It is simply outrageous how baseball is dealing with the Montreal Expos!
For example, why are the Official Nomads of Major League Baseball staying at ritzy Marriotts and Hyatts on their ongoing Orphans 2003-2004 tour?
If baseball was really serious about keeping them on a short financial leash, Les Expos would be told to stay at Les Salvation Army headquarters at each stop.
And why is their clubhouse still stocked with Bazooka bubble gum?
Baseball could save all kinds of dough by forcing them to chew Dubble Bubble.
And yet, still, the Expos think they have it rough.
"Thank God I make serious money, so I can buy clothes, " says shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who notes that he sets time aside for shopping each trip because the Expos are not in one spot long enough for him to do his laundry.
So he shops and he shops, and just the other day he picked up a few more items.
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| Orlando Cabrera and the Expos are looking for a place to call home.(AP) |
And another thing.
"It's hard, man," Cabrera says. "Every time you pack your bag, go to a stadium, go to a hotel and check out, you think about it.
"We just came from Montreal, it was like a road trip. We were there three nights and two days."
Yes, Cabrera has a point (make that points.)
Yes, the Montreal situation is a continuing black eye for baseball.
Yes, it is as much of a disgrace this season as it was in 2003 -- more, probably, because the situation should have been settled long ago.
But what in the heck is baseball doing? If the suits made the Expos travel everywhere by bus, think of the savings! Hey, even Bingo Long was able to put together the Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings.
Ah, if the Expos' predicament wasn't so ludicrous, maybe it would be funny.
Because commissioner Bud Selig's contraction plan disintegrated -- as I wrote from Day 1 that it would -- the domino effect was that the Expos became jointly owned by the game's other 29 owners.
Because those owners had abdicated their responsibility as caretakers of the game, allowed the economic system to run amok and then allowed events of 1994 to escalate into a season-ending, World Series-canceling strike, the final nail was driven into the Montreal coffin as far as baseball interest in the city.
Once, the sport was healthy and vibrant in Montreal -- and in '94, an Expos team featuring Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou and Cliff Floyd was in first place and primed for a playoff run when the strike wiped things out.
Last summer, with the Expos defying the odds and hanging around the wild-card chase, baseball refused to let crack Expos general manager Omar Minaya add a million bucks worth of stretch-run help to the team in a deal for either Ugueth Urbina or Rondell White.
Then, baseball refused to allow the Expos any September minor-league call-ups, being that they would have cost about $170,000 each in salary and traveling expenses.
Meanwhile, this year's schedule looks like something that was spit out of a shady travel agent's virus-laden computer.
Because the Expos were in the pennant race through September last year and then appeared to run out of steam with all of the back-and-forth to their second home in Puerto Rico, baseball has squeezed this year's 22 games in San Juan into the three months before the All-Star break.
It's a well-intentioned move, but it isn't doing the Expos any favors now. With outfielder Carl Everett and first baseman Nick Johnson each on the disabled list and with Vladimir Guerrero and Javier Vazquez being nothing but memories, Montreal ranks second in the NL with a 3.50 team ERA -- but a major league-worst .205 team batting average has led to the majors' worst record.
"We depended on (Guerrero) an awful lot," Montreal manager Frank Robinson says. "I don't think we realized how much until he was gone.
"That's a big void that he left. We just haven't been able to fill it."
Robinson has every right to moan, groan and talk endlessly about how the deck is stacked and the Expos are on the wrong end of it.
But he bites his tongue -- even when some wise guy double-checks that the Expos weren't staying at any Salvation Army centers along their trails.
"Come on now," he says, offering something between a smile and a grimace. "We're still traveling first class. We're still staying in first-class hotels.
"I still argue that we have a first-class product on the field."
Selig insists that a final decision will be made regarding a permanent home for the Expos before the start of next season. Of course, the Expos heard that last summer, too. Last July was one of the original self-imposed deadlines.
Now, the biggest reason to think things could be different is that the situation has dragged on long enough that, according to multiple sources, the 29 other owners are sick and tired of funding the Expos and are angrily demanding that this mess get resolved, pronto.
Washington, D.C., still appears to be the most logical landing spot for the Expos.
"It makes sense on so many fronts," one baseball source says, from market-size to finances to remaining government-friendly (remember the steroid hearings a couple of months ago, and the anti-trust debates whenever labor issues move to the forefront?)
Baltimore's territorial rights, though, remain a sticky issue, and before baseball figures out how much money it will take to pacify Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Selig is determined to ensure that a D.C. team would not negatively affect one of the game's flagship franchises.
Until these questions are answered, baseball appears stuck with the Expos -- and for better or for worse, the Expos remain stuck with baseball.
Industry officials charged with overseeing the Expos' situation stubbornly stay the course, insisting that things still will work out for the best for all involved. Among other things, they say, bids have been more competitive and rough stadium financing plans in various locales are in better shape this year than last because the economy is better now than it was a year ago.
"The easy thing would have been, 'Let's take the best of the offers and get it off of our hands, and get rid of all of the negativity. Why are we putting more money into this? Let's just dump them and move on,'" one source within the commissioner's office argues.
It doesn't make things any easier for the Expos, especially as they schlepped from Montreal to San Diego without the benefit of a day off Sunday night in the midst of a 20-day, 20-game stretch that took them from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia to New York to Montreal to San Diego and, this weekend, to Los Angeles.
"I don't know what the hell they're waiting for to sell this team," Cabrera said. "I try to put myself in those shoes, and I can't figure it out."
Meanwhile, every so often they see television pictures of Guerrero tearing it up in Anaheim or Vazquez suiting up for the Yankees, and they can't help but wonder what if.
"Once you get out of here, it seems like you're in another league, like you got called up," Cabrera said. "That's how bad it is."
