MLB 2019 Changes

[SFGiants58]

13 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

First, I am talking about actual kiddies — children who are like 13 or 14 years old, and who are making formative memories. The Nationals have existed for these fans' entire lives. Kids that age likely don't know a thing about the Expos.

 

They can learn without throwbacks. You’d be surprised at how much a quick glance at Wikipedia, a YouTube video, or the record books can teach kids.

 

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Expanding to Montreal was a good thing (unlike either of the horribly misguided expansions to Florida). The stadium was a boondoggle; but the same is true for nearly every stadium built outside of California, and even for some in California (such as the refurbished Oakland Colliseum).

 

I’d argue differently. The stadium suffered extensive delays, was generally a terrible place to watch a game (from what I’ve picked up), and it’s big selling feature, the roof, didn’t really work.

 

Florida made sense. Florida didn’t drive away fans with language laws. Baseball is just as much a part of Florida (esp. Cuban-American) culture as it is in Montréal, perhaps more. It’s just that the pro teams have been run in the worst way possible.

 

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The Quebec economy is robust, with Montreal's citizens enjoying a good standard of living and having plenty of disposable income to use for entertainment, such as baseball. Also, the province's language law is essential for the protection of Quebecois culture.

 

Now, yes. But that wasn’t the case when most of Montréal’s big businesses fled after the disastrous Bill 101 routed the Anglophone community into Ontario. That certainly wasn’t the case in the 1990s when the referendum nearly passed and cratered the provincial economy further.

 

Also, protection of Quebecois culture? Ask @Ice_Cap about that one.

 

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And that culture includes baseball. The Majors will probably go back there eventually (perhaps by moving the Rays, thereby solving two problems).

 

Sure, in time. Tell that to a Rays fan, see how they react.

 

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It's true that the Nationals have given only scant recognition to their Expos past. I was terribly disappointed to see that they are wearing no memorial patch for Frank Robinson, who perfectly straddles the Expos and Nationals portions of the franchise history. 

 

True. Robinson should have gotten some acknowledgement.

 

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But now, on the franchise's 50th anniversary, is the perfect time to correct that policy, and to start embracing franchise history.

 

Again, no. They’re Washington’s team now. That’s how they’ve branded themselves, and since the record books didn’t change, I see no reason to object to it.

 

Also, the reason you couldn’t quote the post was because Grammarly f—ks with the board’s software.

[IceCap]

11 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Also, protection of Quebecois culture? Ask @Ice_Cap about that one.

Yeah, my grandfather's business being harassed by the PQ government thanks to Bill 101 was all worth it. I'm sure his English sign in Montreal was the harbinger of doom for the Quebecois' cultural distinctiveness

And I'm sure Jacques Parizeau  was totes just looking out for the French language's survival when he blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the Separatist movement's failures.

 

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Now, yes. But that wasn’t the case when most of Montréal’s big businesses fled after the disastrous Bill 101 routed the Anglophone community into Ontario. That certainly wasn’t the case in the 1990s when the referendum nearly passed and cratered the provincial economy further.

Pretty much. Quebec's baseball fanbase was rooted in its Anglophone population. That population is a shell of its former self thanks to Bill 101, and it's shrinking every year. Are there Francophone fans of baseball? Sure! It was never the cultural institution for Francophone Quebec that it was in the Anglophone Quebecer community though, and that makes any Expos revival an uphill battle. Especially once the novelty of them being "back" wears off.

[monkeypower]

Absolutely not to the Nats wearing Expos uniforms.

[The_Admiral]

I heard a joke that said the only things that will survive a nuclear apocalypse are cockroaches and the Quebecois, because if the Quebecois have lasted this long, why not?

 

Anyway, I understand and agree with the impulse for cultural preservation, there must always be a Quebec for the Quebecois, but I don't see why we couldn't have had a pluralistic Montreal with a firmly French rest-of-the-province. That's basically what Quebec ended up with, anyway, just at the expense of having a baseball team, a Jewish community, apostrophes on storefronts, and the most important city in Canada. As loathsome as the separatists may be, the old order of a disengaged English ruling class with the Catholic Church acting as a shadow government wasn't gonna last forever; the Quebecois were going to start determining their own affairs one way or another, they just picked the clumsy and antisemitic way.

