Who Killed the Montreal Expos?

[Chad ochoseis]

I saw this at a film festival in Montreal a couple of weeks ago and I believe it's coming out on Netflix in the US this week. A good documentary that asks a good question.

A whole lot of love for Montreal from Pedro, as well as Larry Walker, Felipe Alou, and Vlad Guerrero.

Jeffrey Loria and his stepson/henchman David Samson agree to appear, and it's puzzling as to why, because they come off as absolute douchebags and possibly the most likely answer to the titular question. It's clear that they went in knowing nothing at all about how to market baseball and, in particular, how to market it in Montreal.

The consortium of Montreal businessmen who owned the club before Loria come in for some criticism as well, though some of the onus goes to MLB itself for not knowing how to deal with an ownership group without a designated leader.

As usual, luck comes in for some blame as well, and in particular the absolute **** luck of the Expos being the best team in baseball during the one year of their existence when a strike cancelled the World Series.

But in the end, it was probably economics that killed the Expos. Montreal can compete with the rest of North America because it's the only game in town if you're French speaking and want to live in a major city where your own cultural touchpoints are available. And it's a great place as far as food, culture, cleanliness, safety, green space, and all the other things that make a city worthwhile.

But what it doesn't have is money. Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, and Quebec's per capita GDP is 12% below Mississippi's. It's a closed economy, and as major league salaries have gone from high to higher to astronomical, there's no way a local ownership group can keep up with the US or even the rest of Canada.

[metirish]

Looking forward to watching this

[metirish]

I just finished this, agree with the above , plenty of blame to go around , but yeah money, Samson is a wanker and he knows it. Really feel for the fans that were in the doc , there is obviously a big love for baseball there.

[metirish]

Oh I meant to add that I had forgotten that MLB owned and ran the team for a few seasons, which was wild, and that I was surprised that Omar Minaya wasn't mentioned in this doc , this was his big break in GMing

[MFS62]

I saw this at a film festival in Montreal a couple of weeks ago

 

Did they have both French and English versions?

Later

[Chad ochoseis]

Parts are in French and parts are in English, depending on who they're talking to, and Vladimir Guerrero speaks only Spanish (Pedro speaks in English in the film). It would have made sense if they just made one version that had subtitles in the opposite language regardless, but they didn't do that.

I saw the version where subtitles were in English.

Omar was brilliant at doing more with less. He just ran into problems when he had to do more with more.

[Edgy MD]

Two Omar references in one day!