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Remember the Expos
Save for the few lingering Expo’s fans, the interest in this past weekend’s Jays-Nationals Victoria Day games dragged (even though Jays mostly brushed the displaced ‘Spos aside). The MLB, media and players have quickly forgotten the supposed Montreal-Toronto rivalry, leaving only faint “Let’s Go Expos” chants from the Toronto crowd.
Once natural interleague opponents, Blue Jays and the team formerly known as the Montreal Expos are rivals no longer. This season is the last of the yearly, used-to-be ‘All Canadian’ Jays-Expos (now Nationals) series. Starting next year, the two teams would never even meet in regular season play.
“Forget if we were Montreal before,” washed-up Washington third baseman Vinny Castilla said. “We’re Washington. We play for the Washington Nationals.” How ignorant!
Even though the would-be 1994 World Champion Expos were never well attended in Montreal, and the Jay-Expos rivalry was more MLB-induced than anything, these last few Nationals encounters could have been treated with a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T. In a game so steeped in tradition, how can there be such slight reverence for a long admired franchise?