Expos Rights question

[Perfect Zero]

That's my point. The team in Cleveland aren't the Browns, they are the Expansion Browns. Expansion teams have Expansion Drafts, they don't take a roster/employees/equipment and move them from somewhere else. All the Ravens did when they moved from Cleveland is change clothing. I completely understand the sentiment that Jim Brown wouldn't want to be associated with the Ravens because he played with the Cleveland Browns, but the original Cleveland Browns are dead. Better to have just had a new Baltimore franchise (the Ravens, clock starting with the move there), and a new identity in Cleveland (clock starting in 1999).

My problem (and I was the one who kicked the hornets' nest on this, my apologies) is with the idea that the team in Cleveland is the Browns. They dress like the Browns, but they aren't the Browns. There is no lineage, no matter how many times you say they left the identity behind. I can't break up with my wife and go find another woman with the same name and tell everyone it's the same person.

Obviously this is your own personal opinion, but you are wrong. Facts are facts. Facts cannot be disbuted. The Ravens were an expansion team with a BRAND NEW NFL certificate. The ONLY thing they took from the Browns was the 1995 roster and coaching staff....THAT'S IT. The 1995 roster is NOT the entire history of the Cleveland Browns.

You're right. Facts are facts. The Art Modell took the entire team & front office and moved to another city, just like in the case of almost every other franchise relocation in the history of sports. The Cleveland Browns ceased to exist. This wasn't Loria trading ownership of the Expos for the Marlins, because Modell took everything but the uniforms. You can agree with the NFL and say all you want that the Browns never left Cleveland, but it's just not true. I saw them leave. Everyone in Cleveland saw them leave. They had an Expansion Draft & everything for the new Expansion Browns.

If you buy into the NFL's line of thinking (and it's obvious you do), then the only thing that matters is the franchise identity. I think it's horse[bleep]. The Cleveland Browns aren't some certificate in Al Lerner's office. The Cleveland Browns are either in Baltimore or they don't exist. There is zero lineage aside from a certificate. And the idea that without possession of the specific certificate you aren't a franchise is quaint to say the least. Like I said before, if someone breaks into Reliant Stadium tomorrow and steals the Texans' certificate, the NFL is not going to boot them from the league because they aren't in possession of the certificate.

This is the same sort of semantics that leads to Joe Buck saying Nelson Cruz hit the first walk-off grand slam in postseason history. No, he didn't. Robin Ventura did. It's not Ventura's fault that Todd Pratt stopped him before second base. Call it a single, score it a single, make the final 4-3, but I watched the ball leave the park. You can't retcon actual events. Or maybe you can if enough people don't care.

I loved that last little paragraph that you put in. Ventura could have made the attempt to touch all of the bases even after being mobbed, but he neglected to do so. In order for him to get the Home Run, the rules specifically state that the batter has to touch all of the bases including home base. In failing to do this, he abandoned the play and thus is ruled out after the run had scored (although I believe that he was falsely given a single). It's not about if the ball leaves the park, it's about the rules of Baseball.

Of course, it's ok if you don't want to look at the rules.

EDIT: Gothamite beat me to the punch. Of course, I was consulting the Official Rules of Baseball.

[Gothamite]

His example is an excellent one, though. Unfortunately, it disproves his point.

There's the emotional response, and then there are the rules. With both Ventura's single and the Browns franchise.

[NatsFan2004]

You're right. Facts are facts. The Art Modell took the entire team & front office and moved to another city, just like in the case of almost every other franchise relocation in the history of sports.

At which point they became the Baltimore Ravens, not the Cleveland Browns. And therefore have no rights to the records and achievements of Cleveland Browns players who performed not in Baltimore, but in Cleveland. Otherwise you wind up with ridiculous scenarios like the one in the Barkley TNT video where they refer to stats that didn't even occur in the same city or even in the same uniform.

[RedSox44]

Labatt Park have been a beautiful stadium... Shame Jeffery Loria was their owner which nearly guaranteed they were screwed.

You can't blame Loria. The only reason he was able to buy the team was because the previous owner couldn't get the stadium built, either.

If there is to be a villain in this story, it's Montreal and Quebec. Public money is part and parcel of having a sports franchise in town, and it's been that way for over half a century. They couldn't get a deal done, so they lost the team.

Now, there are those who don't like the public money model. Fair enough. In that case, the Expos' story doesn't have a villain, just a tragic set of circumstances without anyone to blame.

