King Kaufman's Sports Daily
The Expos are going to Washington (probably), so they'll need a new name. Let's think of one that really describes this sorry episode in baseball history.
Sept. 30, 2004 | Baseball has finally made the announcement that the/les/los Montreal/San Juan/Where Nextpos will move to Washington next year. The team has been in limbo for two years while Major League Baseball went around to various cities saying they could have the club if and only if they built a stadium for it with taxpayers' money.
Washington "won" the sweepstakes.
There are plenty of stumbling blocks still in place but the plan is for the team to play in old RFK Stadium, which will have $13 million worth of paint and Scotch tape slapped around it by way of renovation, and then move to a new, publicly financed $400 million stadium proposed for a depressed area along the Anacostia River south of the Capitol.
The biggest stumbling block may be one that nobody seems to want to talk about in all the celebrating in Washington and mooning in Montreal. Former owner Jeffrey Loria's former limited partners filed a racketeering lawsuit against him and MLB two years ago, accusing Loria and baseball of diluting the partners' ownership shares and deliberately destroying baseball in Montreal so the team could be moved to the United States. Baseball took the team off Loria's hands and paid him to become the owner of the Florida Marlins, a deal that was, well, fishy from the get-go.
That suit requires baseball to give 90 days' notice of its intentions to move the team, which baseball gave two weeks ago. The partners, through their attorneys, say they'll seek an injunction against the move in November, after an arbitrator rules in October whether the lawsuit has enough merit to continue. Any delay at all would likely prevent the Where Nextpos from playing in Washington in 2005.
It's sad to see the quirky franchise that was the Montreal Expos expire. From their oddball name to their bilingual way of doing everything to those old tri-color hats, the Expos were one of a kind. But we must face reality, bid adieu to Coco Laboy, Boots Day and Le Grand Orange, and face the future.
This team needs a new name.
Washington's baseball teams have almost always been called the Senators, and that's what Washingtonians seem to want for their new club.
Senators? Let's see: In 71 years, the Senators collected three pennants, one World Series championship and two departures for other cities, the world capitals Bloomington, Minn., and Arlington, Texas. How's "no" sound to you?
Other Washington-centric names have been floated. Mayor Anthony Williams favors the Washington Grays, after the Pittsburgh Negro League team the Homestead Grays, who sometimes played home games in Washington. A nice thought, but Gray is hardly a whiz-bang concept for marketing purposes. Other names with some baseball history are the Olympics, the Statesmen and the Blue Legs, none of which is likely to catch on. A popular suggestion is the Washington Monuments. Yuck. We already have the Buffalo Bills, and one team name that's a pun is enough for any country's major sports.
I'd be in favor of the Washington Filibusters, though. How cool would that be? The uniform front could say "Busters," a piece of merchandise I'd be happy to purchase for reasons that should be obvious to regular readers.