MLB 2019 Changes

[beachperroAZ]

On 5/23/2019 at 12:30 AM, NicDB said:

I like Montreal for purely nostalgic reasons.  And the fact that they have a MLB-capable venue has to make them the front-runner as of this moment. 

But all the reasons they left in the first place still exist.  Especially if you take for granted that the market was indeed sabotaged.  

I have that same mindset too but I also think that MLB no longer works in Montreal.  There was a reason they left besides the "Big O" being a bad place for baseball.  I think Portland could be a prime candidate if they either put up public funds or if someone pulls a Stan Kronke and wants to put up their own private funds.  

[WSU151]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Fans like this constitute the most important reason for the Nationals to wear the Expos throwbacks. The throwbacks are necessary on the grounds of education.

 

Someone is bound to retort that the team is doing this not in order to educate anyone, but simply to sell merchandise. To which I reply: I don't care.  I care only about the outcome, which will be that baseball fans (especially the youngest ones) will be reminded that the Expos are part of this franchise.  Knowing the facts of history is a good in its own right.

 

 

 

BUUUUUUT ... that's no reason to denegrate the Expos' gorgeous look.  The team's original uniforms were fantastic, with that iconic logo (even if some people claim to be confused by it), the lower-case wordmark, the tri-colour cap, and the elegant number font.  Do not even try telling me that this...

 

 

...is not a beautiful uniform, because I am just not having it.  The introduction of the racing stripe was unnecessary; this gaudy feature clashed with the overall aesthetic. But that still did not destroy the unique beauty of this uniform.

 

 

 

Not sure why the younger kids need to be "educated with uniforms".

 

Here's how that conversation goes for young kids who have done zero research about it on the internet: 

"Hey Timmy, the Nationals used to be the Montreal Expos"

"Oh. Okay. Great. Did they win any championships?"

 

And the racing stripe did not clash with the uniform...it was an extension of the tri-colored hats. White-red-blue on the hat, white-red-blue (from front-to back) on the jerseys. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, WSU151 said:

Not sure why the younger kids need to be "educated with uniforms"

 

Seeing the pictures and highlights of this game will create vivid memories.  And the game itself will spur many conversations on message boards and on TV and radio (not that young fans listen to radio).  All of this will be helpful for the historical knowledge of the vast majority of fans who are not likely ever to get to the Nationals' franchise history page at Baseball Reference to see the Expos players' pictures and the Expos' season totals.

 

 

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me: Someone is bound to retort that the team is doing this not in order to educate anyone, but simply to sell merchandise. To which I reply: I don't care.  I care only about the outcome, which will be that baseball fans (especially the youngest ones) will be reminded that the Expos are part of this franchise.  Knowing the facts of history is a good in its own right

 

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@SFGiants58: They already know it

 

Do they, though? It would be interesting to see a survey of baseball fans in the 13-to-15 age group on the question of who were the Montreal Expos.  My speculation is that only a very small amount of them would be able to identify the team as the former identity of the Washington Nationals.  And, every year that we get farther away from the Expos' move to Washington, there emerges an additional set of young fans who would be even less likekly to know this.  These are the fans who will benefit most from the memorable event of an Expos throwback game.

 

 

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@SFGiants58: Do they need to be “educated” in the opinion that the Expos had a great look (according to you)?

 

No; simply about the fact that the Expos are part of the Nationals franchise.  Even if the Nationals were doing a throwback to the Expos' latter-day uniforms that I don't like, I would still be enthusiastically in favour of it.

 

 

1 hour ago, WSU151 said:

And the racing stripe did not clash with the uniform...it was an extension of the tri-colored hats. White-red-blue on the hat, white-red-blue (from front-to back) on the jerseys. 

 

The problem with the racing stripe is not the colours, but the width.  The Expos' aesthetic was refined and elegant.  The thick racing stripe clashed with the delicate thin lines in the number font and with the understated lower-case wordmark. Compare it to the racing stripe worn by the Mets. While the racing stripe didn't aesthetically benefit the Mets' uniforms, at least in that case there was no thematic clash, as the bold stripe was in harmony with the wide strokes of the Mets' wordmark.

