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Champzilla’s Balls Across America: Globalization of Baseball
By Dan | April 14, 2008
If you look at Bud Selig’s agenda for the future of Major League Baseball, “Globalization” is right near the top. I’m sure it doesn’t seem like it since the Red Sox/Athletics Japan Trip almost didn’t happen since baseball was too cheap to pay coaches to travel across the planet, but the good intentions are there. How do we get other countries excited about this boring boring boring boooooooring game?
World Baseball Classic? Ok, not a bad idea. I have to admit, after hearing the 2006 Dominican National Team roster I began cursing my Irish blood and wishing I was Domincan. Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz AND Bartolo Colon on one team???? Ay Carumba!!! (Note: None of these players sucked ass in 2006, so yes, it was a big deal.) The World Baseball Classic actually worked on many levels. It got many different countries excited to compete on a global stage, even if it was the inaugural tournament. It also introduced us to many great foreign players, most notably Daisuke Matsuzaka. The problem I had with the WBC was the formation of an ITALIAN National Team.
Seriously? We couldn’t find one more country that gives a shit about baseball?
The Italian team was a joke. Basically they found 7 guys in Italy who could play baseball. To make a 30 man roster they had 23 American players with Italian last names fill out the rest of the roster (Mike Piazza played for a chicken parm sub). So guys like Lenny DiNardo, who wouldn’t have come CLOSE to pitching for the U.S. team found himself playing for Italian pride. By that logic Ricky Henderson should have captained a Swedish national team because his last name sounds like it could be Swedish. It just didn’t make sense to me, and the team didn’t go anywhere.
The last city to truly make its mark in the globalization of baseball was the city of Montreal. A city that many people view as a laughing stock in baseball for not supporting their ballclub in the final years of its existence, and never fielding a memorable team. Surprisingly baseball in Montreal was extremely revolutionary and is now all but forgotten.
Baseball in Montreal started with the minor leagues with a team called the Montreal Royals who played triple A ball as an affiliate of the then Brooklyn Dodgers and played ball in the 30’s 40’s and 50’s. The Royals were the team where men like Jackie Robinson began to break baseball’s color barrier and Roberto Clemente opened the doors for today’s current crop of latino and carribean players. When the Dodgers dropped their affiliation with Montreal in 1960, baseball seemed to be done in the city.
After some very hard work from Montreal government officials, Montreal was awarded a major league baseball franchise seven years after the Royals played their last game. The franchise would be the first Major League Baseball franchise awarded to a city outside of the United States, even inspring a second foreign team to be added a decade later, that franchise being the still active Toronto Blue Jays.
The Montreal Expos also had the distinction of having games broadcast in French. It may not seem like a big deal now, but in a time where the MLB is struggling to globalize- the organization should take note of what a monumental task it was to translate baseball terminology into a language that didn’t have an existing French Language translation (Le’ Sac Fly???).
Unfortunately, what could have been a very succesful franchise started to crumble after an amazing run of bad luck. During the Expos’ best season the season gets cut short due to a strike. Poor ownership and shady dealings lead to the loss of whatever fanbase the team had left, and talks of relocation or the disbanding of the franchise became almost an annual discussion on ESPN and Sports Illustrated, but the Expos kept hanging in there.
Towards the end of the Expos time in MLB the team played over 20 regular season home games in San Juan Puerto Rico, a descision made by Major League Baseball. Puerto Rico cheered the Expos as if they were in fact their ‘home team’, and the team seemed like a perfect fit in San Juan as many of the Expo players at the time were of Puerto Rican or latino origin. Unfortunately Puerto Rico could not be a permanent home for the Expos, and eventually the team relocated to Washington forming the Washington Nationals franchise.
As the team began to create a new fanbase in Washington all of the retired numbers in the Expos organization became returned or “un-retired” when the team relocated, thus making the team known as the Montreal Expos a memory or a ghost of baseball past.
The only place that still honors the achievements of the Expos and hasn’t forgotten the teams of the past is the very city many baseball fans feel abandoned the franchise: The city of Montreal. The Montreal Canadiens of the NHL are as popular in the city as the Red Sox of the MLB are popular in Boston. They have a rich history, many Stanley Cup Championships, and many retired numbers. You can imagine that the Bell Centre’s rafters have a great deal of banners hanging from them. In the sea of banners you will find a lone powdered blue banner holding the four retired numbers of the Expos in memory of Montreal’s former team.
When you’re cheering that new foreign guy on your team that gained recognition in the World Baseball Classic, or you’re eating bacon and eggs while watching a sox game being broadcast at 6am from the other side of the world, think of the Montreal Expos– a team that was ahead of its time when it came to the globalization of baseball, a trend that is all too popular now. Its my hope that Bud Selig and Major League Baseball remember this team too as they still seem to continue to struggle in globalizing their organization.
Topics: Balls Across America, Sports |
One Response to “Champzilla’s Balls Across America: Globalization of Baseball”
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April 16th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Montreal got screwed. You can also thank Jeffrey (let me destroy the Marlins now) Loria for that.