Continued from page 1
4 – Jeffery Loria killed
Expos.
By
team Loria purchased
Expos,
city almost held it’s breath with
promise of restoring tradition and longevity to a team that has for over a decade seen it’s best players being sold to what seemed like
lowest bidder. With no local ownership stepping up to become
majority partner, Montrealers knew that this Art Dealer from New York was their last chance. The real plan or plot was soon revealed as Loria turned out to be another pawn by Bud Selig in his plan. The media crucified Loria and he was made
scapegoat. We now have
benefit of history to guide us, and it has become painfully obvious that Loria was simply Selig’s patsy. Selig has wanted to get rid of
Expos opening since 2001, but most like has been working on this since Claude Brochu in
mid 90’s. He is a businessman, and if a franchise does not meeting targeted revenues, then what better way to line your pockets than
additional monies made for “expansion fees”.
3 – Blue Monday was
worst day in Expos History.
While Blue Monday is universally recognized as
dagger in
heart to Montreal’s best chance to get to
World Series (in a non-strike year), we believe that there was an undisclosed day that was worse than that. It was some day after 1990 when Claude Brochu and Bud Selig made a deal with one hand, and stabbed
Expos with
other.
2 – Attendance remains low due to indifference of Montrealers.
If there is one thing that Montrealers love to do, it is to go out and party. Any event is good. Jazz festival, Comedy festivals, Canadian Football League, hey, even a North American soccer league. As long as you have a liquor license, you have your self a good attendance. Knowing your franchise is leaving, or your owners are major league baseball, well, that is not exactly a party atmosphere. Even
film festival was getting good attendance until
rumors started of it being shut down in favor of Toronto. That won’t win you any fans either.
1 – That had
strike not cancelled
94 season, things would somehow be any different.
People seemed to forget that Montreal already had a 1994 season back in 1981. The Expos will in
lead both times. The difference between 1994 and 1981 was 1 thing. Charles Bronfman. Mr. Bronfman kept his team intact and worked hard to keep Montreal in contention year after year. He only sold
team after having
foresight of
skyrocketing player salaries in his near future. Selig, through Brochu, would have sold off Montreal’s star players despite any success
team may, or may not have had during that season. Using recent history as our guide, we see that Selig’s new puppet Loria did
same thing with
Marlins. Montreal would have been no different. And
resulting backlash would have allowed him to move
team even earlier.

Gary Whittaker is the editor of T.E.N Magazine, a webzine with balls. Check out more articles at http://www.tenwebzine.com