 

A modification of the Expos' original uniform that would have been appropriate would have entailed a thickening of the sleeve stripes to the level of the sleeve stripes that appeared at the ends of the sleeves of the latter-day road jersey.

 

[_DietDrPepper_]

@Ferdinand Cesarano

The Expos is bad, even the original, that font is not elegant at all, it’s pretty poor and ugly and is a big downgrade from even a simple block. The lower case words underneath the bad logo is bad, all that on the chest of the jersey next to the number, that’s really bad. The tricolor hats are overrated. 

[SFGiants58]

53 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Seeing the pictures and highlights of this game will create vivid memories.  And the game itself will spur many conversations on message boards and on TV and radio (not that young fans listen to radio).  All of this will be helpful for the historical knowledge of the vast majority of fans who are not likely ever to get to the Nationals' franchise history page at Baseball Reference to see the Expos players' pictures and the Expos' season totals.

 

 

Those “conversations” usually go in this direction:

 

”This is insulting that the Nats are playing Expos dress-up!”

”The Nats are taking Bryce Harper’s departure hard, look at how they’re trying to scramble for fans.”

”Expos fans roast Nationals for wearing throwbacks.”

“We don’t give a crap about the Expos!”

 

No replacement team, no exact throwbacks. It just feels wrong.

 

Besides, any dedicated or casual fan can look up those stats and photos. It’s not like it’s St. Louis Browns-tier obscure.

 

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Do they, though? It would be interesting to see a survey of baseball fans in the 13-to-15 age group on the question of who were the Montreal Expos.  My speculation is that only a very small amount of them would be able to identify the team as the former identity of the Washington Nationals.  And, every year that we get farther away from the Expos' move to Washington, there emerges an additional set of young fans who would be even less likekly to know this.  These are the fans who will benefit most from the memorable event of an Expos throwback game.

 

But is is it really necessary to know this history as a fan? The kids can take five seconds on Wikipedia to learn it, then go back to not caring about players who they never watched and have no relevance to their city. They’ll admit that Montréal’s team left due to a variety of factors, feel a tiny bit of regret, and move on. If the history comes up, a quick search can give them all the info they need. It’s not like they were a team that won multiple championships. Heck, all of the big names of the Expos played for many other teams (Gary Cater and Rusty Staub with the Mets, Andre Dawson with the Cubs, Tim Raines with several clubs, Pedro Martinez with the Red Sox, and Vladimir Guerrero with the Angels). The Nats should be free to do what they want with the Expos’ history, as long as the record books don’t change.

 

I’m a fan of a relocated team that prides itself on its history pre-relocation. However, there are factors that allow for it:

 

1. The name didn’t change and plenty of players overlapped both on-field and in the organization.

2. A replacement team arrived in 1962. Therefore, no hard feelings.

3. The Giants spent their first 56 years in San Francisco without a championship. For the sake of honoring titles, they had to acknowledge New York. The Expos don’t have that.

 

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No; simply about the fact that the Expos are part of the Nationals franchise.  Even if the Nationals were doing a throwback to the Expos' latter-day uniforms that I don't like, I would still be enthusiastically in favour of it.

 

 

Again, five seconds on Wikipedia takes care of this. They don’t need this information forced upon them, because it’s not particularly relevant to the Nationals’ current identity and using throwbacks pours plentiful amounts of salt in the wounds of Expos fans.

 

You know what would be best? How about a compromise fauxback, like what the Rangers did in 1994?

 

 

 

It's still the Rangers, but it finds a way to invoke their past (recent past as well, given that they reused the '80s-1993 script) without shoving it in Washington fans' faces. This is how you handle throwbacks when there’s no replacement team. Just say “Expos-inspired” and you’re good.

 

The Winnipeg Whips’ logo would be perfect for a fauxback like this.

[_DietDrPepper_]

If Washington kept the name Expos a throwback would be more appropriate and welcomed, but as it is now, it’s like the Hornets throwing back to the Bobcat days, or the Jets throwing back to the Thrashers

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

You know what would be best? How about a compromise fauxback, like what the Rangers did in 1994?

