Major League Baseball is back in Montreal this weekend for a second consecutive pair of pre-season games with the ‘home’ Toronto Blue Jays set to ‘host’ the Cincinnati Reds. Some 96,000 tickets have already been sold to baseball-starved fans, as the movement to fill the baseball void left by the 2004 relocation of the Expos gains steam.

A year ago, a return of the sport to Montreal would’ve appeared a pipe dream to all but those toiling at the Montreal Baseball Project, the organization seeking to bring a second baseball act to the city. Then the Mets and Jays played in front of over 96,000 fans at Olympic Stadium, forcing then Commissioner Bud Selig to take notice. This week, on the eve of yet another extraordinary show of support, new baseball commissioner Rob Manfred re-addressed the subject.

“The games like those exhibition games in new markets are important as an initial test of the level of interest that the market has in the game,” Manfred told the Canadian Press. “When you have the kind of success you’ve had in Montreal, you kind of pass the first initial test of whether it’s a market that could support baseball.”

The message is clear - Montreal, a city that for years saw attendance and interest dwindle in the game due to a complex set of reasons including the 1994 players’ strike, stadium and ownership issues, are very much back in the mix. That is, should the league decide to one day expand or should an existing franchise seek out a new city. Manfred made no promises on that end, but his words confirmed what Montreal mayor Denis Coderre says he already knew.

We’re very very pleased with the Commissioners comments. I’m going to meet him eventually in the future weeks to discuss about the issue. Baseball is clearly in our DNA – it was very disappointing to lose the Expos in 2004 but we want to redo the story. It’s one step at a time.

That first step was something of a monumental leap, but in the grand scheme of the effort, as unlikely as this baseball revival in the city has been, getting back the point where the city could be taken seriously as a home for either an expansion team or as a landing place for a relocated franchise, has been the easy part.



“The key thing in Montreal would be to have a plan for an adequate facility that could support baseball over the long haul,” Manfred also said. “I don’t expect people to go into the ground and build a facility without some sort of commitment that they are going to get a team, but I do think that you need a plan and a commitment to how that plan is going to be executed.”

Just as it was in the lead-up of the Expos’ move to Washington DC, the stadium remains the central issue over a decade later. Then, the franchise failed to replace the dilapidated Stade Olympique for a variety of reasons involving ownership, Major League Baseball, the city and the province of Quebec, making their business unsustainable.

Baseball fans at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal before the game between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets in March of 2014. Photograph: David Lengel/The Guardian

Montreal Baseball Project founder and former Expos outfielder Warren Cromartie knows they nailed the audition, but that the real work is ahead.



Right now we’re in phase two of our journey. We know we need a ballpark. We know we have to have it downtown. You have to put a financial package together, you have to get the numbers together and the costs of the stadium and who is involved in it, it’s not an easy task but that’s what has to be done to make it happen with the business people of Montreal. We’re taking it one base at a time, no pun intended.

In a province that’s in debt, where using taxpayer funds for pro sports purposes can prove an extremely difficult sell (although a partially publicly funded ice hockey arena in Quebec City did push through), how a 35,000-seat stadium would be built in the largest North American city without a major league franchise, is the tough question which will eventually need answering.

“If you want to bring back the franchise, it means private sector,” Coderre told the Guardian while emphasizing that it’s still extremely early in the process. “It’s like the movie Field of Dreams - if you build it they will come.”

In Montreal, it’s a case of if you plan for it, they may come. Cromartie believes that the that the public sector could possibly play a part.

Major League Baseball has undergone a number of changes on the eve of the new season. Guardian

“I think the attitude has changed,” Cromartie said. “I think the economy has changed, timing is everything. ... There’s only two teams in Major League Baseball with stadiums that are privately funded. That’s the St Louis Cardinals (built with 90% private funds) and the San Francisco Giants. And I don’t know if we could do it all privately, but I won’t be surprised.”

Once parties hit upon a formula to fund a potential stadium, the next stage would involve finding a team to play. The Tampa Bay Rays, struggling with attendance inside a moribund stadium, are seen as an obvious candidate to make such a move, especially because that would put a Montreal team in the AL East with Toronto, creating an instant rivalry. However, the Rays lease at Tropicana Field is extremely tight up until it expires after the 2027 season, so an expansion to 32 teams seems a more likely alternative.

Such a set-up would eliminate everyday interleague play, which has been less attractive to fans. It would also provide expansion fees to owners, but, in a league where annual revenues are at $9bn, is that instant cash injection as valuable when it would ultimately mean splitting that massive the pot with two more franchises?

Matthew Ross of the organization, Expos Nation, is also part of the grassroots effort supporting the return of MLB to Montreal.

What you’re going to see is that these expansion fees are going to be exorbitant ... and then the other aspect of it is that you’re trying to grow the game, you’re going to increase the pot if you go to markets you’re not in. In other words, if you’re putting a second team in Canada, you’re really growing the sport in Canada. You have a Francophone population that’s not served. So you would open yourself to a market with two all-sports networks, in French, in Quebec, who would absolutely battle it out to try to get the rights here.

That the a future business of Montreal baseball is being discussed is a victory for fans, but for now, they’re more than happy to hop on the Metro to Pie-IX to watch the Jays and Reds. On Friday, they’ll finally have their chance to honor their future Hall-of-Fame outfielder, Vladimir Guerrero, the most talented and electric player the organization ever produced. Legions of fans will stand up and cheer for their former franchise cornerstone, knowing that more Montreal baseball memories could be made, one day, down the road.

“It’s not about nostalgia anymore,” said Ross. “It’s about looking forward.”