OK, baseball geeks like me get it: the Expos aren’t coming back. And those who don’t care at all, who seem to be more and more outnumbered, are tired of hearing about it. But I’m struggling to let go, especially with some of the absurdities we’ve seen since the beginning of the year.
The first nonsense concerns the Tampa Bay Rays. On April 9, after 8 straight wins earlier in the year, 11,159 fans attended Tropicana Field. It’s less than last week at the Remparts in Quebec. The Rays won 11-0 to equal a major league record of 13 wins to open their season. The performance is amazing.
But as fan support, it’s appalling. Since the beginning of the year, half of the teams have had an average attendance of more than 30,000 spectators.
This isn’t new in Tampa Bay. But when the team is chasing such an incredible record, it’s embarrassing. One criticizes the terrible stadium and its location. A new stadium is being planned at the same location.
I really don’t understand why a new stadium in the same place would suddenly double the number of spectators. Even in the worst stadiums, fans react when the team dominates. It’s like that everywhere except the Rays.
I’ve been to Tropicana Field a few times. It’s true that under the dome it’s pretty gloomy and not very pretty. But it does the job. It was built in 1990 like the Blue Jays Stadium, not in 1976 like the Olympic Stadium. Also, the dour atmosphere of a Tampa Bay dome is sometimes compared to that of Toronto. And the Blue Jays continue to consistently rank among the top assisting teams in the league.
Photo archive, AFP
Tropicana Field isn’t warm, but it deserves more than 13,000 fans as the team chases a winning record.
Yes, the location of Jays Stadium is dreamy. But in Tampa Bay, especially in St. Petersburg, that’s not a problem either. The stadium is bordered by Central Avenue, a glamorous street full of good restaurants and bars. St. Petersburg is a beautiful area about twenty minutes from downtown Tampa. It’s not the perfect place, but it’s still not torture. Would a slightly better placed stadium bring 10,000 more fans per game? I very much doubt it.
Not much better in Miami
It’s also embarrassing for the other team in Florida, in Miami. Last year it was an average of 11,204 people per game. Before the pandemic, it was 10,013. Last time, 29 years ago, the Marlins averaged over 30,000.
In Cincinnati, in a magnificent stadium, there are 7,375 spectators on Monday. It’s the worst audience in 20 years and one of the worst in over 100 years.
Photo: AFP
The Reds weren’t crowded on Monday, even though the team of the hour was in town: the Tampa Bay Rays.
Oakland had 3,035 visitors on April 3rd. It is less than Quebec’s capitals on several summer evenings. One opossum even decided to take up residence in a recording studio at the Oakland Coliseum.
In short, the return of Expos remains a fad. It would take someone very rich and not in need of help because it is clear that Montrealers have moved on and that the metropolis has too many challenges. But when you see all this nonsense, it hurts.
We weren’t that bad in Montreal
There was no cat in the stadium at the end either, but we had the excuse that the team was bad or under supervision. There were always more than 20,000 fans on average when the team played by more than 500. Except at the end, 2002 and 2003 with two good seasons. The team was already doomed, but weak support certainly didn’t help.
There isn’t a single city in North America the size of Montreal that doesn’t have a Major League Baseball club.
- It works in Milwaukee (1.4 million inhabitants including the metropolitan area).
- In Kansas City (1.7 million metropolitan area) it works.
- In Nashville (with 1.1 million inhabitants metropolitan area) it will work, a team should come.
- In Montreal (4.1 million metropolitan population), I feel like I’d piss everyone off if I thought it could work.
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