Blue Jays catcher Martin hasn’t given up hope on Montreal

Montreal looks no closer to getting a major league baseball team back than the first time Russell Martin visited as a player in 2014, but the Toronto Blue Jays catcher hasn’t given up hope.

Fans of the former Montreal Expos, a team that moved to Washington D.C. after the 2004 season, have turned out to Olympic Stadium in droves for Blue Jays pre-season games in hope of demonstrating to Major League Baseball that they deserve to get baseball back, so far to no avail.

“It would definitely be nice to see baseball back in Montreal but I feel like it’s a complicated thing and there a lot of moving parts,” Martin said Monday before the Blue Jays faced the St. Louis Cardinals. “But of course there’s a part of me that would love to see baseball back in Montreal and hopefully be a part of it somehow.

“But right now my focus is on the upcoming season and I’m trying to take care of business with the Blue Jays.”

Martin, who was drafted by the Expos in 2000 but never signed with the team, is the most prominent Montreal-area product to play in the major leagues. The bilingual Martin was born in Toronto, but split most of his childhood between Montreal and Ottawa.

He considers the visits to the Big O as a treat, although not quite as many fans were expected for the two-game set with St. Louis as in previous years, when more than 40,000 turned out. This year, the games are on weeknights.

“It’s always fun to play at home in front of family and the fans in Montreal,” said Martin. “It’s not quite the same this year on a Monday and for sure it’s not the same feeling as the first time, but it’s still really special.”