Tag Archives: Baseball in Montreal

Major League Baseball in Montreal? Look To Winnipeg

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posted by Kyle

Here We Go Again.

It seems like every few months some story rolls around that fans the flames of hope for the baseball lovers of Montreal. This time however, the story hasn’t appear out of the ether, but rather has come from one of Montreal’s most credible and authoritative voices on the game: Rodger Brulotte. In an interview with The Team 990′s Mitch Melnick earlier this week, Brulotte revealed that after spurning their advances several times, he had a conversation with a group of persistent Montreal-based businessmen who have a serious interest in bringing baseball back to Montreal. No names were given in order to preserve dignity if the project falls apart, but Brulotte is more than reputable and wouldn’t tease everyone if there wasn’t substance to the story.

The reaction to the story has been mixed. Many have gotten too excited, too quickly. Some blow it off as farcical and others walk the line of cautious optimism. What’s different this time is that the story seems to have evidence to support the thought that Major League Baseball can once again thrive in Montreal. It’s a well known fact that Montreal remains the largest North American city without any professional baseball in its boundaries. That in itself is a shame, but it means little…after all, while the conditions may be right to get a team here, that says absolutely nothing about sustainability from a fan/attendance standpoint and the ability to field a competitive team. Are Montreal’s baseball fans a sleeping giant, or are they so jaded by what has gone on in the past that they are either lost forever, or would be very slow to come around? Montreal is a town with no shortage of things to spend time and money on, and its casual sports fans take the word casual to a whole new level. Here today, gone tomorrow. Are there enough hardcore fans left to serve as an anchor while the casuals come back? We can’t possibly have the answer to that. The dreamers would say yes; the cynics would say no.

The volume was turned up a notch earlier this month as the Conference Board of Canada released a report stating that “Montreal has the necessary market conditions in place today to be the home of a Major League Baseball franchise“, but that league conditions wouldn’t yet favour a team in Montreal (i.e. no salary cap, and ridiculous climbing salaries). With the Canadian dollar soaring in 2011 (even hitting a modern all-time high), this is not a surprise. Montreal has certainly grown over the past several years and the business climate is a lot more stable now than it was 8-10 years ago when the Expos were as bankable as a radioactive hooker.  Whether you believe it was the fans’ waning interest that ultimately killed the team, or the sad-sack dollar that prevented the team from being competitive that deflated the fans that sealed the team’s fate, or if you believe that MLB’s lack of support was the root of all evil, it’s irrelevant now. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and no shortage of people willing to dole it out. What we do know is that baseball did work in Montreal (in the late 70′s the Expos were as popular as the Habs, if not moreso even while the bleu-blanc-rouge were in the midst of a dynasty). For various reasons, baseball was taken away. Baseball in Montreal had become a punchline around the league as fewer than 3000 fannies filled the seats. Once you acquire that dunce cap it’s a stigma that is tough to shake.

While there are certainly differences in how Winnipeg lost then regained the Jets, and how Montreal lost the Expos (regaining them being the goal), there are lessons to be learned from the Manitoban capital.

Here in Montreal we view ourselves as a major league city. Aside from the NHL, however, Montreal has the CFL, which is a notch or two below the NFL. We also have the Impact, who currently play in the NASL (and who will soon graduate to MLS). In terms of global quality the NASL and MLS are way down the ladder (As an example, Manchester United, one of England’s best clubs trounced the best that North American soccer could muster up). So let’s drop the notion that it’s “the best or bust”; Montrealers do support “lesser leagues”. Would Montreal support baseball that wasn’t MLB? It has before, why can’t it do so again?

Most, if not all fans conveniently forget that the Montreal Royals were the top baseball team in town from 1897 until 1960. You read that correctly: 1897. They pre-date the birth of the Habs by 12 years, and lasted nearly twice as long as the Expos did.  Granted, it was not the more demanding Major Leagues, but the point still stands: Montreal cut its baseball teeth in the minors until it was ready for the majors. Can it not do so again? In my humble opinion it would be the height of arrogance to suggest that if Montreal doesn’t get a Major League team then it shouldn’t get baseball at all.

Enter the Winnipeg situation. When Gary Bettman sacked the Jets and moved them to Phoenix, it was viewed as something that never should have been done in the first place. Many suspected that hockey in the deep U.S. South would never work, and for the most part, it hasn’t. When the economy began to pick up in Canada in the mid 2000′s, it was apparent that a team in Winnipeg was once again a possibility. But the seeds for the NHL’s return to the ‘Peg were sown nearly immediately after their departure in 1996. A businessman named Mark Chipman believed in Winnipeg’s viability as a hockey market and moved quickly to scoop up a defunct Minnesota Moose team of the IHL just to keep the pro hockey seat warm in Winnipeg. Without knowing Chipman, he must have known that you have to feed an appetite or it dies. Pablum isn’t caviar, but it will fill the void long enough until another source can be found. For hockey fans, it was surely a blow to the collective ego. From the NHL to the IHL in a few short months. From Teemu Selanne and Shane Doan to Randy Gilhen and Scott Thomas. Ouch.

