Media Blackballing Expos

You read the same things over and over again until you want to throw up:
"Montreal doesn't deserve a baseball team"
"Montreal fans won't support Expos"
"Expos WILL play in Washington next year"

The fact is, the media has been telling us about the Expos death time and time again and yet, when good news is there to be told, they ignore it. Even in Montreal, baseball writters have had the gaul to say that the government should spend money on hospitals and not baseball, buying into the propoganda the PQ was spewing out before they had a change of heart. Even in Montreal, baseball writters have had the nerve to say that since 44,000 came out to the Big O on opening night, that this proves that it's not the stadium but the fans which are at fault. It's sort of a catch 22, isn't it? People don't show up and they complain; people do show up in droves and they complain even more. And it's not just in Montreal, the prejudice against the Expos is even stronger in the States.

The day the Quebec government announced they would give 160 million to the Expos, a newspaper in Washington ran a front page story on how Montrealers didn't care about the Expos. They quoted about 2 or 3 Montrealers, one of them a postman, about their indiference to the Expos. The newspaper obviously neglected to field comments about the many fans who care about the team and I'm faily sure I could find 2 or 3 people in New York who are indiferent to the Yankees. I believe that article was entitles: "Expos out at home but welcome elsewhere." Funny how crowds of 20,000 and 30,000 came out to see the Expos in Washington in two highly publisized games, in a completely renovated open air stadium came to see the Expos and Mark McGwire when 44,000 Montrealers saw their Expos in baseball's worst stadium for the Expos opener. Yet this is not mentioned in the US media, they point instead to afew bad crowds and make conclusions about baseball fans in Montreal.

If Pittsburg, Oakland or Minnesota were in danger of losing a team, Baseball Weekly, CNNSI and ESPN would be running an around the clock campaign to save those teams instead of publisizing manipulated facts which hurt the team's survival odds as they are doing with the Expos. For this reason, we must contact these mega-giants and complain about their treatment of the Expos.

Baseball Weekly: They've been treating the Expos as a joke in their commentaries about the team and USATODAY, the father compagny ran an article which was incredibly racist against Quebec and the Expos a month ago. I will give credit where credit is due however and say that they have been good for quickly reporting the government help and other news.
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CNNSI: They seem to simply have taken an indifference to the Expos and are not really mentioning anything about the team. We need them to talk about the fans who are fighting to save the team!
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ESPN: I do not go to this site often but I have been told that they have been very bad towards the Expos and reporting any positive news about the team. They certainly have not been mentioning any of the efforts to save the team.
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I have also been informed that Todd Wright has an ESPN radio show and he may read e-mails regarding the Expos on this show. Please e-mail him at: goodorbad@go.com. If comments which show that Montrealers care about their team are read on national TV, it could really turn the US media to our side.

arnoldw@cadvision.com