February 22, 2024

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

This year is shaping up to be an interesting year as far as the Expos’ brand is concerned.

It's all about keeping the Expos legacy alive.

* I'm out with my new Expos book Explosion and Terry (Aislin) Mosher's massive tome on the Expos will be released in April.

* Robbie Hart's documentary about the Expos will be screened this year at various venues and on several platforms. 

* As a follow-up to Hart's documentary, Netflix announced Feb. 21 it will work with Attraction Images of Montreal to fashion a documentary on why the Expos left town after the 2004 season to go to Washington.

* Expos Fest will stage its annual autograph festival in Laval, Que., on April 20. It's sold out.

* The inaugural Expos Fest golf tournament will be held in Ile Brizard, Que., on Aug. 5.

As a sidenote in what seems to have gathered not much attention, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said recently expansion will not take place until maybe the end of 2029, which marks the conclusion of his tenure in office. 

I was hoping he would ask for expansion bids sometime this year so we could see if any group from Montreal would step up to the plate and submit a bid.

Now, we have to wait five more years? Shoot.

“I hope I’m here to go to Opening Day for both Tampa Bay and Las Vegas,'' Manfred told reporters on a spring-training stop recently. "Expansion – I don’t think, realistically, those clubs would be playing before I’m finished.  I would like to have the process in place and operating before I’m done.''

There has been grumblings about the Oakland-to-Vegas scenario and there have been reports Oakland would like an expansion franchise in exchange for losing the Athletics.

The Diamondbacks' lease at Chase Field in Phoenix expires after the 2027 season and club president Ken Kendrick hinted the club might relocate the franchise.

Kendrick re-iterated that the roof at Chase Field can only be closed or shut if no fans are in the building -- for safety reasons. Sounds familiar? The Big O is not the only stadium with roof problems.

The Marlins are hardly drawing flies in Miami. So Manfred has a lot to think about. Baseball isn't exactly thriving in some markets so he’s likely saying, “We have to move slowly on expansion.’’

Back to the Netflix documentary, it will be directed by Jean-Francois Poisson and produced by Marie-Christine Pouliot and Richard Speer.

"The Expos were the first MLB team outside of the US, and despite their departure from Montreal, they continue to have passionate fans to this day. This film will tell the story of the team through the eyes of those who lived it,’’ Speer said in a news release.

On Oct. 23, 2023, I first learned of Attraction's intentions to do a documentary but at the time, Netflix was not mentioned.

"This series will be broadcast on a major international platform,'' the person at Attraction told me. 

I wrote about this proposed documentary in my just-released book and I went into details about the dying months and days of the Expos.

To me, though, the Expos died before 2004.

Danny Gallagher's 10th Expos book Explosion has been available on Amazon since Feb. 2. 264 pages, 125 photos. Special commemorative edition.