Breaking news inside the baseball world

[jokerswild]

CNNSI today reports that after the end of the World Series both Montreal and Florida will be disolved. There will be a special draft to divid up the players on those teams between the other teams.

Just some interesting news I thought everyone would be interested in hearing. So are we going to keep Montreal and Florida in the game if they do this?

[BBM]

oh well, toronto raptors had already become the only canada team in NBA, and now Toronto Blue Jays had just become the only canadian team in MLA, what a sad sad news!!! I dont think they should cancel these 2 teams outta the game, because this game is mogul 2001, not 2002.

[BBM]

Hey, jokerwild, dont lie to us, where did u find that news?

[hamricb]

I didn't realize Florida was being considered along with the Expos. It would be sad to see a franchise that won it all 4 years ago just disappear. I would have thought baseball would catch on in Miami. Hmmmmm.....

[jokerswild]

well BBM, I think that my post said that CNNSI reported it.

[exep]

what is cnnsi? sorry to be so dim.

[genuwinestatuz]

cnn sports illustrated...

[BBM]

I can't even find an article about montreal expos in cnnsi!!!
exep, cnnsi is a sports web site: http://www.cnnsi.com

[takaplan]

I don't usually agree with BBM :-), but if this is true, it would be a huge story. How come I can't find it anywhere? (I looked through ESPN, CNNSI, MLB.com, Miami Herald, CBS Sportsline, and Fox Sports)

Tom

[BBM]

It's not even in the expos web site!!?

[nevets72]

From Bloomberg:

Baseball: Report: Expos and Marlins outta here
2001-10-22 15:55 (New York)

Oct 22, 2001 (The Sports Network via COMTEX) -- Windsor, Ontario (Sports
Network) - Two Major League Baseball franchises, the Montreal Expos and Florida
Marlins, are reportedly set to fold after this year's World Series, according to
a story in the on-line edition of The Windsor Star. The newspaper's web site
reported that the league will pay the owners of each franchise to cease
operations.

The newspaper cited a highly-placed baseball executive for providing the
information and also reported that Expos owner Jeffrey Loria might buy the Tampa
Bay franchise after the buyout by Major League Baseball and assume that
operation or turn the Expos into the Devil Rays and fold the current Tampa Bay
organization.

John Henry, the lead owner of the Devil Rays, is considering the same scenario
involving Anaheim. Henry's group, according to The Star, would buy out the
Disney Corporation, which currently owns the Angels. Henry would then turn the
Marlins into the Angels.

Since both Montreal and Florida play in the National League East, these changes
would likely necessitate some divisional re-alignment. A dispersal draft might
be another repercussion

[BBM]

There is no prove by you just posting the article here, we would like to have the link to see it ourselves.

[takaplan]

John Henry buying out Disney? Ummm, how can I say UNLIKELY??? I bet its not true. :-)

I guess jokerswild was correct, sorry for the accusitions.

Tom

[nevets72]

http://www.southam.com/windsorstar/

Now BBM you have to do a little work here. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the Link that says "EXPOS to Fold"...

I could not get the autor on the phone, so I hope this is verification enough.

[Schaefling]

If you go to www.southam.com/windsorstar/ and look under Sports at the bottom of the page you will find a short article written by Dave Waddell entitled "Expos to fold". This is an article printed for the Windsor Star online edition.

Keep in mind this announcement is unofficial at this point. I am truly surprised this story is not receiving more play, however, as I agree that this is potentially a huge story. The last time the Major Leagues contracted was after its very first year in 1901 when the American League lost some teams. That's one hundred years ago!

I can't think of anything that says just how bad the economy really is right now than Major League Baseball losing two of its franchises!

I also agree with BBM. This is terrible news for Canada!

[takaplan]

Interesting...now it makes more sense. They didn't mean buy the entire Disney Corporation, just baseball team that is part of it :-)

Tom

[onethumb]

I'm having a real hard time believing this one---my bet is that it is just a rumor that someone decided to print as fact. I mean, why the heck would a paper in *windsor* of all places get word of this first? Of course my main reason for disbelief is that I don't think the players union would approve of this in a million years. With the labor contract due to expire in a couple of weeks time, a move like this would assure that we'd be seeing replacement players next spring. No way are they going to approve the loss of that many player's jobs.

Of course I could be wrong....it's been known to happen on occasion :D

[Schaefling]

I just passed the news on to my local Fox affiliate and they are going to try to send the info on so that Fox can try to report more on this story for the playoff broadcast tonight. It's hard to know though whether they can uncover more info between now and broadcast time or even whether they can confirm the info coming from the Windsor Star.

