Major League Baseball gave permission to the Tampa Bay Rays to begin exploring options to play home games in both Tampa Bay and Montreal on Thursday.
As most of us know, baseball for the Tampa Bay Rays has been struggling to stay afloat in St. Petes for some time now. They have wanted a new stadium and the city has rejected that idea and so it appears desperate times call for desperate measures.
Here is the tweet from ESPN’s Jeff Passan:
BREAKING: The Tampa Bay Rays have received MLB's permission to explore becoming two-city team: the Tampa Bay area and Montreal, sources tell ESPN. The plan: Play early-season home games in the Tampa Bay area and finish the season in Montreal. News at ESPN: https://t.co/X6uSt4KLfC
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 20, 2019
The plan would be for the Rays to play early season home games in Tampa and the latter home games in Montreal. In this plan, both cities would need new stadiums, but doing it this way would remove the need for a domed stadium in either city.
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This right here is the kicker. The whole reason the Rays are exploring this option is that they can’t get a new stadium in Tampa.
What makes anybody think instead of trying to get just one stadium, which they haven’t been able to get, they are going to get two in two different cities?!?! I just don’t see the logic in the thinking of both the MLB and the Rays.
What would make more sense for everyone involved is to move the franchise to Montreal. Montreal has been devoid of a baseball team ever since the Expos moved to Washington D.C. and became the Nationals.
The reason this makes sense is because of the division they are in, the AL East. Every single team in that division is in the Northeast of the country. The Blue Jays (currently the only Canadian MLB team), the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Orioles.
It makes sense simply from a travel perspective. Montreal is much closer to all of these teams when compared to Tampa Bay.
Now I understand a lot of the inter-division games are played toward the latter half of the season for divisional race drama, so that shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but the kicker for me again is the fact they would need two stadiums. I just don’t see it happening.
This fact is sad because I’ve followed the Tampa Bay Rays from day one as they were the expansion team that came into the league the same time as my beloved Arizona Diamondbacks. The two franchises will always be connected simply for that fact.
It’s also not like the Rays are a bad team, they are right in the hunt for the division title and a playoff berth, whether it be a divisional champ or a wildcard team.
One thing for sure is the Rays are desperate to make baseball work in Tampa, but realistically they might be moving to Montreal for good, not just for half the season.