Posted on the second to last page of the playoff invoices thread

phdave wrote:Is the postseason schedule posted on-line? I looked but could not find it.

There's a news story on MLB.com with the start and end dates of all series. You can figure out the rest (no off days except for the travel days).

I like that the Angels have moved three times without really moving (markets) at all: Los Angeles Angels -> California Angels -> Anaheim Angels -> Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim)

Match the team with their run differential for the NL West (note: does not include the in-progress DBacks game):

A)+16
B)-4
C)-8
D)-13
E)-40

How the worm turns: a dude named Rodger Brulotte, apparently a well-respected figure in the world of baseball in Canada, recently met with a group of "persistent Montreal-based businessmen" interested in bringing major league baseball back to Montreal.

A decade can change a lot of things. In 2004, the Expos' last year in Montreal, they'd been league-owned for 3 years, the Canadian dollar was still worth less than the American dollar (though parity was rapidly approaching), Montreal was itself apparently suffering through a difficult economic stretch, and, to a certain degree, a sense that relocation was inevitable tainted the franchise; the force of the rumors, the signs of abandonment all around the Expos, and Major League Baseball's painstakingly long flirtation with the city of Washington all helped to move the franchise inexorably southward.

Today, Canada's dollar has "surged" against the American dollar, all things Canada are back in a big way (the Winnipeg Jets!), and Montreal's economy is doing well. I was there in 2009 myself, and I can tell you that a surprisingly (to me) large number of storefronts still carried Expos merchandise 15 years after they'd begun their slow fade from Montreal and 5 years after they'd vanished completely.

Fast forward to today: Montreal is now the largest North American market without major league baseball. If it did have baseball, it would be in the top half of ALL major league markets.

If I owned a moribund franchise - say the Athletics, for example - and I were looking for a new place to play, I'd take a long, hard look at Montreal. They've been a major league city before, so you know there is a market for baseball. As hard to believe as it is, there used to be a healthy degree of interest in baseball in Montreal, so the idea need not be abandoned with first memories of the Expos' lackluster final days (neither MLB nor Jeffrey Loria before them bothered to get English-language broadcasts - or ANY local television broadcasts, for that matter). If the city of Montreal decides they want baseball back, and is willing to put its money where its mouth is and build a new stadium, all the other infrstructure is really in place. A team could move there tomorrow and play in Stade Olympique until the new place was ready.

Right now, I put the chances of the resurrection of baseball in Montreal in the next 15 years at 2% or less. But things can change, often much more quickly than you realize.

I was looking back at the 2001 standings, and I completely forgot that Oakland won 102 games that year and was still 14 games out of first.

Imagine how weird it must have been to have been a baseball fan in Washingtonfrom 1959-1961. First, the city announces it is building a beautiful new stadium for the baseball team to play in (1959). Then, however, your team announces it is moving anyway - whoops (1960)! Ultimately, your team does move - sort of. It is immediately replaced by a new team with the same name, so that, when looking back at it from an historical vantage point, it looks like your team just kept rolling right along like nothing happened. Team gets a little worse, attendance dips ~18.9%, ho hum. They move into the new stadium as planned in 1962.

Must have really burned baseball fans in Washington that the old team finally became a pennant winner in 1965.

mozartpc27 wrote:[Lots of stuff about Montreal]

Just a quibble, but Mexico is technically North America, so Mexico City would be the largest NA market without an MLB team. I do think Montreal is a much more viable market, though.

phatj wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:[Lots of stuff about Montreal]

Just a quibble, but Mexico is technically North America, so Mexico City would be the largest NA market without an MLB team. I do think Montreal is a much more viable market, though.

I was wondering about that too when I read it, but I just repeated the mistake from the article without researching it. I thought they might be using some meausre like per capita income of the entire metro area, in which case I would imagine Montreal is both closer to Mexico City in overall population than you might imagine (city of Montreal v. city of Mexico City I would imagine is a bigger difference than metro area Montreal v. metro area Mexico City), and also almost certainly a good deal wealthier than Mexico City (haven't looked up, and I'm not going to bother).

Regardless, Montreal is not a good market for MLB - unless and until they decide to build a stadium. Don't think that they will, but if they make public funds available for that, or get a group of investors together with the money to do that as well as buying a team - well, which would you rather be - the second team in the Bay area playing in a terrible Frankenstein's monster of a stadium, or the only team in a reasonably large market with a nice, new, modern stadium to play in?

