Call Me Crazy, But I Miss the Montreal Expos

I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way. It's great that there is baseball now in Washington, DC, but I feel there is a void each season. I miss the wonderful little oddball north of the border known as the Expos. Whenever I think of baseball, I think that there is still a home for it in French-speaking Montreal, Quebec.

Certainly they were an oddity, a team not just in Canada but in Quebec, where French is more common than English. I thought their logo was cool, because it had a very interesting choice of colors and their logo was very hard to understand. To this very day, I have been to many sites and still haven't found a meaning for what looks like "elb" in the center.

I thought their usage of red, white and blue in their logo was interesting. We are talking Quebec here, the hardiest and most separatist of all Canadian provinces, and you couldn't get any more USA-opposite in North America...and they used the colors of the American flag.

Might be an insignificant thought to the average reader, but simply added to the Expo charm that no one can deny was there.

Watching the Expos was pretty fun. Growing up as a Reds fan, I looked forward to the games they would play at Olympic Stadium, to see the likes of Gary Carter, Hubie Brooks, Floyd Youmans, Tim Raines...I even thought it was cool to see players that were once Reds, such as Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Dann Bilardello, and Jay Tibbs, just to name a few.

I became a big fan of the game and really started to love getting into the statistics, previous teams players were on...what I consider the "meat and potatoes" of the game that are so easy to overlook.

To me it seems players in small markets play a little harder and with more heart than those who play in larger markets. I don't really know why that is, but maybe they embrace the hard-work ethic of the areas that support them.

In addition, those who played in Montreal could probably add that they played a little harder to get their fans to really stand up and take notice. It may not have totally worked in Montreal, but if any fans or former players are reading, I was in southern Indiana, I took note, and respected you all for that.

I really felt sad that the fans in Montreal didn't embrace the team like they should have. I feel even sadder today that they aren't much more better off. To see so few people go to a game and support their team is hard for me to understand. I can understand when there are still plenty of open seats, but to see how open on live TV is hard to swallow.

Baseball was in Washington before and if they don't start to embrace this team they are condemned to repeat what happened in Montreal. You don't know what you have until you take it for granted and it's gone.