 

Anyway, as for thuh Nats dressing up as les Expos, I'd be fine with it if the Nats were in the habit of honoring their history as the Expos, e.g., maintaining retired numbers, things like that. They're not, really, so I kinda wish they wouldn't.

[monkeypower]

From purely anecdotal evidence, there's still a Jewish community in Montreal.

 

There's such a weird relationship between the Quebecois and the rest of Canada.

 

Somewhat unrelated, last summer I worked as a counselor at a summer camp in the States. Three of my boys in my bunk were from Montreal, two Jewish (partially the basis for my anecdotal evidence) and one French. There's a big day during the summer called Visiting Day where the families come to the camp and at one point I was playing hockey with their three dads against the three kids. I later jokingly explained to my counselor friend from North Carolina who was watching about how he was completely unaware of how much of a difference there was in hockey between a "good Western Canadian boy" like myself and three middle-agedish Quebecois men.

[IceCap]

53 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

From purely anecdotal evidence, there's still a Jewish community in Montreal.

As someone whose paternal family are Montreal Jews? It's a far smaller and older community then it used to be. Montreal used to have a thriving Jewish community, but Bill 101 drove a lot of them out. The Jewish community in Montreal is a microcosm of the larger Anglophone community in Quebec. It used to be quite sizable, Bill 101 gutted it, and the remnants are either dying off or moving away year by year to places where they don't have to deal with antisemitic and/or Anglophobic bs.

[Olmec]

The Expos and their history died and stayed in Montreal when the team folded. Why? Because the Washington Nationals are the Washington Nationals and there isn't a single DC fan who cares about that team that used to play in Canada. 

[Around the Horn]

2 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Sure, in time. Tell that to a Rays fan, see how they react.

That's if you can find a Rays fan...

 

I was watching the Yankees-Ray series last weekend and I couldn't believe a first place team couldn't get more than 25,000 in the ballpark. Surely the same team in Montreal would draw more?

[BBTV]

25k in May - where first-place is irrelevant - in a “non baseball market” - isn’t bad at all.  Not sure what you’re basing that opinion of Montreal’s ability to pack a stadium with more in May. 

[SportsLogos.Net News]

Phillies Add Patch for Montgomery

May 16, 2019 - 13:50 PM

The Philadelphia Phillies have added a memorial patch to their jersey sleeve in memory of team president and minority owner David Montgomery who died last week at the age of 72. The patch will remain on the jersey sleeve for […]

Read More...

[TBGKon]

9 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

That's if you can find a Rays fan...

 

I was watching the Yankees-Ray series last weekend and I couldn't believe a first place team couldn't get more than 25,000 in the ballpark. Surely the same team in Montreal would draw more?

 

2 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

25k in May - where first-place is irrelevant - in a “non baseball market” - isn’t bad at all.  Not sure what you’re basing that opinion of Montreal’s ability to pack a stadium with more in May. 

25k is a sellout this year, as the Rays closed off the 300 level (except for the bleacher party deck in LF)...

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25683771/tampa-bay-rays-eliminate-upper-deck-seating-reduce-capacity-25000

[Marlins93]

16 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Oh hi, we stole Montréal’s team away because of language laws, a white elephant stadium, Canadian economic downturn, and a lack of desire to have a team in the area. Do you mind if we dress up like them and pretend that everything is hunky-dory?

 

Nobody should do an Expos throwback until there’s a replacement team in Montréal. Heck, I’d rather have the Jays do an Expos throwback than the Nats. At least it’d be a good way to not rub salt in Montréal’s wounds.

I'm with you on this.

 

I have always had mixed thoughts about one franchise trying to preserve the continuity or lineage of one that's been relocated. It should be a clean slate even if front office personnel and players made the migration. For example, I don't think the Nationals need to retire Expos numbers (Dawson or Carter). Washington Senators, yes.

 

This might go against the concept of a "franchise" but a team's identity is more tied to a city or geographic region than it is an ownership group. Although technically a relocation, in my mind, the Expos were contracted and the Nationals expanded simultaneously.

 

I understand the reasoning behind MLB structuring it the way it does, but I do not imagine that many Expos fans kept allegiance to the Nationals just because the players moved there, but correct me if I'm wrong. If the Marlins moved to Portland, I'd be too stung to follow them there.

[SFGiants58]

17 minutes ago, Marlins93 said:

I'm with you on this.

