Washington steps up to the plate
WASHINGTON — It was more pep rally than news conference, with the mayor and city officials wearing red Washington Senators caps, the ones with the curly “W” on the front.
“After 30 years of waiting and waiting and waiting,” said Mayor Anthony Williams, adding dramatic pauses for emphasis, “and lots of hard work and more than a few prayers, there will be baseball in Washington in 2005!”
Baseball returned to the nation’s capital for the first time in 33 years Wednesday, with an announcement from Major League Baseball that the Montreal Expos will move to Washington next season.
The announcement came one day before the anniversary of the Senators’ final game. The team moved to Texas after the 1971 season, the last time a major league team moved.
“It’s a day when the sun is setting in Montreal, but it’s rising in Washington,” Expos president Tony Tavares told a news conference in Montreal.
More than 30,000 fans attended the Expos’ last game at Olympic Stadium — about four times the normal number on a given night — and at least one person was unhappy with the move. The game against the Florida Marlins was delayed 10 minutes after someone threw a golf ball that landed near second base and players were pulled off the field.
Relocation of the Expos is subject to certain contingencies, including a vote by team owners in November and passage of legislation by the Washington’s City Council to build a ballpark on the Anacostia River waterfront, south of the Capitol.
The team will play three seasons at RFK Stadium while a new ballpark is built. The first home game will be April 15 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, according to the draft 2005 schedule that has been circulated. The team opens the season April 4 at Philadelphia.
Baseball has searched for a new home for the Expos since the financially troubled team was bought by the other 29 major league owners in 2002.
Las Vegas; Norfolk, Va.; Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Ore.; and Northern Virginia also made bids, but Washington clearly took the lead during negotiations over recent weeks.