March 16, 2004
Expos follies (cont'd)
The latest news on our friends the hey-we're-still-in-Montreal Expos:
- Portland, just last summer considered one of the front-runners to land the Expos, is fading fast, with none of the leading candidates in the May 18 mayoral primary showing much interest in funding a baseball stadium. "I don't believe it's a priority for our city," City Commissioner Jim Francesconi told The Oregonian. "Before I could even consider supporting a deal, I'd have to see private money ready to be invested."
- Northern Virginia, which fell off the front-runners list last summer after no cities there wanted any part of a baseball stadium, is scrambling to get back in contention, appointing a seven-member commission to, well, see what can be done. According to the Washington Post, "the authority is making a push to incorporate a private developer into a mixed-use project surrounding a proposed new ballpark." Best of luck.
- And we have a new dark horse in the race: Developer John Alevizos says he's offered to buy the Expos and move them to a privately funded stadium in central Connecticut, where they'd be renamed the Connecticut Colonials. "My optimism has no bounds," Alevizos told the Hartford Courant. Apparently.
With MLB's latest really-we-mean-it deadline for moving the 'Spos just four months away, we've inaugurated a new service for our readers: the Expos Relocation Odds chart, which will live in the right-hand column of this website and be periodically updated until the Expos' future is resolved, or the sun exhausts its fuel and goes dark, whichever comes first. (Note in the over/under section that we're projecting the sun to last longer, but just barely.)
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