Montreal Baseball is BACK; Nats to Rock Retro Expos Duds
Montreal baseball is back! Well, it’s sort of back; the Washington Nationals will rock throwback 1969 Montreal Expos jerseys on July 6th (which is also Caturday at Nats Park).
Thanks to Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Steinberg, we’ve seen Montreal and baseball in the same sentence a lot recently. Steinberg wants to turn the Rays into a team that plays in two cities, both Tampa Bay and Montreal, saying at a recent news conference he believes “strongly in the sister-city concept,” according to the New York Post.
This idea, of course, is way down the road — the ideal target date is 2024 (via NY Post) — and that’s if it happens at all.
In the meantime, fans feening for Montreal baseball can find a little solace in the team that replaced them, the Washington Nationals.
The team announced today that they’d be rocking 1969 Montreal Expos throwbacks on July 6th as part of a celebration of the former MLB franchise. It should be noted that the game will also feature the Nats popular “Cat-urday” promotion (for all you cat lovers out there).
For the first time since moving from Montreal to D.C. in 2005, the Nationals are breaking out throwback Expos uniforms.
The Nats will don powder-blue Expos jerseys and pants as well as the classic Expos cap as they celebrate the 1969 Expos when they host the Royals on July 6 at Nationals Park. It’s all part of a night-long celebration of the Expos’ inaugural season and the ’60s as Nationals Park turns into a quasi-Olympic Stadium for a night.
Fittingly, the Nationals will play Kansas City on July 6th, one of four teams (including the Montreal Expos) to join the MLB as expansion teams in 1969. The other two, for the record, were the Seattle Pilots (now Mariners) and the San Diego Padres.
As part of the celebration, there will also be food offerings from Quebec and a special pregame ceremony.
You can buy tickets and learn more about the event HERE.