Montreal Fans Have a Feeling of <i> Fait Accompli

First thing in the morning, and several times throughout the day, Jonah Keri flips on his computer and clicks onto an online gathering place for fans devoted to the Montreal Expos and all the questions surrounding them: Is Vladimir Guerrero the best outfielder in baseball? Should the Expos trade first baseman Lee Stevens, and if so can they really expect a decent player in return? What’s the latest on the Expos’ future?

The first two questions became moot Tuesday, when Keri and his fellow Expo fans got an answer to the third question: The Expos don’t have a future.

Bud Selig didn’t put it quite so bluntly, but he didn’t need to. When the commissioner announced that major league owners had voted to eliminate two teams before next season, Selig didn’t specify which teams, but the news release issued by his office emphasized that local revenues generated by “one club” were less than 18% of those generated by the average team. The club in question was the Expos.

For Keri, a financial journalist who moved from Montreal to Los Angeles two years ago, the apparent death of the Expos is more than bottom lines and dollar signs. It is the demise of a summer passion.

“It’s brutal,” he said. “We’re not going to talk about it in terms of losing a family member. But, other than that, the feeling couldn’t be much worse.”

Keri, 27, invested two decades of emotion into the Expos. He got hooked on the team in 1981, when Rick Monday’s dramatic home run in the final game of the National League championship series lifted the Dodgers past the Expos and into the World Series. He and his friends attended dozens of games each season, most memorably to cheer on the star-studded teams of the 1980s that featured Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines and regularly attracted 2 million fans to Olympic Stadium.

“It’s all down the drain now,” Keri said. “It’s depressing.”

There was disappointment and sadness in Montreal, but neither shock nor surprise. For several years, fans there have placed two bets at the beginning of each season: Where will the Expos finish, and will this year be their last in Montreal?

“People here who cared made their peace with this a long time ago,” said Stephanie Myles, who covers the Expos for the Montreal Gazette. “It’s not like you have a whole population going, what?”

On its cover Wednesday, the French-language tabloid Journal de Montreal ran a picture of the Expos’ furry orange mascot with the words “Adieu, Youppi.”

But Selig’s inability to complete negotiations to eliminate teams before Tuesday’s announcement left the Expos a dead team walking, its only hope a stay of execution.

The Expos drew fewer than 1 million fans for the fourth consecutive season. Their lease at Olympic Stadium expires Nov. 30, saving major league owners the cost of a buyout.

While most teams make millions by selling their broadcast rights to local television stations, the Expos failed to secure a contract with an English-language television outlet.

And, while owner Jeffrey Loria drained the last ounce of hope from most fans last year by canceling an option to buy land reserved for a new ballpark, financing for the ballpark had not been secured beyond a construction loan offered by the provincial government.

“The Quebec government did everything--even more than I originally wanted,” Premier Bernard Landry said. “We put the money on the table. We have no intention of doing any more and I’m sure the taxpayers would be outraged if we did any more.”If the Expos indeed perish, the mortal wound was inflicted Aug. 12, 1994, the day the players began the strike that led owners to cancel the World Series. The Expos boasted the best record in baseball and attracted several crowds beyond 30,000, with the promise of a postseason appearance that could generate big bucks and ignite the drive for a new ballpark.

Instead, in the wake of the truncated season, previous ownership slashed the budget and compelled general manager Kevin Malone to dump Larry Walker, John Wetteland, Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill. The prospects obtained in the trades did not shine, ownership derided Olympic Stadium, and attendance plummeted as the Expos lost more than 90 games in each of the last four seasons.

While Montreal fans appear resigned to the loss of the team, they resent the oft-repeated suggestion in the U.S. that poor attendance reflects a lack of interest in the sport. Barry Morgan, a sportscaster at CJAD radio, was angry Tuesday night when he heard CNN’s Jeff Greenfield declare that sports not played on ice don’t matter in Montreal.

“Everyone is being fed this same line--that if it’s not hockey, people in Montreal do not care. That’s ridiculous,” Morgan said. “It really bothers me when people are disrespectful to the fans in Montreal for not coming out.

“If you’re a fan of the Yankees and in one off-season they get rid of Mariano Rivera, Roger Clemens, Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter, are you going to come out the next season with any enthusiasm?”

Morgan scoffed at Selig’s suggestion that eliminating teams would help increase competitive balance.

“The Pirates are not going to be in the World Series next year. The Phillies are not going to sign [coveted free agent] Jason Giambi,” Morgan said. “It’s a complete joke.”

The hardiest of fans vow to fight the good fight so long as the Expos are still breathing. A “Save the Expos” Web site has been launched, as have petition drives to Selig and other influential baseball folk. The site features an artist’s rendering of Labatt Park, the proposed downtown ballpark that, in pictures, appears truly spectacular.

The Expos removed that rendering from their Web site last year.