When the IHL imploded, the Moose joined the AHL for the 2001-2002 season, representing a significant step up in the professional hockey food chain. With this move, the city was able to build the MTS Center, 15,000 seat arena which would one day hopefully be the home of another NHL team. Patience pays off. Starting again from the ground up pays off, even when you’ve gotten used to sitting on top of the mountain.

Lo and behold, the plan has worked, and then some. It took many years, but Winnipeg went through the long, arduous and frustrating process of having to prove itself to the NHL once again. With a new arena, a rabid fan base, a solid Canadian dollar and with more and more teams facing troubles in the NHL, a return to Winnipeg became an inevitability.

Can Montreal apply this template to regaining a foothold in professional baseball? We’re already behind the curve with no presence at all (whereas Winnipeg picked up the Moose immediately), and no stadium to play in (the Big O is not an option for any league – its no longer suitable and its a no-fly zone for many baseball fans). It’s now been nearly 7 full years without a professional baseball game being played. Here’s a useless stat: the Expos last home game is fresher in the annals of time than the last Maple Leafs playoff win (that’s 2645 days in the rearview now, Leafs nation). Montreal has been without organized, professional baseball for far too long considering the long and rich history the city has with the sport. Without a consensus on where to build a stadium, and without the evidence of unwavering fan support before a team is installed, the likelihood is that Montreal will be a baseball vacuum for years to come. But if Rodger Brulotte is right, and there is a group with money to spend and a vision in mind, then perhaps there is reason to be hopeful.

The point of this blog post is not to bang the Minor League drum, nor is it to promote the snobbish thought that Montreal is beneath the Minors. The point is that this is one route back to the majors, even if this post doesn’t address the issue of new stadiums. Surely a Minor League stadium would fall far short of the demands of a Major League stadium, and there’s no way that Montreal has place for two stadiums. I’ll leave it to people a lot smarter than me to figure out a way to build a stadium that can accommodate both as the situation changes. Surely there’s a way to build a 20,000 seat stadium for the Minors that can be expanded to 35,000 if Major League Baseball were to be brought back. Lastly, the issue of a level playing field has not been addressed, and it’s a major difference in how the Winnipeg and Montreal situations differ. Players in baseball are paid ungodly sums of money, and all it would take was for a sagging dollar and a slumping economy to once again throw baseball in Montreal under the bus (hint to Canadian sports fans: keep your gas tanks full, get your oil changed often and buy anything made with or from petroleum!). Until baseball institutes a salary cap system that ensures that small market teams can compete rather than flushing out their best talent year after year for “future considerations” we are unfortunately looking at a pipe dream as far as the Major Leagues go. Bud Selig and the powers that be at MLB will need to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Montreal can not only be a viable market for baseball, but one that can survive the ups and downs of the economy as well. That’s not an easy task and it’s not something that can be proven until a city has to ride that roller coaster.

Flatly, though, I do embrace the idea of Minor League baseball in Montreal. It’s a less expensive option for families, it’s less demanding in terms of seating and operating costs, and it’s more conducive to a true baseball experience. I’m all for it. I wrote a post earlier this year about another note that I heard on the radio. This piece was about the Las Vegas 51′s being in peril and that a move to Montreal may make sense. It fills the baseball void, and gives the Blue Jays easy access to their top affiliate. It’s key to be affiliated to a Major League team, and in my mind it would be a lay-up in terms of proving that Montreal truly is a baseball hotbed lying in wait like a dormant volcano. Many Montrealers bristle at the idea of being Toronto’s AAA colony, (and that bristling is not without its political and societal leanings) but what’s the alternative right now? Also, Blue Jays General Manager Alex Anthopoulos is a native Montrealer, and presumably somebody who’s heart was also broken when the game he loves was ripped away. How much would he like to be a part of this process? How much sense would it make for the Jays to have their AAA team in Montreal and their AA team just a few more hours away in New Hampshire? It makes tons of sense for them. It would give them a giant footprint in the Canadian market as well as strengthen their presence in the American Northeast. If Montreal could facilitate that, it would only help as a stepping stone back to the Majors.

There’s a lot to think about and digest here, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments section.

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A New Hope for Baseball in Montreal?

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I’m taking a detour from Habs playoff action to talk baseball.

I know, sacrilege, right?

If you’ve followed this blog for the better part of its existence, you’ve probably seen me write a few times about the grand game of baseball. When I launched this site, it was with the intent of blogging not only about the Habs and Hockey, but of baseball and any other sports-related stories that struck me. Of course, the Habs have basically monopolized the content here but that doesn’t mean I’m not following what else is going on out there, and don’t have some opinions that I won’t sound off on.

