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Article:
Montreal Misery by: David Ferraro We've all done it before. Sportscenter is on showing the highlights off the latest Expos game and they show a snap shot off the bare bleachers. Of course the jokes follow like 'It's easier to grab a foul ball at an Expos game than at a Little League game.' But hey, who are we to talk? To underline this point I ask you another question: When was the last time you saw somebody with a 'You Gotta Believe' poster at Yankee Stadium? I'm going to go ahead and assume the awnser is not for a while. It is easy to be a Yankees fan. You don't have to believe. They know every year they will have the talent to contend. It is not like that in Montreal. Their slow start is something that you just hope won't get worse and they've started bad and I mean real bad. They are the first team to score four runs or less in its first 16 games since the 1968 Chicago White Sox. They may or may not be in Montreal next year depending on what offers the owners of the team, Major League Baseball, recieve. So how did it get like this? Is Montreal just not the place for a baseball club? The awnser is Montreal is just as good as any other location. Heck, Montreal finished second in the National League in attendence in 1983 and barely missed a chance to go to the World Series by losing game 7 to the Dodgers in 1981. Then baseball started to move into the modern era where you have two types of teams. Insert team type one, where the owner takes risks to put more money into the team to keep and bring in talent hoping that wins will increase attendence and revenue. Then there is team two where the owner doesn't keep his talent and puts less money into the team to make a profit. Obviously today in our profit motivated economy we are going to have most managers picking the latter half of the two types and that is what happened to the Expos. They saw their talent getting moved throughout the 80's. Gary Carter and Andre Dawson went to larger markets and ranked 1st and 15th in salary in 1988. This is the time when the MLBPA gained power by striking in '1981
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