 

I have always had mixed thoughts about one franchise trying to preserve the continuity or lineage of one that's been relocated. It should be a clean slate even if front office personnel and players made the migration. For example, I don't think the Nationals need to retire Expos numbers (Dawson or Carter). Washington Senators, yes.

 

This might go against the concept of a "franchise" but a team's identity is more tied to a city or geographic region than it is an ownership group. Although technically a relocation, in my mind, the Expos were contracted and the Nationals expanded simultaneously.

 

I understand the reasoning behind MLB structuring it the way it does, but I do not imagine that many Expos fans kept allegiance to the Nationals just because the players moved there, but correct me if I'm wrong. If the Marlins moved to Portland, I'd be too stung to follow them there.

 

Of course, it all depends on what the team was able to accomplish in their previous location.

 

The New York baseball Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Boston/Milwaukee Braves all had storied histories with many pennants and several World Series titles spread among them. It also helped that the Giants/Dodgers/Braves moved with all-time greats on their teams (e.g., Mays, Koufax, Spahn/Aaron, etc.). There was good reason to keep the lineage alive in marketing, especially if there was a lack of World Series success in the new place (e.g., the Giants before the three-in-five run, the A's after nearly moving to Denver or New Orleans, and the Braves before the '90s run). 

 

I know we point to the San Francisco Giants as this great example of honoring the pre-relocation past, but let's be real. It's because of the carry-over of important New York personnel (e.g., Willy Mays, Carl Hubbell in the front office, etc.), the existence of a replacement team (the Mets), and because the Giants spent the first 56 years of their San Francisco tenure without a World Series. Franchises tend to appeal to their most recent championships, even if said championships happened all the way across the country.

 

With teams like the Browns, the Pilots, the Sens/Nats, the Sens MK II, and the Expos, you didn't have those World Series titles or frequent playoff appearances. While there are Hall of Fame members on most of those teams, there's not much to market to fans of the relocated team. You don't have that same "glory days" mentality when the Orioles, Brewers, Twins, Rangers, and Nationals have had more success in their new spots.

 

I'd argue that the Rangers handled it in the best way possible, fauxback-ing to the Senators MK II 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 brings me to my point of how the Nationals can pay tribute to the Expos, should they so chose to it.

 

 

 

Adapt either the cap or jersey logo of the Winnipeg Whips into a more Expos-like design (blue "W," red ball), maybe have a Clarendon "Nationals" underneath the insignia on the jersey, and you're set! If anything, all you're insulting is the memory of a very short-lived MiLB team that only exists in the Ebbets Field Flannels catalog. It also helps that it isn't as fugly as the "eMB."

[TBGKon]

If Washington wants to honor the expos, just flip the Expos M to a W.

[Gothamite]

7 minutes ago, AstroBull21 said:

If Washington wants to honor the expos, just flip the Expos M to a W.

 

That looked terrible as an M, it would be even worse as a W. 

[TBGKon]

1 minute ago, Gothamite said:

 

That looked terrible as an M, it’s even worse as a W. 

I didnt say id like it, but it would be an option...

[SFGiants58]

1 minute ago, AstroBull21 said:

I didnt say id like it, but it would be an option...

 

That's the logo equivalent of a bird flip. No thanks, especially when you can license the Whips' design (which is infinitely better).

[The_Admiral]

The Nationals should have thought about this before they unretired the #30 of Tim Raines for, like, Mike Stanton or something, and not even the really good Giancarlo one, just the middle-reliever one.

[Marlins93]

I do suppose that something does make sense for the continuity between the Dodgers and Giants to be retained. This might have something to do with the mascot name staying the same and there only being minor changes to the uniforms and colors. The existing star power (Mays, Jackie Robinson although he didn't make the trip) also factors in somewhat. I'd say this occurrence is more of an outlier. In most cases it doesn't make sense for the continuity to be preserved, such as the Senators moving to Texas/Minnesota or the Pilots moving to Milwaukee.

[CitizenTino]

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask, but does anyone know of a site that sells low-crown 5950s for MiLB? I’m looking for a Lake County Captains hat. Fanatics used to have it, but it’s now listed as out of stock.

 

This is what I’m trying to find:

https://www.fanatics.com/lake-county-captains-new-era-home-authentic-collection-on-field-low-profile-59fifty-fitted-hat-navy/p-13258567810240+z-9640-547264182