With that said, a few weeks ago, I was listening to the radio and tuned in to Montreal’s sports station just in time to hear the tail end of a conversation between Bob McCown and some other guy who appeared to be a baseball insider (update: thanks to David Blye who let me know that the interview was with Richard Griffin, Toronto Star baseball columnist, and former PR Director with the Montreal Expos). Part of their conversation focused on the struggling Las Vegas 51′s, who happen to be the AAA affilate of the Toronto Blue Jays. I’m not an expert on the viability of American cities as sports markets, but what I do hear about Las Vegas is nearly unanimous – it’s a lousy sports town. The economic downturn really hurt the city, many residents are from places other than Las Vegas (and thus don’t have an attachment to any home teams), and there’s too many other things to spend money on other than sports.

Montreal is the largest market in North America devoid of professional baseball of any level, and considering Montreal’s long (and unheralded) baseball heritage, that’s a damn shame. Naturally, people have begun creating possibilities and coming up with some plausible scenarios for bringing baseball back to Montreal. The latest scenario has the aforementioned 51′s moving from Sin City to Montreal. On the surface this is a great idea, isn’t it? Montreal gets a high caliber of ball, and Toronto’s top minor league affiliate sits only an hour away by plane. When you add the New Hampshire Fisher Cats to the mix (Toronto’s AA affiliate), the Blue Jays would have a heck of a footprint in a relatively small area. It would make moving players around much easier and would provide the Blue Jays with a huge population to which they could promote nearly the entire upper echelon of the organization.

I’m no Blue Jays fan, and I told myself that I never would be. Not after they voted to have the Expos euthanized in an attempt to claim a bigger share of the Canadian market. Once the Expos left, Montreal’s local sports radio station wanted to fulfill the wishes of some fans and broadcast Red Sox and Yankees games. The Blue Jays stepped in and blocked that move, claiming that Montreal was now their market, and they were proven right, as that same sports station did begin to carry a number of Blue Jays games. I thought that was an underhanded, dirty move by the Jays, but not one unexpected of a sports franchise in 2011.

With a baseball vacuum in Montreal, fans have been attaching their allegiances to teams all over the league, though the Red Sox seem to have a very strong following, as do the Yankees. That could conceivably change if the Jays were able to relocate their AAA team to la belle province. Lending additional weight to this scenario is the fact that Blue Jays General Manager Alex Anthopoulos is a native Montrealer. He grew up as an Expos fan, and though he earns his living in Toronto now, he must certainly feel some pain from the baseball void in his hometown. It would make an awful lot of sense for him to want to fill that void, while at the same time streamlining logistics, promotions and interest in his own Major League team. That would be the right way to establish a footprint in a market, not by helping to kill the team that was already there, then claiming the territory as your own.

Of course, there is the ever-present issue of not having a proper stadium to play baseball in. While the Olympic Stadium could always be readied for baseball in the short-term, it is in no way a place to set up a team permanently. When there’s 40,000 people there, it’s a party. But how often does that happen, and how often would it happen with a Minor League team? Montreal would need proper plans for a 10,000-15,000 seat stadium before any of this becomes even a halfway serious conversation. More often than not, the “Big O” is more like a mausoleum than ball park, and it’s a pain in the neck to get to for those who aren’t near a subway line. Without the large crowd, it’s simply not an atmosphere for baseball. Minor league ball should be enjoyed outdoors, in more intimate ballparks. Period.

The bigger question is – would you support a AAA team run by the Blue Jays? Would you abandon a team that you follow by proxy if you suddenly had a team that you could root for in person? It’s a tricky question for Montreal baseball fans who have either sworn off supporting Bug Selig, or can’t stand anything Toronto on a good day, nevermind being in a master-servant relationship. If Montreal baseball fans hold hope of ever having a Major League team back in town (and that day is a long, long day away in the best case scenario), then hosting and supporting a AAA team would be a tremendous place to start. If the Blue Jays want to increase their footprint and market share in Canada, then this would be a move very much worth exploring. It could be a win-win relationship for everyone and would put Montreal back on the baseball radar.

What are your thoughts? Is it a hair-brained idea, or something worth maybe getting excited about? We all know the torrid love affair between Montrealers and the Canadiens. People like to say that hockey is religion in Montreal, but they’re wrong. The Canadiens are religion. All other forms of hockey struggle for attendance and coverage. But let’s not overlook the fact that the CFL is doing extremely well in Montreal (as evidenced by Molson Stadium’s recent 5,000 seat upgrade), and that MLS is slated to begin play at Saputo Stadium in 2012. This leaves baseball as the one sport that is sorely missing in the Montreal landscape.