The viability of Mexico City would depend on two factors: (1) the likelihood of the top 25% (in income) of the metro area population attending games and (2) the willingness of MLB to have a team in a place where the wealthy players would be at an increased chance of kidnapping. For (1), metro Mexico City is large enough that they'd really only need the more wealthy to attend games (in many ways, this is true for American cities, but the percentage of probable attendance is larger for the US). (2) is a bit trickier and part of the reason why I think the NFL is a more likely candidate to take the plunge in the foreseeable future (fewer games, less travel time in city for players).

mozartpc27 wrote:Imagine how weird it must have been to have been a baseball fan in Washingtonfrom 1959-1961. First, the city announces it is building a beautiful new stadium for the baseball team to play in (1959). Then, however, your team announces it is moving anyway - whoops (1960)! Ultimately, your team does move - sort of. It is immediately replaced by a new team with the same name, so that, when looking back at it from an historical vantage point, it looks like your team just kept rolling right along like nothing happened. Team gets a little worse, attendance dips ~18.9%, ho hum. They move into the new stadium as planned in 1962.

Must have really burned baseball fans in Washington that the old team finally became a pennant winner in 1965.

Also, the Twins became contenders just two years after leaving with lots of good young talent like Harmon Killebrew; Earl Battey; Jim Kaat; Tony Olivo; Bobby Allison; Rich Rollins; Rod Carew and others. They were a good club for the next 10 years.

Meanwhile the new Senators finished 8th; 9th or 10th every year except the year they finished 6th until divisional play started. They still sucked then, but at least the worst they could do was finish 6th then. Plis, instead of Olivo and Killebrew, all they had to follow were guys like Bud Zipfel, Coot Veal and Harry Bright.

Finally, the new Senators moved to Texas in 1972.

Yikes.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:The viability of Mexico City would depend on two factors: (1) the likelihood of the top 25% (in income) of the metro area population attending games and (2) the willingness of MLB to have a team in a place where the wealthy players would be at an increased chance of kidnapping. For (1), metro Mexico City is large enough that they'd really only need the more wealthy to attend games (in many ways, this is true for American cities, but the percentage of probable attendance is larger for the US). (2) is a bit trickier and part of the reason why I think the NFL is a more likely candidate to take the plunge in the foreseeable future (fewer games, less travel time in city for players).

Also, how hard would it be to design a stadium where the ball doesn't fly out of there or the OF is simply too big? If it is tough to play in Colorado, imagine how hard it would be to play at an even higher elevation.

Then again, if Carlos Slim Helu went up to Bud Selig and said I want to buy into MLB and build a stadium in Mexico City and put a team there, I don't think Bud's going to say no.

The post game handshake in baseball is one of the weirdest things in all of sports

Remember when Todd Pratt (I think it was him anyway) caused the phillies to stop doing it? I didn't like that

jerseyhoya wrote:The post game handshake in baseball is one of the weirdest things in all of sports

at least they don't hug the other team like in the NBA

The giants hit their 20th straight solo hr tonight to pass the 1914 phils for most all time. Last time they hit a hr that accounted for more than one run was July 6th.

mozartpc27 wrote:

phatj wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:[Lots of stuff about Montreal]

Just a quibble, but Mexico is technically North America, so Mexico City would be the largest NA market without an MLB team. I do think Montreal is a much more viable market, though.

I was wondering about that too when I read it, but I just repeated the mistake from the article without researching it. I thought they might be using some meausre like per capita income of the entire metro area, in which case I would imagine Montreal is both closer to Mexico City in overall population than you might imagine (city of Montreal v. city of Mexico City I would imagine is a bigger difference than metro area Montreal v. metro area Mexico City), and also almost certainly a good deal wealthier than Mexico City (haven't looked up, and I'm not going to bother).

Regardless, Montreal is not a good market for MLB - unless and until they decide to build a stadium. Don't think that they will, but if they make public funds available for that, or get a group of investors together with the money to do that as well as buying a team - well, which would you rather be - the second team in the Bay area playing in a terrible Frankenstein's monster of a stadium, or the only team in a reasonably large market with a nice, new, modern stadium to play in?

I know it's just your example, but I would think the A's would be very tricky to move that far. They'd likely have to join the AL East which I can't imagine any team wants to do. On the other hand, they'd get a perfect natural rivalry with the Blue Jays like how it should have been with Montreal and Toronto in the first place.

I couldn't find the thread but Logan Morrison has been sent to AAA.

GrizzledVeteran wrote:I couldn't find the thread but Logan Morrison has been sent to AAA.

To delay his inevitable signing with the Phillies in a few years? Why did they do that?

That's pretty dumb.