Was a baseball fan before the Expos. Marveled at the dominance of Bob Gibson, the mound was lowered in part because of his 1968 season (1.12 era) . Was a dream when Montreal got a team in 1969, baseball was THE sport in the US at that time. Still remember in first game in Shea Stadium, watched the last few innings on Radio Canada (what an incredible game that was). Not that game but often the time of games back then was often not much over 2 hours. In 1971 Baltimore had 4 20 game winners, can still name all four (worst trade in Expos history was trading for one of them).
Maybe it was the dh being adopted by the AL that started to change the game. Montreal loves speed on the ice, the field, the racetrack. Many memorable speedy athletes like Johnny Rodgers, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Larry Walker, Vlad Guerrero, Gilles Villeneuve...The evolution of baseball into a more stationary game and the time length was already starting to lose me before the team moved. Combined with the lack of a salary cap in MLB, I don't miss it. It's sad for the young folk, because it is a good family attendance sport, not with 4-hour games though which I know they have tried to address. 20 years ago, I did believe they would be back someday, much less convinced that day will happen now unless several stars ever realign.