I think Loria is a tool. But it's not his fault that the Expos aren't still in Montreal.

I believe the option put before Quebec parliament was "money for new hospitals" vs. "money for a new stadium"; it's an obvious choice when presented that way.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Loria reject an eventual offer from the Quebec or Montreal governments? I thought they offered funding plus land but he played a "you missed the deadline" card. Loria also terminated all English radio and television deals (Montreal is nearly 50/50 between French and English citizens).

Going to an Expos game was tough and anyone who ever tried to go to a game would get the sense that whoever ran this team did not want you to be there, especially during the MLB ownership years...

One parking lot for the stadium was available to the fans, every gate entrance except for the one on the complete opposite end of the stadium (from the parking lot) did not allow fan access.

Once inside the stadium fans were treated to the most intense security I've ever seen in a baseball stadium (outside Yankee Stadium's Legends area), security guards dressed in police officer style outfits would pounce on any fan who stepped foot in the lower 15 rows of seats (yet stopping fans from tossing golf balls on the field was a concept which escaped them)

One game we went to it was raining, the roof leaked into the row of seats in front of us, a worker came around in the 6th inning to mop up the water

The seats were horrid, nothing I've ever seen, two separate pieces that would pinch your ass if you dared jump to your feet to cheer or celebrate or, you know, do anything a fan would do at a sporting event

Smoking was permitted pretty much everywhere, nothing like crowding into a cramped corridor with the other 7000 people who went to the game all trying to get to the only open exit while 3500 fans are blowing smoke into the air

After every Expo game I'd swear to myself that this is the last time I'll ever go because the experience was that terrible, however I'd keep returning annually for the last game of each season with the thought that "this is probably it"

As for the quality of the team itself, we know what happened with the '94 club, but when MLB was in control the Expos did somehow field a semi-successful club in 2002 - even making a splash at the trade deadline acquiring Bartolo Colon (in one of the worst trades in MLB history) - fans started showing up after they made that trade... until Colon was traded again a few days later; when time came to expand the rosters that season MLB refused to allow them to call up any players, gotta keep that salary down (as if a month of minor leaguers costs that much)... not that it would have made a difference but imagine they were in a playoff race with a 25-man roster against clubs with a 30-35 man roster? Seems unfair to me.

It's the little things all added up that just ruined the whole experience of attending a MLB game to the average Montrealer... if there was another local group that wanted to own that team and a smaller outdoor stadium (worked for the Als) there's no doubt in my mind that Montreal wouldn't be a thriving baseball market right now but there's neither the owner nor the stadium.

That is all true except for them trading Colon days later. They traded him to the White Sox in January of 2003.

I wonder who I'm thinking of... Rondell White? Cliff Floyd? I thought they got a decent player then dealt him shortly after during that season.

I believe they traded Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips to land Bartolo Colon... what a deal!

The 'Spos (re)acquired Cliff Floyd from the Marlins early in the 2002 season, and traded him to the Red Sox like two months later.

Yes, Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens were traded to the Cleveland Indians for Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew (JD's brother).

[kmccarthy27]

You're right. Facts are facts. The Art Modell took the entire team & front office and moved to another city, just like in the case of almost every other franchise relocation in the history of sports.

At which point they became the Baltimore Ravens, not the Cleveland Browns. And therefore have no rights to the records and achievements of Cleveland Browns players who performed not in Baltimore, but in Cleveland. Otherwise you wind up with ridiculous scenarios like the one in the Barkley TNT video where they refer to stats that didn't even occur in the same city or even in the same uniform.

I do not believe they were the Ravens right out the box, I think there were referred to as the Baltimore Browns for a few months/week before the name change happened.

[bosrs1]

You're right. Facts are facts. The Art Modell took the entire team & front office and moved to another city, just like in the case of almost every other franchise relocation in the history of sports.

At which point they became the Baltimore Ravens, not the Cleveland Browns. And therefore have no rights to the records and achievements of Cleveland Browns players who performed not in Baltimore, but in Cleveland. Otherwise you wind up with ridiculous scenarios like the one in the Barkley TNT video where they refer to stats that didn't even occur in the same city or even in the same uniform.

I do not believe they were the Ravens right out the box, I think there were referred to as the Baltimore Browns for a few months/week before the name change happened.

