From Brooklyn to Montreal to Los Angeles and Back

As the Major League season, in high drama and excitement, draws to a close, a consideration materialized to this scriber about the blue ending of the Montreal Expos.

The color blue is indeed the lifeline of this club.

Gary Carter steps into the batters box.

Much conspired, not just in theory but in practice, against Montreal baseball fans. It is true, as close to the truth one may come or arrive at, that many of them had to contend with an indifferent city incapable of grasping the potential and subsequent loss of the perennial fiddler club and an American news media with infield dirt in its eyes.

Many of who had bestowed upon them a local Montreal media, not especially poetic in its grace these long days, which did its best to treat the Expos as if it were a disowned gay son.

Eventually and surely, matters began to sink into a banal cabal surreal plot. So we would dearly love to believe but may never know. The subconscious will have to rule this forever I'm afraid. Fingers, fat and skinny, young and old, black, yellow and white alike - colors do bleed into one when it comes time to asserting blame - were pointed furiously in various directions from the sky to the diamond. Even casual chicken-hawk fans, those who hid behind various colorful and sweet Hitchcock enhanced mysterious ploys to not take in a one lousy game, felt compelled, as if anybody cared, to offer their Grade B opinions.

That consortium - that carnival of buffoons and freaks are not to escape full blame. Colonial in its mindset, it embarrassingly failed miserably. They called themselves heroes; we saw them for what they were: zeroes. The stench of parochial failure remains.

Amidst the madness, it is unfortunate, that no one spotted an irony right under our ugly noses.

Carter swings and misses strike one!

The irony spoken of here manifested itself during the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles - the big club for the Montreal Royals. Just as the Dodgers departure from Ebbet's Fields had its cast of evil characters filled with the usual 3-sided con story laden with confusion - political games, greed and environmental circumstances made up the usual universal themes - the Expos too had their neat plot and sub-plot on multiple levels.

The trolley Dodgers had Walter O'Malley, the Ex-Expos had, for their part in the act, 'The Inept Small Time Consortium', Claude Brochu and Jeffrey Loria. O'Malley - who also helped to bring a MLB to Montreal in the late 60s - sought to move the Dodgers within various spots from Flatbush and Atlantic avenues in the center of downtown Brooklyn. Montreal had an imaginary ballpark in the artichoke heart of the city seeking to regenerate itself.

What happened next in both cases becomes stranger than Bjork. Whatever the many possibilities, once the scene ended, with broken hearts and apathy all around, O'Malley left rich and despised. Much like the exit blueprint for Brochu and Loria. Los Angeles and Washington simply smelled the fresh blood. Hopeful plans turned to soot.

Gary Carter swings and fouls down the first base line. Strike two.

History? Sure, there was lots of it in both towns. Not just in Brooklyn. With history as a discipline dead in the public mind, we may as well leave the ghost of Jackie Robinson alone. The wind at Ebbet's Field and DeLorimier Downs died down long ago. Only whispers of branches, memories and hopes for glory remain for those who care about such things.

Montreal baseball fans are now baseball atheists. Many struggled to migrate to another club.

Who to support? Why, is it not obvious? The Los Angeles Dodgers. We are part of the same heritage; a shared history.

So there and here it is. An unfortunate ending for two clubs once part of the same fabric and suit. Both let down by the brotherhood of Major League Baseball. The Royal/Dodger connection had indeed come full circle in philosophical speak.

Carter takes strike three! He can't believe it! Neither can the fans, Gary. Neither can the fans.

But life continues. The batter steps in. Go Dodgers!