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OT: MLB Thread

Of course you can. You don't cheer for the Nationals.

That makes zero sense to me. If the Dallas Cowboys moved to LA I wouldn't cheer for them.

When the Grizzlies moved to Memphis they became my most hated team.

A love for a team is usually the combination of the city and the city's history with that team. If the Dallas Cowboys moved to LA they wouldn't be the same team that generates... good and bad... a pulse from everyone. It's the swagger of Dallas citizens and their football team, along with those cheerleaders that have cultivated the aura about the franchise. Great players, Super Bowls, "America's Team" and Jerry Jones have all added to the history of the Dallas Cowboys.

The Green Bay Packers are a franchise built on the small, hometown fanatic fans who helped create a team full of successes that is apart from the rich giants in the rest of football. Cheeseheads would not work well in glitzy LA.

It's the same thing if a player plays for the Habs and we love him and then he gets traded, he suddenly becomes the enemy. We don't follow him and hope he wins the Cup with his new team.

The Montreal Expos ceased to exist when the team was relocated to DC. You can take the current players but you cannot take the love affair that was created between Rusty Staub and Montrealers; between Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines and the rest of Canada. "Team of the 80's" although negative in retrospect... it was a title given to the Montreal Expos. The Gnats didn't bring that with them to Washington... if anything they brought a page out of a Bill James book that mentions it. Their fans can't sing Valderi, Valdera the way Quebecers could. They don't have the memories of cold double-headers in late September in a division chase. Blue Monday is not theirs. A team who was forced to develop talent through the draft because they had no money for big name players is not even in the Gnats bio page let alone shedding these players once they were groomed into baseball's next stars only to rebuild soon after.

The Washington Senators... uh... Nationals... Gnats... have no connection at all to the Montreal Expos. One could argue the Miami Marlins might have some since Loria pilfered all the computers that housed the Expos history.

The Texas Rangers are probably closer to being a part of the Montreal Expos family since they basically copied the Expos baseball logo.




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DC couldn't even get Youppi. No way are they the Expos.

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Nope. Ask all the guys at BWC who saw me in Giants' fan gear cheering them on or who saw me at San Diego with Count Jr cheering the Giants on
 
For most of us it's not really a choice. I've even tried to get behind some teams and I just can't do it. I also bet, if you were to be honest with your feelings, that those Giants victories ring a little hollow for you.

I enjoyed seeing the Red Sox finally take out the Yankees in 2004 and I've tried to get behind the Mariners (some years were easier than others) but in the end I just don't care about those teams enough to really feel invested in what they do. All I find myself doing these days is impatiently waiting for the Expos to return so that I can once again immerse myself in the game as I used to. I haven't closely followed the standings or read a box score since the Expos left.
 
Being in Toronto, I've gotten interested in the Jays. Being too young to really remember their better days, I have less tying me to MTL. When Montreal actually gets a team back, I'm going to have big moral questions to ask myself how my allegiances will end up. I've already lived almost as long in Ontario as Montreal, so I don't have as much tying me back to the motherland.
 
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