Nationals to wear Expos uniforms to celebrate Montreal roots

With news that Montreal may be getting a Major League Baseball team sooner rather than later, Ariel Helwani joined Faizal Khamisa to give his take about his hometown Expos and the prospect of gaining a new team.

Baseball fans will see the Montreal Expos in action next month… sort of.

On July 6, the Washington Nationals will be throwing it back all the way to 1969 by sporting Expos uniforms in an effort to honour their Canadian roots as part of a “Montreal Expos Celebration.” They’ll don the iconic powder blue threads like the ones worn by the Expos 50 years ago during their inaugural campaign.

The Expos played their final season in 2004 before being relocated to Washington for the 2005 campaign — a wound that has yet to fully heal for many Montrealers.

In addition to wearing Expos gear for the first time since relocating, the Nationals will hold a pre-game ceremony, serve up Montreal favourites like poutine and smoked beef brisket sandwiches, cue up 1960s music to honour the era, and swap scoreboard graphics in an attempt to bring the full Expos experience. Former Expo Vladimir Guerrero will be there, too.

The Nationals will take on the Kansas City Royals that day — another team that was part of the same group of 1969 expansion teams along with the Expos. They, too, will wear throwback threads to honour their own inaugural season.

Since the Expos’ departure from Montreal, the topic of bringing MLB back to Quebec has been a contentious one, with Montreal at the centre of any hopeful mentions of future expansion speculation. Most recently, the Tampa Bay Rays were granted permission by the league to explore splitting a season with Montreal, with the team playing half of their games in Florida and half in Montreal.

Over the past six years, the Toronto Blue Jays have made a tradition of bringing pre-season baseball to Montreal, playing a series of exhibition games at Olympic Stadium.

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