[mikeh5]

Obviously this thread should be moved to the regular baseball discussion, but it is quite interesting. Personally, I like the Expos because I live near Jupiter and I really enjoy going to Spring Training to watch Vladimir Guerrerro.

We could make this topic a little bit more about the game though. What will happen to new leagues - will they have 28 or 30 teams?

What's going to happen in real life in terms of how the players from the Expos and Marlins will be rolled into the Devil Rays and Angels? Will those clubs get to pick as many players from each of the folded teams as they want? If they do those rosters will be pretty stacked (well at least relative to what they have right now).

[kareemjg]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2001/1022/1267663.html

[Cipster]

Heard the same story on ESPN radio during my comute this afternoon. The Expos should have been folded a long time ago, there were several minor league teams that drew more spectators then they did this year...

[electro]

It is just an anonymous rumor at this point. Bud would have to get it approved by owners and past the Players Association before it could be considered close to happening. I hope they do disband Montreal and Vlad goes to a real team. Also Florida deserves to disband as Joe Robbie Stadium sucks for baseball and they cry for free money for a stadium when there is a very nice unused baseball-only stadium already built in Homestead.

[mikeh5]

There is a baseball only facility in Homestead, but it's Spring Training quality at best and probably does not seat more than 10,000. I can't imagine a major league team could really be viable there, especially when there isn't a fan base that could draw there (since it is a fair distance from Miami). Yes, car racing works there, but that's once in awhile and there aren't car races versus the Royals on Wednesday nights.

[playshogi]

Contraction is a threat-ploy used by the owners to force concessions from the players' union. Folding two teams is the loss of 50 jobs at the major league level. "Gee, we won't fold any teams if you agree to a salary cap!"

[ogallala]

playshogi, I think you hit a bullseye with your comment. When I first started reading this thread, that was the first thing that came to mind. It's a common move for managment when negotiating with labor, to threaten to close some factories if union demands are not lowered.

[nysteinbrenner]

I've seen the Windsor Star article too, and it seems genuine enough. Of course, MLB will categorically deny the report, but considering that neither the Expos nor Marlins can really move anywhere, and the Devil Rays and Angels ownership situations are as screwed up as they are, this seems like a logical move on MLB's part.

Unfortunately though, this is going to result in a rash of lawsuits and, unless Bud Selig and Don Fehr have agreed to this in advance (somewhat unlikely) a great deal of tension between the MLB and MLBPA... making a strike/lock-out more likely than ever.

[rpeiper]

According to ESPN Radio this morning, Bud Selig refused to comment either way on the story. Kind of suspicious.

[Clay Dreslough]

According to WEEI (the Boston Sports Talk Radio Station), Major League Baseball is denying this report. However, the current show hosts appear to think the report is true, but that it's Minnesota instead of Florida.

Basically, they've talked to pro scouts and the scouts appear to have been told by their management to scout Minnesota and Montreal in anticipation of a possible "contraction draft".

There are also rumors that Jeb Bush (governor of Florida) has been using political connections to keep two teams in his state, even though Tampa Bay is in serious financial trouble.

This is a bummer. Contraction in itself doesn't indicate lack of foresight -- sometimes the market just doesn't support certain teams. But contraction within 8 years after ADDING 4 teams does seem to indicate bad planning. I realize hindsight is 20/20, but it would be a shame to lose the Twins, a 100-year-old franchise (if you include their 60 years as the Washington Senators).

Clay

[onethumb]

the gods of baseball would become very angry at the prospect of the twins folding, I think. I'm not so sure you can just fold a team with so much history---I would think that fan backlash would be much bigger than if you fold florida or montreal. Heck, I'm not even happy about montreal, but it's certainly easier to take than minnesota would be. What's next, folding the Reds or Cubs?

Hey I've got a great idea---fold the reds, cubs, twins, florida, san diego, anaheim, detroit, tampa bay, and kansas city. Then re-open the teams in a couple of years in places like oaklahoma city, lexington KY, indianapolis, fargo, salt lake city.....the teams won't make any money there either, but then the large market owners would get another nice chuck of expansion fee money....

