Baseball Expansion discussion, 2025 edition

[gehringer_2]

7 hours ago, StrangeBird said:

It‘s definitely possible that there are other important goods in life equivalent in value to personal freedom, including meaningful connection with others. 

Yes - in the US I think we've come to  conflate political liberty with personal freedom and they are not the same thing. I think that without doubt there are things higher on the hierarchy of meaning than personal freedom.

[romad1]

Montreal did nothing to lose their franchise.  They deserve another shot.    The only sweetener they could include in their package would be a devotion to sports betting in all aspects of life.  The city motto will change to: "Je parie ma maison sur la victoire de l'équipe de Montréal dans ce match."

Or whatever the correct human translation of that would be. 

[IdahoBert]

22 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Not to worry, If third party reports are accurate Merton didn't either. 😉

What is he reported to be guilty of doing toward the end of his life?

[casimir]

20 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Montreal is all that matters. 

Oui, tres bien, mon ami.  Allez les Expos!

[Tiger337]

50 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Montreal did nothing to lose their franchise.  They deserve another shot.    The only sweetener they could include in their package would be a devotion to sports betting in all aspects of life.  The city motto will change to: "Je parie ma maison sur la victoire de l'équipe de Montréal dans ce match."

Or whatever the correct human translation of that would be. 

Yes, I still believe they were pushed out.  They did quite well when they were winning and I think they could do well again.  .  

[casimir]

18 hours ago, KL2 said:

 

Portland -  It seems like there is a BGH here and people have romanticized Portland as a baseball town, since baseball does have an appeal to more intellectual folks.   But has minor league baseball ever thrived in Portland?   Plus, the politics in Portland is a nightmare. 

 

 

Someone isn't up on their current events. The legislature just passed a bill for $800 million in bonds for the stadium

That legislature move is interesting.  I was under the impression that there wasn't much local public interest in an MLB team there.  They have not had minor baseball there since 2010 unless you count summer collegiate baseball.  Maybe they need to bring back the Portland Mavericks for a popularity kick?

[Sports_Freak]

17 hours ago, IdahoBert said:

I only just now realized that your picture is of Arthur Schopenhauer. The old woman dies the burden is lifted.

I thought it was Keith Richards...😆

[lordstanley]

Problem with both Montreal and Vancouver is the lack of a ballpark and the C$ exchange rate. I think the latter could be overcome. Of the two, Montreal is a better baseball city and more likely to get a team again someday.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, IdahoBert said:

What is he reported to be guilty of doing toward the end of his life?

When it comes to RCC strictures, I'd say 'guilt' is in the eye of beholder, but her name was Margie. Much like the character in "of Human Bondage" Merton had a passion that his disciplines still did not free him of.

Edited Sunday at 03:55 PM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

36 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

Problem with both Montreal and Vancouver is the lack of a ballpark and the C$ exchange rate. I think the latter could be overcome. Of the two, Montreal is a better baseball city and more likely to get a team again someday.

Right - I don't the exchange rate should be an issue per se. You pay the going rates US dollar terms. The team's income will be higher measured in SCA as well so it's just a conversion factor. Tax rates on the other hand.....

[HeyAbbott]

Won't expansion be a great destabilizing influence for MLB? Baseball is in great danger of becoming like watching the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals. The league is in danger of becoming pure entertainment, like professional wrasslin' in my estimation, with nary any true sport in sight   Granted we are not there yet, but when there is basically 4 teams and 26 dwarves,  competition suffers.

[IdahoBert]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

When it comes to RCC strictures, I'd say 'guilt' is in the eye of beholder, but her name was Margie. Much like the character in "of Human Bondage" Merton had a passion that his disciplines still did not free him of.

Yes. This is par for the course of being human. He was in great physical pain in the hospital and he fell in love with a student nurse after years of monastic abstinence. But he wasn’t stealing from widows and orphans, he wasn’t expropriating land from the peasantry and driving them into starvation, and he wasn’t leading wars against infidels, so none of this diminishes him in my eyes to the point that I would think that his spiritual insights were tainted.

