These past few weeks, we have looked at the development of professional baseball in an international context.
This week, I would like to shift our focus to the development of professional baseball in Canada. While baseball has never been the most popular sport in Canada, it has developed substantially since professional baseball came to this country in 1969. The first Canadian team to enter Major League Baseball was the Montreal Expos, which eventually relocated to Washington, D.C. in 2004. The Expos spent the first ten years of their existence building a player development system that would enable them to compete with the American teams.
“Montreal Expos mascot photo” by Ross Dunn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Expos found some success during the 80s and early 90s but were never quite strong enough to win the World Series. In 1994, the Expos arguably had their greatest chance to win it all. The team had five players voted in as All-Stars and the team won twenty games and lost only three between July 18th and August 11th. Unfortunately, on September 14th, 1994 the season was canceled because the Major League Baseball Player’s Association (MLBPA) was unable to negotiate an agreement with the owners of the MLB. The MLBPA and the owners could not decide on how to share team revenue without a cap on player salaries, something that the players strongly opposed causing them to walk out on the season. The Montreal Expos fans were devastated and the team lost a lot of talent the following season and never made the playoffs again which led to their relocation in 2004.