A commenter on my blog "King of All Whites" seems to think that Montreal was robbed of its team and that giving baseball back to the Nations Capitol is a bad idea. I have written on this subject in the past, but since much of baseball is all about statistics lets really look at his arguments and compare them to actual numbers.
King of all Whites writes
"People [in Montreal] are starting to wake up to what happened to them. And don't be so smug and so sure. DC has lost the Senators not once but twice and look at how attendance and performance has been in DC.
Ok, so then the King is arguing that attendance Washington's declining attendance marks the death bell for the team and that they never should have left. But how bad is the attendance really? Let's look at the average for the Expos over their final four seasons at Olympic Stadium:
2001 - 7,935 - Rank 30 out of 30
2002 - 10,025 -Rank 30 out of 30
2003 - 12,662 -Rank 30 out of 30
2004 - 9,356 -Rank 30 out of 30
Comparatively let's look at average attendance at RFK stadium since the Nationals have been in existence:
2005 - 33,651 -Rank 11 out of 30
2006 - 26,582 -Rank 21 out of 30
2007 - 21,966 -Rank 26 out of 30
So the average attendance is going down, but that is to be expected since the team is in the process of settling in to its new ownership, rebuilding its player depth, and also building a new stadium. Even taking that into account, the nationals have double the average attendance than the Expos had at the end of their run. One would think that if Montreal was really a city that cared about baseball then at the very least their last season in existence would have seen a sharp increase in attendance. It didn't. Which leads one to believe that if people are "waking up to what happened to them" in Montreal, they are waking up and realising that they never really cared much for baseball and it took them this long to even notice that they were gone.
While it is true that DC has had a shaky relationship in the past with baseball, the area is one of the fastest growing in the country. The potential market was enough to scare Orioles owner Peter Angelos into robbing viewers of Nat's games for two years. There is no question that Washington's market potential is much stronger than that of Montreal.
Incidentally, average attendance at a Nationals games is just behind Baltimore and better than Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Granted those teams are awful this year, but surely no one would suggest that the cities they represent don't deserve to have a team.
Finally, I was unaware that Caucasians were ruled by a monarch, maybe I should be careful lest I am beheaded.
5 comments:
Your ranting is riddled with errors and half-truths. Before Jeff Loria the Expos regularly filled up the Big O's 60,000 seats and they were around for over 36 years. Let's see how long the "Nats" last. Either was the Expos will be back. Either with the Nats bolting or with a new franchise. So say the king. And you are 100% ignorant about the rich baseball history of Montreal. It was in Montreal that Jackie Robinson was able to play and flourish in the minor leagues free from the racism that plagued the United States. That was way back in the 1940's.
Look up the attendance for yourself, facts are facts. While Montreal had a MINOR league history, that does not put it in a market that can sustain a team in the majors, hence the MINOR league system. As for the Nat's leaving, you back that up with no statistical or solid background. You want them to leave for personal reasons so you say it must be true. Do more research.
All I have to do is show the Senator's attendance records as an American League and National League franchise. You only showed doctored attentance records from the Expos final years. They were ther for 36 years and were for a long time the heart of Montreal, even with the number 1 sports franchise in the world- more winning championships than any other team in MLB, NHL, NBA and the NFL- and that is the Montreal Canadiens. It is easy for you to call Montreal a hockey town. But if you had ventured off St. Catherine's St. once in a while on your trips there you would have seen a real love for the team. A team that still has the undying support of people like Pedro Martinez- their former ace pitcher- who when the Red Sox won in 2004 said that "This win is for the Montreal Expos who should have never left Montreal." Sports Illustrated and several other major publications including CNN agreed. We are talking about a team that hosted great players like Vladamir Guerrero, Steve Rogers, Andre Dawson, Pete Rose, The Spaceman- a team that had to have a whole vocabulary constructed for it's french fan base. It was wholly disgusting to see them shape shifted into a team that has evil Dick Cheney throwing out opening pitches for them- in a city that cares more about the Curse of the Great Bambino than about the team in their own own. I am not delusional. I know that it will be a long time before baseball is back in Montreal. But it will be 10 years- not 100.
You are crazy if you think that it will be back in 10 years.
They will be- but by then DC will be a settlement controlled by the Likud Party. Read the latest declaration from Joe Leiberman. He wants us to now attack Iran. Nevermind that Hezbollah is a thousand times more dangerous than al queda or the Iraqi insurgents. Joe says it's a great idea. Just as we are finally talking to each other for the first tmie in 20 years.
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