Nope. They were generically the NFL Baltimore or some such like that before the contest determined their name. Even if the history saving deal hadn't been reached Modell wasn't going to use the Browns name in Baltimore. He knew it wouldn't go over well in the city that had been screwed by the Colts. Baltimore wouldn't want to screw Cleveland as they'd been screwed by Indy.

[Gothamite]

They were casually spoken of as the "Baltimore Browns", before the move was official and the Cleveland deal was struck.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/04/sports/football-baltimore-browns-may-be-a-done-deal.html

Maybe that's what he was thinking of.

[NatsFan2004]

If you want to be extremely specific, yes, the Ravens name wasn't chosen until some time after the actual move. I just meant the name changed from the end of one season to the beginning of the next season.

[IceCap]

Sports teams are private business entities. The Packers aside, they don't belong to the community. The two Senators teams are in the Twin Cities and Arlington. The current Nationals teams are the old Montreal Expos.

Sure, fans like to think they have a stake in a team, that's part being a fan. That's not the reality though.

The reality is that as passionate as fans get they're still just costumers of private businesses. The records and histories of these teams belong to the teams themselves, or should at any rate.

Yes, Nationals fans may have an emotional connection to the players of the two Senators teams, but that emotional connection doesn't do away with the fact that those players played for teams that now operate out of the Twin Cities and Arlington. Nor does the fact that Nats fans lack an emotional connection to past Expos players negate the fact that the Nats are the former Expos.

Now I consider myself a sports fan. That being said I think fans tend to over-emphasize the role they play in a team's legacy. They like to think that they make a team something more then just a business, that they own part of a team's legacy. While I understand where people come from when they take this position I just can't buy into it myself.

As far as I'm concerned a team's legacy, history, and record books belong to the teams themselves. We fans are just along for the ride.

[omnivore]

People here are conflating two different things.

When the Browns move to Baltimore, the NFL kept the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland and put them on hiatus. The Ravens are an expansion team distinct from the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland even though everyone that came obviously had been in the other city with that other team. The heritage is there, but for the league record books...they're distinct franchises.

In baseball's case, this has never been done. Someone mentioned the San Jose Earthquakes, another team that took a "hiatus" and returned to the league after an absence. I think we'll see this more and more. The Thunder biffed it, because they'll "share" their history with any future Seattle team, but I guess that's probably because there's unlikely to be another Seattle NBA team. No the Winnipeg Jets in Phoenix and the Thrashers that moved and became the Jets aren't the same team with distinct histories and hell played in different conferences...but that doesn't matter to the folks in Winnipeg, does it? No, it doesn't. Their team is back and that's all that matters really. Even if it mucks up the league history books. That's the league's fault though and probably the precedent set by the past has dictated these future terms. Otherwise, I think we'd see more stewardship of leagues keeping the history of a franchise vested with that city when a team does leave.

That said, teams ought to do what they want. I mean, in the grand scheme of things casual fans could care less about "official record books" anyway and so, it doesn't matter. As for the IP, leagues always license throwbacks, etc., so that's not shocking. Doesn't take much to find throwbacks of teams long since dead on the internet sold through Cooperstown Classics, etc.

[Bouj]

This is the same sort of semantics that leads to Joe Buck saying Nelson Cruz hit the first walk-off grand slam in postseason history. No, he didn't. Robin Ventura did. It's not Ventura's fault that Todd Pratt stopped him before second base. Call it a single, score it a single, make the final 4-3, but I watched the ball leave the park. You can't retcon actual events. Or maybe you can if enough people don't care.

Boy, the facts just aren't on your side today.

Ventura never crossed home plate. Until he does, it's a single. The Mets won that game 4-3, not 7-3, because Robin Ventura ended it with a walk-off one-RBI single.

The defining characteristic of a run is crossing the plate. Knocking the ball out of the park only gives the batter a right to advance and cross the plate. Just like an NFL franchise is the right to field a team, not the organization itself.

Read what I wrote. I said it can be called a single and scored a single. I understand that if he never gets home then it's not a home run. I understand the goddamn rules of baseball. But don't say it never happened because it did happen. ESPN later amended the statement by saying "the first OFFICIAL walk-off grand slam in postseason history" and then mentioned Ventura getting mobbed. It's akin to saying that 8-inning no-hitters don't count as real no-hitters. No, they don't officially count, but they happened. Pedro Martinez was perfect for 5-innings. Perfect Game? No. Did he pitch a game where he gave up no hits or baserunners over 5 innings? Yes. So it happened, but it didn't "happen".

