Rays proposal shows Major League Baseball is serious about Montreal
So is an idea that was wretched in 2003 any better in 2019?
That’s the question today after the news broke that the Tampa Bay Rays have permission from Major League Baseball to explore a plan that would see the club play early-season games in Tampa, Fla., and the remainder of the season in Montreal.
The report is solid. It comes from ESPN’s Jeff Passan, one of the best baseball writers in captivity, and it cites commissioner Rob Manfred himself as a source. Apparently, the possibility has been under consideration for some time.
It is, in fact, the clearest step that MLB has made toward a return to Montreal since 2005 and the strongest possible signal that baseball considers the city (which had to lose a team in order to regain its passion for the sport) an entirely viable 21st-century venue.
It is also a wondrous, strange concept, albeit one we have seen in altered form before, during the horrid mess of a 2003 season when the Expos split their campaign between Montreal and Puerto Rico. The Expos actually played very well that year and were tied for first as late as Aug. 28 before the travel wore them down and they faded down the stretch.
Oddly, this is being touted as a way to save the Rays, rather than a means of reviving the Expos, although fans in Montreal won’t see it that way. Many would be giddy at the mere prospect of MLB returning to this city, although they might not like the details of the plan.
Little else is known about the plan, including the number of home games to be played in each city or how playoff games would be split should what is a very good Tampa team make the playoffs (the Rays were 43-31 after a loss Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, but they have the second-lowest attendance in baseball, with an average of 14,546, and a payroll of US$65 million, one of the lowest in MLB).
The most bizarre element is that it involves building two new ballparks, one in Tampa and one in Montreal, each to host baseball for part of a season. This when Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has been unsuccessful at getting a stadium built for a full-time team.
Permission for the Rays to explore the possibility was given at MLB owners’ meetings Wednesday and Thursday. On the surface, it appears to be the first step in moving the Rays out of Florida, although Sternberg said the opposite in a statement Thursday. “My priority remains the same,” Sternberg said. “I am committed to keeping baseball in Tampa Bay for generations to come. I believe this concept is worthy of serious exploration.”
One bonus for Montreal is that playing early-season games in Tampa might do away with the need for a stadium with a retractable roof in Montreal, considerably reducing the cost, although this year, it was not until well into June that we really had baseball weather. This city would be getting a very solid, established organization, not an expansion team, with the opportunity to win immediately, albeit in the loaded American League East.
Stephen Bronfman is the point man for the group that already has a site ready for development.
“We have been hard at work for several years examining how we can bring baseball back to Montreal in a sustainable manner,” Bronfman said in a statement Thursday. “This concept is definitely one that is of interest to my partners and me and we are looking forward to studying this further.”
The first reaction here is likely to be influenced by the 22 games played at Puerto Rico’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium in 2003. That was a bad idea from baseball and it might have cost the Expos a shot at the playoffs and an outside chance at saving the franchise before the club departed for Washington in 2005.
This plan is notably different in that the season would be clearly divided between the early-season games in Tampa and the balance of the campaign in Montreal, which is very different than the mad travel of the 2003 season, which on one occasion saw the Expos fly from Puerto Rico to Seattle.
On the surface, it would also appear that this could simply be the beginning of a two-step process that would eventually lead to the club playing all 81 home games in Montreal. If the city is successful in building a new ballpark and Tampa is not, then the obvious thing would be for the team to leave Florida entirely after its lease at miserable Tropicana Park ends in 2027.
Nothing I have seen out of the Tampa-St. Petersburg area indicates that the region is any closer to building a new ballpark than it was when Sternberg began the process more than a decade ago. There remain all sorts of obstacles for the Rays, far more than the obstacles remaining in Montreal.
I suspect that the reaction of Montreal baseball fans to this news will be similar to my own — initially a “no way, Jose!” followed by a sober second thought: “Hey, this just might work.”
And my son has a team name ready and waiting: “Go Ex-Rays!”