My own tribute to the now defunct institution formerly known as the Montreal Expos

It is pretty much official now; by 2005, Nos Amours, the Montreal Expos will be known as the Washington D.C. Sell-Out Presidents (this is only a wild guess made by our writer, the NBL declined to comment on its accuracy).

Surprisingly, some people are saddened by this most unfortunate turn of events, and I can't hide that I am part of this select group.

Contrarily to others, I won't be missing the sad amount of victories of the Expos, nor the inevitable pattern of our best players' seasonal migration south as soon as they learn the tricks of the trade and demonstrate that they can indeed hit a baseball to save their lives.

What I'll regret the most is a short list of fringe benefits associated to the Expos:

For example, no more socially acceptable way of getting drunk, in public, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, because the score is 7 to 1.

No more aggressive runs on poor innocent Youppi, probably one of the most acid-trip-induced designs of a mascot. He looks like he was born in the hippie-infested sixties, and never outgrew these times.

And what about our lovely Olympic Stadium? How many times do you visit it, when it is not for an Expos game? …

Exactly what I thought, not that many.

To top it all, it's us addicted smokers (some studies show that nicotine can be more addictive than cocaine, but at least the government is taxing cigarettes, so it's ok), that have paid for that repulsive concrete beast of a stadium with our hard earned money, stolen through the cigarette tax. Combine this painful truth with the fact that we'll never get to chill in that building anymore; it makes me want to buy another pack and chain-smoke it.

No more will there be an activity which is simultaneously tourist- and family-friendly for our beloved green-bill-carrying American visitors (by activity I mean an Expos game, not getting drunk in public, you sick, one track mind drunk). Montreal is slowly but surely confirming its status as Amsterdam of the Americas.

No longer will Montreal be part of the dying yet genuinely American tradition of Baseball. Most Montrealers couldn't care much, but with only one remaining international sports franchise, we are now condemned to sit in the outfield of professional sports.

But above all, what I will miss the most is that teenage dream; the one of seeing our underdog team win the World Series, broken by the greed of overpaid players in 1994.

It's that same greed that's turning baseball stadiums into geriatric hangouts and making baseball so last century.