It was a home run that became a single officially in the record and score, but that doesn't change the fact Ventura left the yard. They treated it as such at the time and had to come back later and say it was just a single, which is the correct official scoring. But unofficially the ball left the yard, over the fence on a fly (just like a real home run), and it was treated like a home run on the broadcast. And as an aside to an aside (I wish I had left the Browns thing for its own thread, because it derailed this Expos thread), if Chris Chambliss can later go back & touch home to make sure it's "official", Ventura could have too.

[Gothamite]

A home run isn't a home run until the batter crosses home plate. If the broadcasters assumed that Ventura would do that after the ball left the park, then that's their problem.

I remember in New York we were talking about it as a single the next day. We called it the longest single ever.

I undertstand that we want to call it a home run, because it had many of the qualities of a home run. But it wasn't. Just as you might want to call the Baltimore Ravens a continuation of the Cleveland Browns, because they had many of the personnel of the Cleveland Browns. In both cases, there is a satisfying emotional case to be made, but in both cases you are factually wrong.

[Gothamite]

Following up on your aside, I think Ventura could well have gone back to touch the bases.

Here's MLB's rule on the subject.

7.08

Any runner is out when --

(a) (1) He runs more than three feet away from his baseline to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner's baseline is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely; or (2) after touching first base, he leaves the baseline, obviously abandoning his effort to touch the next base;

Rule 7.08(a) Comment: Any runner after reaching first base who leaves the baseline heading for his dugout or his position believing that there is no further play, may be declared out if the umpire judges the act of the runner to be considered abandoning his efforts to run the bases. Even though an out is called, the ball remains in play in regard to any other runner.

This rule also covers the following and similar plays: Less than two out, score tied last of ninth inning, runner on first, batter hits a ball out of park for winning run, the runner on first passes second and thinking the home run automatically wins the game, cuts across diamond toward his bench as batter-runner circles bases. In this case, the base runner would be called out "for abandoning his effort to touch the next base" and batter-runner permitted to continue around bases to make his home run valid. If there are two out, home run would not count (see Rule 7.12). This is not an appeal play.

I doubt that the umps would have ruled the play over so long as the Mets were on the field. So he probably could have finished running the bases (and so could have Todd Pratt, who also abandoned the bases in the celebration).

[hawk36]

Sports teams are private business entities. The Packers aside, they don't belong to the community. The two Senators teams are in the Twin Cities and Arlington. The current Nationals teams are the old Montreal Expos.

Sure, fans like to think they have a stake in a team, that's part being a fan. That's not the reality though.

The reality is that as passionate as fans get they're still just costumers of private businesses. The records and histories of these teams belong to the teams themselves, or should at any rate.

Yes, Nationals fans may have an emotional connection to the players of the two Senators teams, but that emotional connection doesn't do away with the fact that those players played for teams that now operate out of the Twin Cities and Arlington. Nor does the fact that Nats fans lack an emotional connection to past Expos players negate the fact that the Nats are the former Expos.

Now I consider myself a sports fan. That being said I think fans tend to over-emphasize the role they play in a team's legacy. They like to think that they make a team something more then just a business, that they own part of a team's legacy. While I understand where people come from when they take this position I just can't buy into it myself.

As far as I'm concerned a team's legacy, history, and record books belong to the teams themselves. We fans are just along for the ride.

If we are to go completely corporate then let's get rid of the use of the city in their names.

In the corporate world there is no Redmond Microsoft, Seattle Amazon.com, or Detroit Ford. If teams want to be truly "free" and not belong to a city, then quit using the names of the cities in the name/brand. In my mind, when you tie your name to the city, benefit from that city name, you are going into a partnership with that city/region. We all can agree that the Brooklyn Nets are going to move tons of merchandise because of the Brooklyn name, not the Nets name.

Hey maybe cities should start charging teams for the use of the city name. Now that would be something.

[IceCap]

Now you're just being silly.

A city's name doesn't belong to anyone. Of course a sports team will use the name of a city to appeal to it's costumer base, fans. That's all well and good, and as a fan I appreciate the feeling one gets when they feel they're a part of what's happening on the field/ice/court.