In the mean time, if you’re a baseball-starved Montrealer, you do have some options, though they require packing up the car and heading out on the road. Here are some places where you can see some good, affordable ball just a few hours outside of Montreal, and not including the Major League teams in Boston, New York and Toronto:

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Baseball Making a Return to Montreal?

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Delorimier Stadium in 1929

 

Photo credit: quebec.sabr.org – S.H. du Marigot

Doesn’t Montreal deserve a new baseball stadium built to look just like this one?

Considering the content of this blog you’d probably be surprised to learn that in my younger years, I was a devout baseball fan, and hockey was a distant second on my radar. I first got the baseball bug in 1984 when I was just six years old. I enrolled in tee-ball and played the game for the next 11 years. Prior to 1984, the only thing that really mattered to me was Star Wars. Hockey didn’t enter the picture until the ’89 Cup finals. I have vague recollections of ’86, but nothing more. Fast forward 26 years and I’ll tell you that hockey and Star Wars are my bread and butter, but baseball has slipped considerably. Without a doubt, the departure of the Expos had almost everything to do with my drop in interest.

If I were in to online wagering, after the Expos left in 2004, I would have bet any amount that baseball was dead in Montreal forever. Most of that sentiment was emotional and very irrational. Teams come and go, of course, and there is always hope the game can live again in Montreal. A lot of people have allowed their love of the game die, some have promised never to give Bud Selig and Major League Baseball another cent, but many more have merely let their love of baseball slip in to hibernation. These latter two groups should be elated, as I was, when it was announced on the team 990′s airwaves that former Expos outfielder Warren ‘Cro’ Cromartie is working with Marc Griffin, and others to bring an Independent Baseball League team to Montreal.

If I didn’t have such a massive office chair, I would have fallen off upon hearing that news.

Whenever ‘Cro’ would be on as a guest on Mitch Melnick’s afternoon show, fans would constantly encourage him to try and bring ball back to Montreal. It seems he’s now going to give it a shot, and I for one could not be happier.

The pessimist in me can’t help but think this is going to be one big tease, but there’s no reason why a city the size of Montreal could not be (and isn’t) home to a professional baseball team. To those not in the know, baseball in Montreal goes WAY back. Famously, Jackie Robinson got his start in professional baseball back in the 1940′s when he broke baseball’s colour barrier with the Montreal Royals. Other prominent Royals include Tommy Lasorda, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale and Roy Campanella; all hall of famers. But did you know that the Royals are actually older than your beloved Montreal Canadiens? Though they were defunct between 1918-1927, the Royals were actually founded back in 1897, 12 years before J. Ambrose O’Brien founded the Canadiens at a Montreal hotel. For further perspective, the Royals went belly-up in 1960, after 52 seasons of ball in Montreal, and NINE seasons before the Expos played their first game. In an ill-fated attempt to bring affordable baseball back to Montreal, the Canadian Baseball League, in 2003 started up (and died that same year). The Montreal Royales were one of eight teams to play in the league during its inaugural (and final) year, but because the Royales couldn’t (or perhaps smartly wouldn’t) play their home games at Olympic Stadium, they never actually played a home game in the Montreal area.

My mind is racing, but for this to work, Cromartie and his group would need to have their team play in a stadium not called the “Big O”, not even temporarily. People simply won’t go. It’s a dump; cold and sterile, out of the way, not to mention the fears of falling concrete. It carries the hurtful baggage of being the Expos home for so long. Basically, the Olympic Stadium is to ballparks what Tatooine is to Star Wars, minus the twin suns. But before a team can be brought to Montreal, a stadium would have to be built. A small, cozy, open-air stadium that would sit 10,000 people would be more than enough to make this work. The stadium wouldn’t even have to be half-full to make it work! The location of the stadium is also critical. With people exiting the city for the outlying suburbs, it’s crucial that the stadium be in a place that is easily accessible by all. The part of town where the Olympic Stadium currently sits is not accessible, parking is scarce and with all due respect to the people that live around there, it’s the ass-end of town now.

I badly miss watching a game where time is not a factor, where you can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) weather. Baseball, unlike other spectator sports is a game where you can chat with friends in the stands, and get lost in the atmosphere of a great stadium without feeling like you’re missing the game. In hockey, if you blink, you’ll miss something. There is NO sound in any sport as inextricably linked to summertime as the crack of a bat. That sound been brutally absent in Montreal for 5 years now, and it’s time that gaping void is filled.

If you’re a Montrealer, and miss baseball as much as I do, this is great news. I’ll keep listening for, and posting updates here and on twitter. I also created a twitter account specifically focused on bringing baseball back to Montreal. You can follow that account here, and follow the facebook group called “Baseball in Montreal – Baseball à Montréal“, founded by Game Points on Team990 host Matthew Ross. The group is already at 496 members, so let’s try to push that above 500 and beyond!

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