I don't really follow Baseball now, I'll say that right off the bat, I mean I deal with feelings on the regular, so that isn't something any of us need to worry about (unless you are my mom or any woman that could ever love me), but like I said I don't really follow baseball now. Obviously I should write for a baseball blog.
The reason I have no real interest is a pretty good one. The team I felt the most kinship with no longer exists. I am one of, judging by attendance figures, 15 Montreal Expo fans in captivity. The other couple hundred or so 'fans' that didn't fill the Olympic stadium all run loose in the wild (By wild I mean they chill at the Cirque De Sexe in lovely Downtown Montreal). We are are generally all the same, bitter, little to no interest in baseball anymore and EXTREMELY virile. Or at least I am. The reason for that of course is good breeding (virility) and the 1994 strike.
Hey since every stupid idiot that has dumb opinions and stinks really bad has talked about the Strike over and over already, I am just going to say this. We were going to win the World Series. There was no one that could beat us, we had Larry Walker and Marquis Grissom and Wil Cordero (pre-wife beating ftr) and Moises and Felipe Alou and and Ken Hill and Jeff Fassaro and fucking PEDRO!~~! Look we just would have won the whole goddamn thing, also of note I am borderline angry just re-typing the names I just listed. We were going to win.
And then we didn't because Money Ruins Everything, and by the time the players came back how could I even pretend to give a shit? Same with the city of Montreal, they were tired of even half heartedly pretending and then came Jeffery Loria, who if he's reading this from whatever den of evil currently allows him respite should feel free rot in hell or New Brunswick forever, and that was about it for the team, Loria double dealed his way (along with anything not tied down in Montreal's Front office) to Miami and the Spo's were on the way to DC.
I checked out of Montreal fandom for good when they traded Pedro to the Red Sox, seemingly seconds after he won the Cy Young award. I loved Pedro he was the best and most charming player perhaps ever in Montreal and with him gone it really did seem like the Party Was Over.
I ended up moving over to the Red Sox, due to geographical location (Atlantic Canadians LOVE Boston), their being in the American League and thus never having to beat the piss out of the Spo's, the fact that they suited my self loathing personality to a tee and finally because of Pedro. Who by they way immediately after winning the World Series in 2004 thanked the people of Montreal because he loved playing there and oh man what a guy!
I am on the fence about the BoSox lately and I am sure that will seep over into my posts from here on out, but mostly I assume I'll just be remembering Old Expos that I loved or have come to love. Also I will be cursing the Yankees.
Let the Feelings bathe and cleanse us like the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
Yeah Atlantic Canadian baseball fandom was always kind of a three-way split. There's nothing hard and fast about this, but sometimes it seemed like a generational thing, with really old people being completely about the Red Sox, the next gen being Expos people, and people my age or younger Blue Jays fans. All kinds of exceptions to that of course. And actually, as much as I came to despise J.P. Ricciardi, I actually really liked his awareness of all of that. I think he was asked something about how the Blue Jays actually have a market of like thirty million people, as in all of Canada, and he said well not really, in that you go out west and there are all kinds of Mariners fans, in southern Ontario you have Tigers fans and even some old Yankees fans (borderline legit ones, not just assholes), in Quebec you're never really going to have Blue Jays fans in any real number, and out east the Red Sox have a huge presence. Sometimes north/south is as important as east/west.
ReplyDeleteThe Big O was an absolute fucking hole and surprisingly far from the centre of the city (although right at a metro stop so boo hoo I guess) but it was a blast to go to, even (especially?) near the end, when you could get amazing seats for no money and you'd cheer by clacking the empty (and seriously weird) seats on either side of you up and down. Somewhere I have a picture of me and Youppi(!) and I'm wearing a tri-colore des expos and a Rush shirt from the Signals tour and it's pretty much the most Canadian moment I have ever been a part of. And even when there were only 3500 people in the stade, it was 3500 people who really loved baseball or at least people who were there for the express purpose of having an awesome time and so everyone made the most of it. Somehow Montreal still managed to be awesome even as they completely gave up on their team. I can't explain it but I was there and everybody was awesome.
If Stade Jackie Robinson or Labatt or whatever ever got built downtown, the Expos would still totally be with us. Maybe some future generation of Molson will just go nuts and say fuck it lets build a park and bring back les Expos. Dare to dream, I say.
also, it's easy to forget this but the Royals actually had a decent shot at the playoffs in 1994. ROYALS/EXPOS WORLD SERIES YEEEEAAAAHHHH
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