That's just sentimentality though, not reality. It's one thing to loose yourself in the moment of being a fan. It's another to try and claim you as a fan "own" any part of a team's legacy.

[Milo Meningocele]

Sports teams are private business entities. The Packers aside, they don't belong to the community. The two Senators teams are in the Twin Cities and Arlington. The current Nationals teams are the old Montreal Expos.

Sure, fans like to think they have a stake in a team, that's part being a fan. That's not the reality though.

The reality is that as passionate as fans get they're still just costumers of private businesses. The records and histories of these teams belong to the teams themselves, or should at any rate.

Yes, Nationals fans may have an emotional connection to the players of the two Senators teams, but that emotional connection doesn't do away with the fact that those players played for teams that now operate out of the Twin Cities and Arlington. Nor does the fact that Nats fans lack an emotional connection to past Expos players negate the fact that the Nats are the former Expos.

Now I consider myself a sports fan. That being said I think fans tend to over-emphasize the role they play in a team's legacy. They like to think that they make a team something more then just a business, that they own part of a team's legacy. While I understand where people come from when they take this position I just can't buy into it myself.

As far as I'm concerned a team's legacy, history, and record books belong to the teams themselves. We fans are just along for the ride.

Now you're just being silly.

A city's name doesn't belong to anyone. Of course a sports team will use the name of a city to appeal to it's costumer base, fans. That's all well and good, and as a fan I appreciate the feeling one gets when they feel they're a part of what's happening on the field/ice/court.

That's just sentimentality though, not reality. It's one thing to loose yourself in the moment of being a fan. It's another to try and claim you as a fan "own" any part of a team's legacy.

Seconded, and seconded.

[NatsFan2004]

Now you're just being silly.

A city's name doesn't belong to anyone.

A city can legally trademark its name and pursue any business entity which attempts to use it without license. Not that they would likely do this, because sports teams are a great way of marketing the city's brand, but it's possible.

Of course a sports team will use the name of a city to appeal to it's costumer base, fans. That's all well and good, and as a fan I appreciate the feeling one gets when they feel they're a part of what's happening on the field/ice/court.

That's just sentimentality though, not reality. It's one thing to loose yourself in the moment of being a fan. It's another to try and claim you as a fan "own" any part of a team's legacy.

You'd be right, if the tickets and the merchandise were free.

Given that they're not, in buying into the franchise's "products", fans become customers.

Remember, if it's a business and a business only, the business only exists when the customers purchase its products. And part of what each and every professional sports franchise and college program is selling us (to varying degrees) is its legacy on the field and what that means to us as a fan. It's inherent in every team's marketing plan, and explicit in most.

On that basis, it's a grey area at the very least that a team's customers don't have some ownership of the team's legacy, good bad or indifferent.

[Gothamite]

I think teams also become quasi-public entities when they take public funds for things like stadiums.

There's more of a connection between team and city than with most corporations.

[hawk36]

I think teams also become quasi-public entities when they take public funds for things like stadiums.

There's more of a connection between team and city than with most corporations.

Exactly my point. What other corporations include the name of the city they are in in their name? Teams market the city name on jerseys and make money from that name. I think a point could be made by a smart lawyer somewhere that cities are owed a percentage of the revenue from those products. And as I typed it, I got a sinking feeling that someone will try just that and all hell will break loose.

[DaytonBlue]

Some cities were smart and included naming provisions in leases as part of public contributions to stadiums. Of course, Anaheim wasn't as smart as they should have been.

I've been rethinking my position on the franchise history. I would say that except for Cleveland Browns and San Jose Earthquakes, the franchise history has always moved with the team regarding record books and it should continue that way.

However, the fans of a city with two teams past and present are going to recognize only the history that happened in their city. Perhaps we need to refer to "franchise records" and "city records". I know with the Rams, when they had their first home playoff game in St. Louis, the STL media only discussed when the last football Cardinal game was in St. Louis, not when the LA Rams had last hosted a playoff game. They are two teams with two histories, but they combine to form one history of St. Louis pro football (at least for now).

Of course, the Thunder screwed it up as they screw up almost everything. Sharing a history doesn't make sense. Either it stays with the city or goes with the franchise. Can't do both. If I were Seattle, I would have pushed to exclusively keep the Sonics' history, logos, and merchandising rights to said logos as part of the Thunder breaking the Key Arena lease early. Didn't the Whalers logo go to Connecticut after they moved to Raleigh?