The End of the Expos: 20 Years Later
Twenty years ago today, the Montreal Expos had played their last game against the New York Mets and began the process to move to Washington D.C. to become the Washington Nationals.
For me, a lifelong baseball fan, this has always bothered me.
My belief has always been that once MLB was denied by the Bouchard government a publicly-funded stadium, paid by taxpayers, the fix was in for the Expos to go away.
However, they have never been forgotten.
Thanks to the power of YouTube, books, and video evidence, many fans have witnessed what the Expos meant to baseball. Although many will always look back to the 1994 team as the biggest “What If?” in sports history, there were the late 1970s-early 1980s teams that were magic. Even in 2002 and 2003, general manager Omar Minaya put together a team that were gritty and contending for a Wild Card spot into September.
“Le Grand Orange” Rusty Staub, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, and Larry Walker are Montreal Expos legend to this very day. Talented pitchers like Tomo Ohka, Steve Rogers, Mel Rojas, and Dennis Martinez, hitters like Larry Parrish, Jose Vidro, Wil Cordero, and “the Big Cat” Andres Galarraga, and managers like Jim Fanning, Buck Rodgers, Felipe Alou, and Frank Robinson are fondly remembered in my, and countless other Expos fans, memories.
I even wrote a blog on this site about the great 1996 of “Oh Henry!” Henry Rodriguez.
However, for true-and-blue Expos fans, the final thirteen years of their existence were absolutely demoralizing and devastating.
Original Expos owner Charles Bronfman selling the team to a consortium of Montreal businessmen hurt. Being 74-40 and the best team in baseball, and seeing the 1994 Strike force the cancellation of the season was unbelievable. Watching the team trade everyone in a fire sale prior to the 1995 season sunk die-hard fans’ spirits even further. Seeing Jeffrey Loria, who took over majority ownership in 2000, sell the team to Major League Baseball in a three-team ownership trade in 2002 involving the Florida Marlins and Boston Red Sox, which is still one of baseball’s wildest moves ever, was crushing. The split-season in 2003 and 2004 between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well as MLB refusing to allow the Expos to bring up Terrmel Sledge as a part of the September call-ups during a ‘03 Wild Card push, killed all remaining hope.
And should I even mention the contraction idea of the Expos and Minnesota Twins in 2002?
Yet, the dream still lives on for Quebecers on a Major League full-time return one day.
Men like former Expos great Warren Cromartie began the Montreal Baseball Project to attempt to inspire MLB to make a full-time return.
In my opinion, this push led to the preseason Montreal Exhibition Series from 2014-2018. MLB brought some Spring Training games up to Montreal right before the season would begin. Fans would relive memories of Montreal’s past, as well as see some of baseball’s future in “the Big O” Olympic Stadium.
Nothing was more thrilling than in the final Montreal exhibition game when Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., a member of the Toronto Blue Jays farm system, and son of the Expos legend, hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth on March 27, 2018 to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 1-0.
Also, for close to a decade, there were attempts to structure a split-season setup with the Tampa Bay Rays and Montreal, or an outright relocation to Quebec. However, in January 2022, MLB declined this possibility, and the Rays ultimately began working on their new Florida ballpark, set for 2028.
A lot of Montreal fans have sent their love to the passionate fans of the Oakland Athletics, who are going through a very similar situation with their franchise nearly twenty years to the day of the Expos relocation. Old wounds have opened up and the longing for Expos baseball has begun once again.
What I can say is this: I’m a guy from New Jersey inspired by what the Montreal Expos have brought to baseball. Ever since Pedro Martinez, minutes after winning the 2004 World Series, dedicated his championship to the city of Montreal, I have been convinced that Major League Baseball made a giant mistake of leaving Quebec.
Fans didn’t stop going to Olympic Stadium because their interest in baseball was waning: their hearts were broken.
Twenty years is a long time. The pain of the Expos leaving Montreal has never fully gone away. I truly hope that one day, baseball returns to Quebec permanently. With expansion and relocation rumors always on the radar, Montreal always gets brought up as a future franchise landing spot. It’s the glimmer of hope that keeps fans invested.
Until that day comes, the hurt remains. To Expos fans, merci de garder vivant le rêve des Expos de Montréal. Vive les Expos ! Un jour, ils reviendront. Espérer. Bien sûr.
Jon Harder
