on, with the exception of a few seasons.

[big W]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I had suspected the decline of baseball (both as a spectator and participation sport) was Canada-wide.

Since the Expos left, baseball appears to have been relegated to a small “niche”, similar to where basketball has always been in Quebec. In this province at least, there is no “buzz” at all about the NBA, NCAA March Madness or Canadian college championships. To most people, basketball is akin to volleyball - just a sport you played in the high school gym when you were a teenager.

Basketballs status across Canada is the same. I seem to recall an NBA team in Vancouver which is now gone and when I was in Toronto I was given tickets to the Raptors game, which during the game, they were showing the out of town score board (NHL results of course) and people were cheering GO LEAFS GO. Gives you an idea of what it is like in the only city with an NBA team let alone the rest of Canada.

[big W]

The problem is that Baseball is just not that relevent to most Canadians. We simply do not care and I do not see a new team coming back. In fact even the Blue Jays are a mid market team so I don't see MLB coming back to what surely will be a small market team and prime to relocate. I wish we could get a trade for 2 NHL teams so we sent them the Expos for the return of the Nords and Jets.

[Acajack]

I went to university in Ontario (not in the GTA and some years before the Raptors), and NCAA March Madness was actually quite a big deal on my campus.

[ErickMontreal]

Blair: Bring Back The Expos


Paul Chiasson/Associated Press
After 36 seasons in Montreal, the Expos played their last home game before 31,395 fans at Olympic Stadium.

Jeff Blair, July 15, 2008 at 1:54 PM EDT

Bud Selig just wrapped up his annual luncheon meeting with the Baseball Writers Association of America and I swear to god (and Josh Hamilton) that I could hear Supertramps 'Crisis What Crisis' playing in the background. Really, considering the stuff Selig usually has to deal with in what is an always frank session - again, if only fans could see more of this side of the guy - most of this years issues were nuts and bolts baseball things.

Three interesting items were the commissioner's take on instant replay, the truly abyssmal television ratings of the Washington Nationals and the impact the continued deterioration in the U.S. economy might have on the game.

Instant replay for home run calls is coming. Make book on it. "We're looking at it intensely and I think we'll see it in a limited form," Selig said Tuesday. "Once we are convinced the bugs are out, it will come quickly - maybe before the post-season."

Meanwhile, Neilsen's research of the Washington Nationals ratings showed an average viewership of just over 9,000 households, more than a third less than the numbers of the next closest team. Even the company said the low figure was remarkable. Selig said Tuesday that baseball is doing it's own independent study of the numbers but he believes the former Expos franchise is on a solid foundation.

And with the U.S. economy now living with the consequences of eight years of George W. Bush's incompetence, Selig admitted that the slowdown was "a source of great concern for the game," which he now says might not be able to meet his dream total of 80 million fans.

"The picture's very bleak," he said of the economy. "But so far, we've been OK. I have always had a theory that when things like gas prices cause people to take less vacations, we seem to do OK. That's not based on anything empirical. But so far, at least, we haven't seen an impact on any level of our business. The central office and the clubs are all pretty much on pace. But, yes, I'm very skittish on that point."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...ory/WBbaseball

[MolsonExport]

Nos Amours.

[Matrix19]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Nos Amours.

les amours que personne n'allait voir

[Presswood]

Personnelement je crois que personne allais les voirs a cause quils jouaient dans un stade platte a mourir , sans ambiance et trop loin de l'action , avec un nouveau stade au centre ville avec vu sur les grattes ciels , la le monde aurait le gout dy aller.

[ErickMontreal]

Originally Posted by Presswood

Personnelement je crois que personne allais les voirs a cause quils jouaient dans un stade platte a mourir , sans ambiance et trop loin de l'action , avec un nouveau stade au centre ville avec vu sur les grattes ciels , la le monde aurait le gout dy aller.

Je suis d`accord. De plus, à la suite des ventes de feu et des tutelles de 1999 à 2004, je ne peux pas vraiment blâmer les fans d`avoir laisser tomber l`équipe.

L`impact de la perte est énorme pour la ville, sans vouloir dénigrer la NHL, la MLB et la NHL n`appartiennent pas à la même league. Seulement en terme économique et de visibilité à l`externe, les Expos offrait à la ville probablement la meilleur carte touristique possible. Anyway...

[Acajack]

Moi aussi j'aimais bien les Expos.

Cela dit, et peu importe les (multiples) raisons de leur départ, ils ne reviendront jamais à Montréal.

[Château Frontenac]

on devrait décréter le jour du Blue Monday, jour de deuil national et présenter en boucle à LCN le lancer fatidique de Rogers