 

 

If the Nationals whipped up some kind of Expos-inspired alt uniform, I would definitely like that.  This would accomplish the same end of informing young people (and reminding people who are not as knowledgeable in baseball history as the people on this board are) about the Expos as part of the Washington Nationals franchise.

 

The fact that the Nationals' history as the Expos is written in the Wikipedia page does not necessarily mean that this awareness will make it to the status of common knowledge. Any sort of promotion done by the team would be immensely helpful in this regard.

[BC985]

2 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

 

You know what would be best? How about a compromise fauxback, like what the Rangers did in 1994?

 

 

 

 

 

Wait, what? I’ve never seen these before. 

[SFGiants58]

15 minutes ago, Brandon9485 said:

 

Wait, what? I’ve never seen these before. 

 

Oh yeah, they were worn for a game back in 1994. I only heard about them through Bill Henderson’s book. I like how these fauxbacks handle the Sens MK II’s aesthetic by folding it into the local identity. It’s less insulting to the city that (at the time) didn’t have a replacement team. It’s why I kind of wish the Thunder would do this (concept by @Brauny1280

 

 

...or have the Winnipeg Jets do a Thrashers-inspired design (they already appropriated Atlanta’s light blue):

 

 

 

I find the subtle acknowledgement a bit more respectful.

[Gothamite]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Besides, any dedicated or casual fan can look up those stats and photos. It’s not like it’s St. Louis Browns-tier obscure.

 

And even if the Expos do become that level of obscure, is that really so bad?

 

Baseball’s history is littered with gems just waiting to be found, like when you realize the Brewers, Angels, Orioles, and Padres all took their name from earlier clubs.  Or when you learn that the Cubs were the original Chicago White Stockings.  Or that the Browns almost chased the Cardinals out of St. Louis. 

 

That’s rich and wonderful.  That’s baseball.  I really don’t see why it would be such a tragedy if the Expos lapsed into legend like the Pilots and the Browns, something for fans to discover on their own. 

[MilSox]

Went and picked up one of these today. I always go for the 39thirty Flex because I find the regular 5950s uncomfortable and awkward.

 

 

 

But when I picked it up, I noticed the back script on mine was a bit different than what's on the official website.

 

 

 

 

I'm not trying to read too much into this, as it's possible that they just got lazy and used the same wordmark that's been on the royal blue version.

 

However, it's clear that the original wordmark on both the royal and navy version was based on the jerseys the caps were designed to be worn with. And they'd already made a few runs of these with the original (current) wordmark. So why go through the trouble of changing it?

 

As I said, I'm not trying to read too much into it. But could this be more evidence that the Brewers are leaning towards some version of the original BiG era unis, but in navy rather than royal?

[Sec19Row53]

7 year old me knew that the logo on his Montreal gumball helmet was an M. What the heck else would it be?

 

[shrugs]

[The_Admiral]

8 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

And even if the Expos do become that level of obscure, is that really so bad?

 

Baseball’s history is littered with gems just waiting to be found, like when you realize the Brewers, Angels, Orioles, and Padres all took their name from earlier clubs.  Or when you learn that the Cubs were the original Chicago White Stockings.  Or that the Browns almost chased the Cardinals out of St. Louis. 

 

That’s rich and wonderful.  That’s baseball.  I really don’t see why it would be such a tragedy if the Expos lapsed into legend like the Pilots and the Browns, something for fans to discover on their own. 

 

♫ We are the Montreal Preservation Society

God save Hawk and Vlad, and MLB impropriety ♫

[Krz]

17 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

 

Thank you so much for posting this! I have this hat and have never quite been able to identify it, although I knew it was for the rangers!

[SFGiants58]

8 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

♫ We are the Montreal Preservation Society

God save Hawk and Vlad, and MLB impropriety ♫

 

Language police knocks on your door, tells you that Ontario wants your club.

