Montréal, QC

From BR Bullpen

Montréal is the largest city in the province of Quebec, Canada, and the second largest city in the country, after Toronto, ON. It is located on an island in the Saint-Lawrence River, at its junction with the Ottawa River, 120 miles east of Ottawa, ON. There has also been a professional team in Outremont, QC, which is now part of Montréal, as are now the former cities of Verdun, QC and Lachine, QC.

After the Montreal Expos relocated following the 2004 season, Montreal was left with no professional baseball of any sort for 9 years. Just before the start of the 2014 season, a couple of exhibition games featuring the Toronto Blue Jays were organized at Stade Olympique and were highly successful, drawing over 96,000 spectators; the experience was repeated with equal success the following seasons, forcing observers to take notice. Mayor Denis Coderre became a vocal supporter of Major League Baseball's return to the city, meeting with Commissioner Rob Manfred in May of 2015 to explain his city's desire to host a major league team again. The lack of an adequate ballpark, preferably downtown, or of plans to build one, remains the biggest obstacle to such a development, although the mayor indicated that a number of prospective sites had been identified and that construction could start very quickly were MLB to give the go-ahead for either an expansion team, or for an existing team to move to Montréal.

A potential ownership group, with much deeper pockets than the one that was unable to keep the Expos in town in the early 2000s, has also been lined up and has been quietly lobbying to advance its cause. In February 2019, it made it known it had identified a site for a ballpark and had begun negotiations with the Canadian Federal Government, owner of the site, and the Quebec Provincial Government, regarding its purchase. However, the plan fell apart in early 2022 when MLB stated clearly that sharing a team with another city - the group's preferred option - was not in the cards.

Teams that have played here[edit]

Persons who were born here[edit]

Persons who died here[edit]

Educational institutions located here[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot and André Dubuc: "Stade de baseball: Bronfman sollicite l'aide de Québec", La Presse, February 12, 2019. [1]
  • Heather Camlot: Clutch, Red Deer Press, Markham, ON, 2017. ISBN 9780889955486
  • André Dubuc: "Quel terrain pour nos futurs Expos?", La Presse, February 4, 2019. [2]
  • David Luchuk: Blue Jays 1, Expos 0: The Urban Rivalry that Killed Major League Baseball in Montreal, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2007.
  • B. Glen Rotchin: Halbman Steals Home, Dundurn, Toronto, ON, 2012. ISBN 978-1459701274

Related Sites[edit]

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