Stadium 28: The Skydome and baseball in Canada

This is part 3 in a thirty part series:

Baseball in Canada seems like something that could be written about for days and days but amazingly really has very little to detail. MLB came to Canada in 1969. The Montreal Expos were named after L'exposition or the 1969 Worlds Fair which was in Montreal. They played in L'estadium Olympique.

 

Baseball was actually beloved in Canada and the fans really got behind their Expos! Then 1994 came around. The infamous baseball strike that almost ruined the game of baseball in the USA actually ruined it in Quebec. See, this was the year that the Expos had the best team in baseball. The Expos had a genuine chance to win the World Series and people were excited!....Until the strike kicked in. No more games were played after July, and more importantly the World Series was not played that year. 

Attendance dwindled and apathy set in.... Jeffrey Loria....YES that Jeffrey Loria bought the team in 1999 and failed to build a new stadium and failed to get English TV rights in Montreal which meant the Expos were not even on TV! At the end, the Expos were bought by MLB in 2002 and were forced to play 20 "home" games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. MLB tried to eliminate the Expos but eventually sold and moved them to Washington were they became the Washington Nationals. It really is a sad story... L'Expos de Montreal.

Toronto Blue Jays:

The Toronto Blue Jays began playing in 1977 and have played in the Skydome since 1989, which is now called the Rogers Centre. They have not had such a sour history like the Expos. The Blue Jays won the 1992 and 1993 World Series. (Of course they beat the Braves!) The stadium is also located in downtown and right next to the famous CN tower, home of the highest freewalk in the world. 

Rogers Centre and CN Tower 

The Skydome Rogers Centre comes in at number 28 on my list for so many reasons.

1) One thing is to have everything in Canadian dollars....it's another to charge 11.25 for a beer at the park! I do not care that 19 years olds can drink! Come on!

2) If the roof is open you get to see one thing and one thing only in the skyline...

That would be nothing.... You see the CN Tower because you look up and its there.

3) Everything is in Metres (Yes British spelling)

4) Astroturf....God its 2015

5) It just does not feel right especially seeing this...

After I bought his jersey...I should of known that the guy who tanked the Expos would sell off everyone

It is cool that I was able to use my passport on this excursion but it sadly wasn't to see a great venue for baseball....

Next up: Baseball in the desert.