[BJ Sands]

17 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

Oh yeah, they were worn for a game back in 1994. I only heard about them through Bill Henderson’s book. I like how these fauxbacks handle the Sens MK II’s aesthetic by folding it into the local identity. It’s less insulting to the city that (at the time) didn’t have a replacement team. It’s why I kind of wish the Thunder would do this (concept by @Brauny1280

 

 

...or have the Winnipeg Jets do a Thrashers-inspired design (they already appropriated Atlanta’s light blue):

 

 

 

I find the subtle acknowledgement a bit more respectful.

The Thunder should never be allowed to wear that. It’s a well-done concept, but real-life usage would spit in Seattle’s face. 

[SFGiants58]

9 minutes ago, BJ Sands said:

The Thunder should never be allowed to wear that. It’s a well-done concept, but real-life usage would spit in Seattle’s face. 

 

Yeah, that was a bad example. The old Sonics’ template is too specific, whereas the Senators MK II, Expos, and Thrashers’ uniform templates are common enough. I’d also like to add @Discrimihater‘s Pilots-Brewers and Braves-Brewers designs to the pile:

 

 

 

Fauxbacks to pre-relocation or former teams in the area (when several decades removed or using a basic template) can be a fantastic idea. Heck, that’s basically the philosophy behind the Mets’ road uniform.

[PrimalCookie]

@Ferdinand Cesarano

 

My friends and I fit perfectly in the 13-15 age group that you say "do not know the Nationals were once the Expos". So, I decided to experiment with that, and try out the survey you proposed.

 

I asked all of the baseball fans my age (that I know, of course) two questions. First, when were the Nationals founded? Second, if they had previously been in another city, where were they, and what was that team's identity?

 

The answers to the first question was almost unanimously 2005, with one 1968 (which I will accept) and one "early 1900s" (which means they probably lumped all three Washington clubs together). To the second question, most identified that they were once in Montreal and were the Expos. Only two said that they had always been in Washington, and both of them claimed the team was founded in 2005 (so, they thought the Nationals were an expansion team). 

 

Basically, only two out of around twenty did not know that the Nationals came from the Expos. 

[SFGiants58]

25 minutes ago, Magic Dynasty said:

@Ferdinand Cesarano

 

My friends and I fit perfectly in the 13-15 age group that you say "do not know the Nationals were once the Expos". So, I decided to experiment with that, and try out the survey you proposed.

 

I asked all of the baseball fans my age (that I know, of course) two questions. First, when were the Nationals founded? Second, if they had previously been in another city, where were they, and what was that team's identity?

 

The answers to the first question was almost unanimously 2005, with one 1968 (which I will accept) and one "early 1900s" (which means they probably lumped all three Washington clubs together). To the second question, most identified that they were once in Montreal and were the Expos. Only two said that they had always been in Washington, and both of them claimed the team was founded in 2005 (so, they thought the Nationals were an expansion team). 

 

Basically, only two out of around twenty did not know that the Nationals came from the Expos. 

 

EDIT: I’m a moron who leapt to conclusions. Whoopsies!

 

Sorry about that one. Anyway, I find it interesting that they cite 2005 as the founding date. It seems that nobody was really fooled by this:

 

...which is very good.

 

They don’t need throwbacks to learn the history. Like @Gothamite put it, they can find these curiosities on their own.

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

21 minutes ago, Magic Dynasty said:

@Ferdinand Cesarano

 

My friends and I fit perfectly in the 13-15 age group that you say "do not know the Nationals were once the Expos". So, I decided to experiment with that, and try out the survey you proposed.

 

I asked all of the baseball fans my age (that I know, of course) two questions. First, when were the Nationals founded? Second, if they had previously been in another city, where were they, and what was that team's identity?

 

The answers to the first question was almost unanimously 2005, with one 1968 (which I will accept) and one "early 1900s" (which means they probably lumped all three Washington clubs together). To the second question, most identified that they were once in Montreal and were the Expos. Only two said that they had always been in Washington, and both of them claimed the team was founded in 2005 (so, they thought the Nationals were an expansion team). 

 

Basically, only two out of around twenty did not know that the Nationals came from the Expos. 

 

Those results are most encouraging. That is certainly not what I would have expected.

 

I thank you for making the effort.