Reasonable product? They had the best team in baseball and snubbed their noses at it. They don't deserve a second chance. Purely a hockey and CFL joint.
We had the best record in the National League, and our attendance was a little over two million. Yes, it was a bit better than the Orioles, but we should have drawn three million to Nats Park. We didn't. So I don't think we're in a position to criticize Montreal baseball fans. One more thing to keep in mind---they sold out the last Expos game at Olympic Stadium. The infamous "SHORT STINKS" game at RFK, which was the last AMERICAN League game in Washington was far from a sellout.
Montreal isn't a baseball town, but neither is Washington. It takes a lot of hard work and nurturing to grow a fan base in both cities. But in their heyday, Montreal really loved the Expos. I think the major reason why attendance plummeted at the "O" in the last decade was that Montrealers saw that that the baseball team was a lame duck franchise, and nothing they could do would change that. I don't blame those fans for staying away. Instead, I'm amazed at how many stayed.
I'm skeptical (or as Expos fans would say, "sceptical") that the Rays will move to Montreal without a clear-cut plan for a new stadium. But if they do go, I'll be happy because a load of guilt over how we got the Nats will be off my mind. I will feel sorry for Rays fans if the team moves, but St. Petersburg and Tampa should have seen the writing on the wall years ago, and nothing has been done. One big problem with the Tampa Bay area is that a lot of fans---and their kid---owe their baseball allegiances to out-of-town teams in New York and Boston, and would not change this even when the Rays won the pennant. For this bunch, the Rays weren't a team to root for but a team playing THEIR team whenever the Yankees, Red Sox, or Mets came to town.
