Expos Nostalgia at the Olympic Stadium
Montreal Expos pitcher Pedro Martinez waves goodbye to fans Sept. 28, 1997
I know… not another “Bring Back Expos” article but I can’t help it. There will be baseball at the Olympic Stadium on April 1st and 2nd when the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox play a couple of exhibition games. The April 2nd game has been sold out for several months but Nick, Paolo, Joe D., Joe L. and Morgan will be there eating peanuts and cracker jack! There are still some tickets left for the Friday night game. Altogether, about 106,000 tickets in total have been sold for the two games. On Friday night, Tim Raines and Pedro Martinez will be honored during a ceremony before the game, while the late Jim Fanning will be remembered before the Saturday game.
For baseball fans in Montreal, the games offer a chance to pull out their old Expos gear and maybe take a young kid to his or her first ball game while remembering the glory days at Jarry Park and/or the Big O along with memories of Raines, Martinez, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Rusty Staub. It’s also a chance to dream that one day Major League Baseball will return to the city.
This marks the third straight year the Blue Jays will play a pair of exhibition games at the Big O and the number of tickets sold has increased each year. Mayor Denis Coderre says that sends a “true, strong message” to MLB that Montreal could support a team in the future. Of course, that would also take a new downtown stadium and a team with a combined cost somewhere around $1 billion. Hence, a return of Major League Baseball will probably never happen in Montreal. There are simply too many hurdles and selling out two pre-season games isn’t the same as trying to sell tickets for 81 home games a season — especially if the team isn’t winning in this city — just look at the empty seats at the Bell Centre courtesy of the struggling Habs.
The best part about baseball in Montreal will remain the memories. ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Let me root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win it’s a shame. For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game. ¸¸.•*¨*•♫