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| Tuesday, April 2 Updated: April 3, 3:06 AM ET MLB should be ashamed of its Montreal mess By Jim Caple ESPN.com |
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This is baseball's worst scandal since the White Sox wore short pants. The Montreal Expos opened their 34th and, quite likely, last season Tuesday night in front of an announced crowd of 34,351. Former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria, the man who now owns the Florida Marlins, was not among the fans at Olympic Stadium, citing prior business commitments in addition to his missing spine. This was probably for the best, though. The last time Loria was in Montreal, he took everything except the blame. When Loria bought the Expos, he presented himself as the franchise's savior. Just a few years later, however, he sold the team to buy the Marlins, taking everything with him he could sneak past customs, including computers, scouting reports, two complete sets of autographed jerseys, life-size cutouts of Vladimir Guerrero and a box of signed baseballs. It was as if he sent in Ruben Rivera for a final pass through the clubhouse. Major League Baseball not only approved all this, it paid him $120 million and took the Expos off his hands. It was like paying Robert Irsay for his moving vans. It was bad enough when Bud Selig announced he was murdering two teams less than 48 hours after Game 7 of the World Series, a move that enraged virtually everyone with a conscience. The commissioner's Montreal solution received far less scrutiny, but in many ways the situation is far worse. It is an embarrassment, a testament to baseball's problems and another sign there is no limbo bar so low Selig and the owners cannot slither under it. A league taking over and operating one of its teams is the sort of thing that goes on in the minors or a Charlie Sheen movie, not a sport that considers itself major league. When cities from Washington, D.C., to Portland, Ore. (both of which are bigger television markets than, say, Milwaukee) are looking for teams, you don't take over an existing team while threatening to eliminate it. When an owner is barely competent enough to negotiate a radio contract, you don't turn around and let him buy another team. When you are supposedly concerned about the game's integrity and competitive balance, you don't grant the ownership of one team to the 29 remaining competitors. And yet, Selig and the owners are doing all that with Montreal. Supposedly, this is an emergency, one-year fix to a problem, as if that excuses it, as if anyone knows what will happen next year. Will the Expos be exterminated? That's a possibility. Will they be sold and moved to Washington, D.C.? Well, that's a possibility, too. Will they be told to play all 162 games next season on the road? It sounds ludicrous, but don't rule it out as a possibility. Face it, after the past winter, anything is a possibility, up to and including Youppi pitching next season's opener. After all, eliminating teams and taking over teams were unimaginable a couple years ago, and now baseball expects fans to accept both as standard operating procedure. So when people insist that baseball wouldn't possibly allow a Vladimir Guerrero-for-Alex Ochoa deal with Milwaukee, I can only shake my head. Remember, Selig once said baseball wouldn't take over the Expos. Look, there are problems in Montreal. The team's attendance problems are well documented. The Expos drew fewer fans the past four seasons combined (3.25 million) than the Mariners drew last year. They've drawn less than a million fans five times in the past 11 seasons, including the past four. Their crowds are so small that whenever the White House moves Dick Cheney to a secure, undisclosed location, he winds up in a luxury suite at Olympic Stadium. So there is more justification for moving them than there has been for moving any team in recent decades. Yet, just remember the Expos also have drawn two million fans more times than the Brewers (four to two). So as we watch the Expos play what may be their final season, as we root for them to overcome the odds and reach the playoffs and as we wonder where they will play next season, let us also ponder what might have been had baseball provided an owner committed to making baseball succeed in Montreal instead of selling the team off for parts.
Box score line of the week And yet when Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez took the mound for Monday's season openers, both looked more like Anthony Young, each allowing eight runs in five innings or less. Clemens allowed seven hits, threw two wild pitches and allowed as many runs as he did the entire postseason last year. Pedro retired only nine batters, allowed nine hits, walked two batters, hit two batters and allowed as many earned runs (seven) in three innings as he did through May 5 last year. But if it was a tough afternoon for AL Cy Young winners, it was a beautiful one for NL winners, with Randy Johnson shutting out the Padres on six hits. Fine efforts all, but this week's award goes to the man who pitched a perfect game for the Tigers and set the minor-league home run record with the Durham Bulls. That's right, Kevin Costner, who played in the Mariners' split-squad game against their San Bernardino affiliate near the end of spring training. Costner's game was noteworthy for two reasons. One, he played eight innings at shortstop and made only one error. And two, the Mariners played against a shortstop who makes more money than Alex Rodriguez. Takes Grounders With Wolves also pitched part of the ninth inning, prompting manager Lou Piniella to insert himself as a pinch-hitter -- he walked on five pitches. It was Piniella's first appearance in a game since, well, "A long time. I'm glad he walked me, let me put it that way." Costner's lines: 3 AB, 1 R, 0 H, 0 RBI and .1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K "He was pretty good for a 47-year-old actor," Mariners pitching coach Bryan Price said. "His delivery was a little cleaner in ('For Love of the Game') but there were a couple things we might be able to work with." There was just one problem. Costner failed to run in the outfield after he finished pitching, as is the spring training custom. "I think he owes us 10 sprints and 10 line drills," Price said. "Either that, or 50 grand to the Mariners' party fund."
Lies, damn lies and statistics
From left field Here's a list of good-to-great Expos for whom Montreal received too little, if anything, in return:
Win Blake Stein's Money QUESTION: What was the first team to have a swimming pool in the outfield? ANSWER: The Expos, who played their first eight seasons in Jarry Park, where there was a municipal pool beyond the right-field fence.
Off Base Power Rankings
Infield Chatter -- Montreal cab driver Claude Labelle Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. |
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