Why Montreal baseball fans shouldn't cheer for the Baltimore Orioles

 

Montrealers rightly revile the Washington D.C. baseball club, our stolen Expos.

When we spit at the map we might expand our watery aim to the neighbouring city of Baltimore, which has also spoiled Montreal's baseball aspirations repeatedly.


-In 1903 the Montreal Royals were cut from the top minor league to make room for the Baltmore Orioles.

Montreal fans had a good record of attendance at Atwater Park (now Alexis Nihon Plaza) in spite of poor teams.

The Orioles had been been relegated from the big leagues to allow the New York Highlanders to play in the American League. The Highlanders became the Yankees. Thankfully the injustice Montreal suffered was rapidly rectified. That same season the Worcester Mass. club went broke and that franchise was relocated to Montreal.

-In 1914, Baltimore plucked seven players off our roster. -By the 1950s Montreal and Baltimore both had teams in the International League and when Montreal's Jackie Robinson was slated to play on the road, fan abuse was feared, especially in Baltimore, the league's southernmost city. But 40% of the 25,000 who showed up at that first road game were black, so there was not much of a rough ride.

The Baltimore Evening Sun remained critical of Montreal's Robison, taunting him for sitting out a few games with sore ankles. Baltimore and Syracuse were the two teams that most opposed Robinson's presence.
-In 1953 St. Louis Brown owner Bill Veeck wanted to relocate. Montreal wanted a big league team and the City of Montreal went into action to snag it.

They offered to purchase the Delormier Stadium from the Brooklyn Dodgers, an initiative approved by city council on September 24, 1953. The Brooklyn Dodgers asked for $2.35 million. They had purchased it eight years earlier for $375,000. The city had it evaluated at $332,000 yet were willing to go up to $1 million, possibly $1.5 million. Councillors Jean Paul Hamelin, Paul Dozois and Frank Hanley were leading the drive to get the team and went to the states to examine the possibilities. Forty eight of 55 councillors voted to buy the team but not for the asking price and the Dodgers wouldn't negotiated down.

In 1955 the Dodgers offered to sell Delormier ballpark to Montreal for $1.6 million but it was too late. The Browns had already moved to Baltimore, even though Montreal had a far better attended minor league franchise.

Had it not been for Baltimore (and Brooklyn's greedy management) Montreal might have been in the major leagues in 1954. (The Montreal city councillors who voted against purchasing the stadium: Adelme Farly, Norman English, Herve Ravary and G-A. Gagnon).

-1974 And finally the Expos made their worst-ever trade and it was with Baltimore, in December 1974. We gave up Mike Torrez and Ken Singleton for Rich Coggins, David McNally and some other guy who never played for us. McNally was 32 and his arm was shot. He played one third of a season, going 3-6 with an ERA over 5.00 while Singleton and Torrez played like studs for many years after leaving Montreal. The Expos, who had finally been on the rise, sunk back into terrible mediocrity after the deal.

-In 1995 Baltimore owner Peter Angelos refused to go along with a deal where strikebreaking ballplayers would play real games in an attempt to force the real players to accept a deal that would allow poorer teams such as Montreal survive.