Expos Officially Move to DC
 

I'll go get some info now

Actually I may have jumped the gun, but we can discuss that here until Thursday when its official

Yeah why do you make topics about shit before it happens?

not really a surprise, no one goes to see them, they make no money... oh well... Winnipeg gets double the attendence at a game for our baseball team.

Cool, too bad they couldn't have pulled this off before they lost vlad, cabrera and vazquez

is the stadium actually going to be built in DC, or are they gonna play in Virginia or Maryland like some other teams around here

They still have Vidro and Nick Johnson :roll:

AssMan, one of Mike Wilbon's columns last week dealt with that. Not being from DC I don't know the areas really well, but I guess one proposed place is on the side of the city, but he was complaining that it would take at least an hour and a half to get there from the other side? Go to the posts website and look at his archives.

09/28/2004 10:29 AM ET
No timetable for Expos move
Relocation announcement not set, says DuPuy
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

Reports on Monday night stated that an announcement on the future of the Montreal Expos will likely be made on Thursday. However, baseball's No. 2 official would not confirm them.
The Associated Press reported that "the most likely day for an announcement Washington, D.C., has been selected for the future home of the team is Thursday, although there was a slight chance the timetable could be moved up." AP cited several unnamed baseball officials.

But Bob DuPuy, MLB's president, chief operation officer, and a member of the relocation committee that has spent two years exploring the move, countered that speculation on Tuesday.

"No schedule has been set for any announcement," DuPuy said in an e-mail response to the AP story.

After the relocation committee reported to the executive council and Commissioner Bud Selig this past Thursday in Milwaukee, DuPuy said that a decision on the Expos was still possible by Sunday's end of the regular season.

But all the elements involved in coming to that decision could forestall any announcement. Chief among them is negotiating a settlement with Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who has strongly opposed a move of the Expos to the Washington area and particularly the city proper, which is 35 miles away from Baltimore.

Peter Magowan, the Giants' managing general partner and a member of the executive council, said this past weekend in San Francisco that the matter might not be resolved until the close of the postseason. The World Series could end as late as Oct. 31, only weeks before the owners meet for the last time this year.

Magowan wouldn't comment on the context of last week's meeting, saying all those present had been sworn to secrecy.

"I'll just say that the issues should be done by the end of the season and when I say that I mean the very end of the season, including the playoffs," Magowan said. "But if one or two things fall into place quickly it still could happen by the end of the (regular) season."

By all published accounts, Washington, D.C., is the leading candidate with Northern Virginia falling to second because of political problems at the state level. The other contenders -- Norfolk, Va., Portland, Ore., Monterrey, Mexico, and Las Vegas -- have yet to be eliminated, but they have all been on the periphery for months.

This past Friday, city officials said the District had concluded negotiations with MLB to try and procure the team, which has been owned and operated by baseball's other 29 owners since the Expos were purchased for $120 million from Jeffrey Loria and his minority partners on Feb. 15, 2004. At the same time, Loria and those partners purchased the Florida Marlins.

"I would say that it is virtually completed without any major deal points outstanding," said Bill Hall, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission's baseball committee. "As far as I'm concerned," Hall said, "[next up] is to hear from Major League Baseball that we have a deal."

The relocation committee seemed to have zeroed in on the District in recent weeks. Members of the committee met for 7 1/2 hours late last month with District officials to discuss all facets of their proposal. They followed that up two weeks ago with another 11 1/2-hour session buttoning down details.

The net result of those meetings was a 30-page document that would conditionally award the Expos to the District, pending funding of a more than $400 million ballpark on the Anacostia River waterfront near M and South Capitol Streets, which is now the preferred site among the four proposed by the District last year. As part of that package, $13 million would be set aside to reacclimate RFK Stadium for baseball in time for the 2005 season.

If the team moves to Washington, the renamed Expos are expected to play at least three seasons at RFK, which hasn't been home to baseball on a regular basis since the Senators moved to Texas after the 1971 season. The Expos expanded into the National League in 1969 along with the San Diego Padres and have played in Montreal ever since. The team would be the first in MLB to relocate since the Senators.

Several outlets have reported that baseball officials met over the weekend with Angelos to try and reconcile differences regarding the relocation, but DuPuy did not address those meetings in his e-mail.

They should go to Portland and join the AL West and then have the Brewers join the AL Central.

Nah, they should have moved to Vegas and to the AL West

Then put Pittsburg and Philidelphia in the same division. It makes sense since they're in the same state.

Then there are 5 teams in each division.

A Las Vegas team would have been awesome. :(

They need to have an even number (14/16) in each league otherwise one team in each league wouldn't have a team to play each night. Either that or else they would have to merge the leagues, which would be lame altogether.

Didn't think about that. Good call.

Moving to DC is dumb, already a team in that area.

