Expos find themsleves on the road to extinction

America at Large: More than a quarter-century ago, just prior to a spring training game in Florida, I was sitting in the dugout with Boston manager Darrell Johnson when we were obliged to endure the renditions of two national anthems.

The Red Sox that day were playing the newly-created Montreal Expos, and a newly-created custom decreed that games be preceded by the anthems of both the United States and Canada, even though to the best of my recollection the Expos' roster included not a single Canadian-born player.

During this tiresome exercise in protocol, I reminded Johnson that it sometimes got worse: a few days earlier the Expos had entertained a barnstorming squad of Chunichi Dragons from Japan, and that game had been preceded by the American, Canadian and Japanese anthems.

In what I suppose must have been an attempt to startle me with his progressive thinking, Johnson looked out at the field, where a scattering of Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans and Venezuelans wore the uniforms of both teams.

"You know, I've always thought that with as many Latins as we have in baseball today, maybe they should play their national anthem before the games, too," he said. "You know," he added earnestly. "The Latin American national anthem."

"And what would that be?" I asked, taken aback. "La Cucaracha?"

After 27 years I still marvel at the display of ignorance by this moulder of men, but the way things are going for the Expos perhaps it's time for the house organist to come up with a suitably Latin number for baseball's vagabond gypsies.

Just a year ago the Montreal franchise was a prime candidate for what Major League Baseball (MLB) commissioner Bud Selig described as "contraction" - a euphemism for elimination. The Expos were drawing crowds of under 10,000 in the now decrepit (and still unfinished) Stade Olympique created for the 1976 Games.

Thwarted in his attempts to euthanise the Expos, Selig and his minions did the next-best thing. They pooled their resources and took the team off the hands of owner Jeffrey Loria, who was then able to use his windfall to purchase the Florida Marlins.

The Expos themselves were operated by MLB for the 2003 season, and, in what was supposed to have been a stopgap measure, they played 22 of their "home" games in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A more permanent solution was supposed to have been in place for 2004, with relocation to a more suitable permanent home the most inviting option.

Since the nation's capital has been fallow ground since the Senators fled to Texas three decades ago, moving the Expos to Washington would seem an obvious choice, but that manoeuvre has thus far been thwarted by the ownership of the Baltimore Orioles, who play just 40 miles from Washington and are uneager to invite competition.

The upshot of this season's schedule is that the Expos, already stripped bare by fire-sale fiscal policies, were essentially forced to play 103 road games. Despite the apparent hardships, they remained in contention for a post-season berth until just a few weeks ago.

A permanent scheme was allegedly going to be in place by last May, but the decision was postponed on several occasions. Then, last week, the Lords of Baseball announced their tentative plan for the 2004 Expos, which is basically a repeat of this season.

MLB proposes that the Expos play 59 games in Montreal next year, with the other 22 home dates split between San Juan and Mexico City. But according to its agreement with the players association, implementing the plan would require the approval of the Montreal players, and, given their unhappy experience of this summer, thus far their answer seems to be a resounding "No!"

The Montreal players are being roundly accused of professional suicide. Even with the Montreal payroll at a comparatively moderate $45 million, MLB claim the team needs the revenue from the games played in exotic locales to stay afloat. According to the figures of the commissioner's office, the Expos will lose $10 million this season even with the extra booty from Puerto Rico.

The truth be told, it's difficult to ascertain if it has made a significant difference. The Expos averaged around 12,500 per game in Montreal and around 14,000 (in an 18,000-seat stadium) in San Juan - and this doesn't take into account the additional travel expense or the gruelling schedule both the "home" and visiting teams were forced to endure.

Selig's office is unwilling to commit to either Montreal or to relocation unless a permanent stadium plan has been adopted. Given the state of the economy, this seems unlikely to take place anywhere save Washington, and, with Orioles owner Peter Angelos staunch in his opposition to that option, it would appear to be off the table.

The problem isn't just that the Expos players would have to go through a repeat of this year, but that just to maintain the status quo the MLB operatives running the team will probably allow even more of the team's best players to escape to free agency.

Memories seem to be selectively short here, so it might be pointed out to Selig and his minions that in a very real sense they brought all of this upon themselves.

Despite being handicapped by an unhealthy stadium situation (residual cost overruns from the 1976 Olympics were still being felt two decades earlier), the Montreal franchise was a viable enterprise as late as 1994. The Expos were in first place in the National League East that year when the owners staged a lockout of the players association which ended the season in August and eliminated the play-offs and World Series altogether.

That labour dispute was an enduring financial disaster for every team, but nowhere was it felt more keenly than in Montreal. In order to make up the lost revenue, the club was forced to strip-mine its roster and its farm system, and never recovered.

Les Québécois didn't abandon their team overnight: they were driven away by bad performance, and developed habits of truancy which modest successes like this year's have been unable to overcome.

In any language, that ought to be a familiar tune.