 

[romad1]

MTF with the esoteric discussion

[chasfh]

19 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Also, not going to go over well with the union especially with agreement soon coming to an end.  

It also would not go over well with the other owners since less money would be flowing into the game.

Flip side: contract, then re-expand into those contracted markets after a number of years. Instant windfall.

[chasfh]

18 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

Nashville Cats and the Salt Lake Sister Wives?

Sure, why not?

I don’t care about Salt Lake, mainly because I know they’re going to choose a stupid minor-leaguey-type name. But I’m hoping against hope the Nashville private equity corp retains the Nashville Sounds name. Probably less than 10% chance they do. It may not even be in the consideration set. It’ll probably be the Nashville Thundering Turtles or something equally idiotic.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, casimir said:

Oui, tres bien, mon ami.  Allez les Expos!

Allons-y Expos!

(Don’t pronounce that final “s”, though.)

Edited Sunday at 06:03 PM by chasfh

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Right - I don't the exchange rate should be an issue per se. You pay the going rates US dollar terms. The team's income will be higher measured in SCA as well so it's just a conversion factor. Tax rates on the other hand.....

Sure, all the players will get paid in US dollars, but Canadian businesses doing business in Canada operate under the Canadian dollar, and if the value of CAD goes down, so does the value of the business.

SCA: is that the Specialty Coffee Association Canada Chapter? Because that’s the main result when i search for whatever the hell that means.

https://scacanada.coffee/

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

Sure, all the players will get paid in US dollars, but Canadian businesses doing business in Canada operate under the Canadian dollar, and if the value of CAD goes down, so does the value of the business.

SCA: is that the Specialty Coffee Association Canada Chapter? Because that’s the main result when i search for whatever the hell that means.

https://scacanada.coffee/

that was supposed to be a dollar sign - I think it got spellchecked out and I didn't notice... $CA

 

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that was supposed to be a dollar sign - I think it got spellchecked out and I didn't notice... $CA

 

FWIW, CAD is the official international designation for Canadian currency.

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

FWIW, CAD is the official international designation for Canadian currency.

too easily confused with a philandering Quebecios.

🤣

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

too easily confused with a philandering Quebecios.

🤣

Quebecios? Is that two people named Quebecio? 😉

[lordstanley]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

Allons-y Expos!

(Don’t pronounce that final “s”, though.)

You can even say Go Expos! The Quebec government just approved the use of "Go", although not without fierce debate. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/oqlf-go-habs-go-ok-1.7576171

Using 'go' to cheer on sports teams is now OK, says Quebec language watchdog

Quebec's language watchdog has changed its tune on whether it's acceptable to use the word "go" to cheer on sports teams.

In a new guideline posted in its online dictionary, the Office québécois de la langue française says that while "allez" is the preferred term, it's now "partially legitimized" to use the English word to show encouragement.

The flip-flop comes after the office took a hard line with Montreal's transit agency, pressing it for months in 2024 to scrub the word "go" from the electronic signs on more than 1,000 city buses.

The reversal followed a public outcry on the eve of the Montreal Canadiens' first playoff home game in April, when the Montreal Gazette reported how the transit agency had replaced "Go! Canadiens Go!" with "Allez! Canadiens Allez!" to stay on the watchdog's good side.

The reversal followed a public outcry on the eve of the Montreal Canadiens' first playoff home game in April, when the Montreal Gazette reported how the transit agency had replaced "Go! Canadiens Go!" with "Allez! Canadiens Allez!" to stay on the watchdog's good side.

A similar complaint in 2021 targeted the hashtag GoHabsGo that appears in oversized letters outside the Bell Centre in Montreal, the home arena of the Canadiens.

The person who filed the complaint suggested that to comply with Quebec's language rules, the expression "Allez les Habitants allez" should appear alongside the English slogan, in larger letters. "And yes, I'm serious, if the law applies, then apply it!:)" the person wrote.