But I guess there a few cities/areas with 2 teams but I DUNNO doesn't really seem like DC is the right place

The Vegas Expos has a nice ring to it too.

The Orioles owner is already putting up a fuss...They are both two pretty big cities, they both have a football team, AL and NL, I think it'll be alright.

A guy that's on a sports show up in Canada said that all the other owners paid him a hefty chunk of money and he's gonna let them do it anyways.

Yeah, SportsCenter said that they were close to figuring out a deal with him, and ESPN.com is reporting that its official now.

Should they rename themselves the Washington Senators (again, for the 3rd time)?

Or should they come up with something entirely different?

Any ideas?

Washington Generals?

I dunno, few stories I've read said the previous owners in Washington failed because the owners refused to spend money and put a competitve product on the field.

Guess time will tell what happens here.

Possible Names

WASHINGTON WALRUSES
D.C. DUBYAS
POTOMAC POONTANG

Washington capitals

Washington Isotopes

The names on ESPN.com are:

Washington Diplomats
Washington Senators
Washington Generals
and there was one more...

Personally I think Diplomats is a classy name, but it was the last one on the poll results :(

Here are the names they discussed on PTI

Expos
Senators (Name of the old MLB teams in DC, both of which moved)
Momuments
Bullets (Old NBA name)
Generals (Harlem Globe Trotters anybody?)
Nationals
Grays (Named after old Negro League Team)

The Grays wouldn't be a bad name IMO, I kind of like the political ring of the other ones though, it seems more like a DC feel. Like when I think of DC I think of it being the place where a powerful stuff goes on, and a name like the Nationals is the one that fits the city best IMO.

Also, Oakland might be asking to move to San Jose now too.

I've said it before that I thought their team would be better off in a different stadium and possibly a different city, so I wouldn't see a problem with this movement, they'd really only be moving what like 40 miles at most? Get them out of that damned football stadium.

LOL Expo fans (I guess they exist?) show up for the last game and boo the American National Anthem. Yeah I guess somehow this is Americans fault that the Expos are moving, has nothing to do with Candian fans never showing up to Expo's games

I think they are just mad that the US is "taking" their team or whatever.

But yeah, they could have showed up to some other games for the past like 8 years, and maybe the team wouldn't be moving. Yeah, the '94 strike hurt the team and disappointed the fans, but there are other cities in other sports that have shitty teams that still sell out every game. The fans in Montreal just didn't really give a rat's ass about baseball unless their team was doing well.

Sucks though, cause Montreal is an awesome city, and almost all of the Expo players past and present loved it. Even some other guys, who never played for the Expos fell in love with the city. Ozzie Smith for example.

But yeah, sucky situation altogether.

WASHINGTON WALRUSES 4 LIFE

Montreal is a pretty tight city, I go through it every year. I guess its really just a hockey city though, and in the end I don't think they will even notice.

lol at one of the fans chucking a golf ball. haha.

I like The Nationals out of those teams. The Nationals were actually an old team out of Washington as well. They were eathier based out of the old Federal League or a team in the late 1800's. I'm leaning more towards the ladder, but I don't feel like looking it up right now.

Yea I have heard of the Nationals before

I kinda like the Senators for the name

And with this move so dies my last remaining interest in baseball. :(

Like we're going to believe that you had any interest in the Expos

Yeah I mean I remember watching a game last year and there wasn't even a fourth of the stadium filled up.

Terrible

Try like one tenth on some nights.

There were only like...a few thousand there when I watched them once :eek:.

Good for the people there though, pay for nose bleeds, and then get up front by the end of the game. :cool:

I've had next to no interest in baseball for years. The only thing I did care about were the Expos. I loved them

One of Montreal's biggest problems was Olympic Stadium. It was too far from tyhe city center and it was not a 'friendly' ball park. It was awful. I don't think just getting a new stadium was the answer to their problems but it sure was needed. They needed stronger ownership too.

Montreal Expos, my favourite baseball team. They'll always have a place in my heart, but they were mismanaged so bad, it's a good thing they're going to somewhere else. It wasn't fair to the players or the real baseball fans of Montreal to be treated like this.

Olympic Stadium looked cool, but all I am basing that off of is pictures of it with the roof retracted and the big tall thing in the background. Besides that I'm sure it was just as bad as the Metrodome and as you said out of the city.

I just hope the new Washington team can pick it up. The last two baseball teams in DC were managed pretty poorly and had to move. I don't think the Wizards or Capitols draw amazing either. I hope they do good though, I like the city and the potential the team brings.

Wahington, the city, doesn't seem to do very well with sports fans (Redskins aside) Same thing with Las Vegas. Time will tell if this newest Washington team can be successful.

Granted aswell, the Wizards and Capitols aren't very good, but even so