Ok, I'm getting bitter now :)

[playshogi]

They've been talking about contraction for a long time:

http://www.geocities.com/j_g_preston/
http://www.thebaseballnews.com/
www.sportingnews.com/baseball/articles/
19991016/183716-p.html[/url]

The last article is dated 1999.
There are lots more. Search 'baseball' & 'contraction'

[Japherwaki]

First of all, none of this has been confirmed yet. Selig has been quoted as saying "A year ago I would have said that contraction is not a viable option. It is unquestionably today a viable option." But while he has said that they are considering it, they still have not decided anything. Also, any talk of what teams would be contracted is pure speculation. No baseball official has said a single word about which teams would be most likely to go. I think Montreal is an obvious one (and any team that consistently draws less than 10,000 a game probably doesn't deserve to exist), but as for the other team to be contracted, it is anyone's guess. It could be Florida, Minnesota, or Tampa Bay. I would lean toward one of the Florida teams, as the thinking down there is, "Why should I pay $20-$30 a game to watch a baseball team, when I have my choice of much better teams that I can watch for a couple of bucks a game in the spring?"

I really wish that baseball could support more markets than it appears it can now. If owners would implement revenue sharing, we could probably have 32 teams, which would allow for four four-team division in each league, which I think would be an ideal arrangement. Then, you would have both league with an equal number of teams, as well as an equal number of team in each division. I hate the fact that my Cardinals have to fight with five other teams to win the division, where AL West teams only have to beat out three other teams. I understand why this arrangement is necessary, but I still don't like it.

I also think that baseball could realistically support 32 teams with revenue sharing. New York alone could probably support two more franchises if they would limit their payrolls to $70 million. But if baseball uses the threat of contraction to get a salary cap through, I think that revenue sharing should follow. As much as Steinbrenner would probably like to pocket that extra $20-30 million a year (since he would not longer be able to use that money to buy his World Series' anymore), it would do baseball a much greater good if the playoff race wasn't down to just 10-15 teams at the start of the season. Frankly, I'm suprised that some of the small market teams get the kind of attendance they do, considering that many of them know they don't have a chance at even making the playoffs. Eventually, attendace will decline, and contraction could be brought up again. If revenue sharing is implemented, I think that baseball would ensure its continuing survival for decades to come. And in the end, making, say, $5 million a year for several decades is a heck of a lot better than making $20 million a year for few years, then watching that revenue slowly dry up as interest in baseball declines.

Okay, I apologize for that long-winded post. I just seriously think that baseball needs some serious financial reform if it wants to survive. A salary cap would make it so that skill is required to build a good team instead of just having more money to throw around, and revenue sharing would allow other teams to be able to spend up to the salary cap, making for more competetive teams. These would also make the talk about contraction unnecessary.

I'll step off my soap box now.

[redsoxrob]

I live in Windsor and was shocked when opening the paper's sports section on Monday to read the dismantling of the Expos and Marlins. the story appeared exactly as Nevets72 posted. I would never give credance to any major story first reported by the Windsor Star, as sports section sucks but in this case I did beleive it would make sence for Expos to cease operations.

I grew up in Montreal until I was 19 and baseball was always secondary to hockey.Despite few years of good fan base (1979-1984, with G.Carter, A.Dawson, S.Rogers and others) ,the Expos attendance has slowly diminished and interest completely vanished after the "strike lost" World Series in which they had baseball's best record.
Au revoire les Expos your longtime fan,
redsoxrob

[Clay Dreslough]

More news on possible contraction.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2001/1103/1272828.html

At this point, I am still intrigued by the theory that this is more about Major League Baseball threatening to cut 50 jobs than it is about those teams being unable to support themselves...

Clay

[metsguy234]

LOL- I had to bump this one up...

Florida- as we all should know- was never dissolved and won the world series in 2003.

Montreal moved to Washington in 2005

CNNSI was apparently a bit off 6.5 years ago...

[asianinvasion]

LOL- I had to bump this one up...

Florida- as we all should know- was never dissolved and won the world series in 2003.

Montreal moved to Washington in 2005

CNNSI was apparently a bit off 6.5 years ago...

Well CNNSI was sorta right. There isn't a team in Montreal now is there?:p

[Rongar]

What I noticed about this thread, were the unfamiliar names at the top of the posts...where are these Members, now? - past their peak, and assigned to the Minors? Been hired by CNNSI?...turned off from MLB, and become addicted to solitaire?

[ohms_law]

People come and then they go. Interests change. It's just something that happens, is all.

[boomboom]

People come and then they go. Interests change. It's just something that happens, is all.

Most of those players were from BMO. JOkerswild and takapan are moderators and one of the first ones as well. Jokerswild is back into BMO, and is regarded as the best commissioner in BMO history, thou Time always lacks on his side.