The ad also has a bunch of pres...............sneak up on someone...............the mascots........kinda of a fun game.............................dead pres.............surfers..................the dead pres..........are surfers.........or so says Gary Busey to forgot his name.............Patrick Swayze was the leader of the bank robbing dead pres.......................interesting...............Pat. S...........yet another young hollywood superstar to die.................


Interesting timing.........................

2001 contraction[edit]

In November 2001, Major League Baseball's owners voted 28–2 to contract the league by two teams — according to various sources, the Expos and the Minnesota Twins, both of which reportedly voted against contraction.^[9] Subsequently, the Boston Red Sox were sold to a partnership led by John W. Henry, owner of the Florida Marlins.^[9][10] In order to clear the way for Henry's group to assume ownership of the Red Sox, Henry sold the Marlins to Loria, and baseball purchased the Expos from Loria.^[9] However, as the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, operator of the Metrodome, won an injunction requiring the Twins to play there in 2002,^[9] MLB was unable to revoke the Twins franchise, and so had to keep the Twins and Expos as part of the regular season schedule. In the collective bargaining agreement signed with the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) in August 2002, contraction was prohibited through to the end of the contract in 2006.^[11]

Creation of the Nationals[edit]

With contraction no longer an option for the immediate term, MLB began looking for a relocation site for the Expos. Some of the choices included Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Washington, D.C.; San Juan, Puerto Rico;Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Oregon; somewhere in Northern Virginia such as Arlington or Dulles; Norfolk, Virginia; Las Vegas; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Washington and Virginia emerged as the front-runners.

In both 2003 and 2004, the Expos played 22 of their home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium, and the remaining 59 in Montreal.

On September 29, 2004, MLB announced that the Expos would move to Washington, D.C. in 2005.^[12][13]

The Expos played their final game on October 3 at Shea Stadium, losing by a score of 8–1 against the New York Mets, the same opponent that the Expos first faced at its start, 35 years earlier. On November 15, a lawsuit by the former team owners against MLB and former majority owner Jeffrey Loria was struck down by arbitrators, bringing to an end all legal actions that would impede a move. The owners of the other MLB teams approved the move to Washington in a 28–1 vote on December 3 (Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos cast the sole dissenting vote).