Expos find new home in Puerto Rico

Starting last week, major league baseball added a little more Latin flavor with the beginning of baseball in Puerto Rico. In an effort to try and spice up the MLB-owned Montreal Expos, Bud Selig decided to have the team play 20 of its home games in San Juan at Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Not only does this get the Expos out of cold weather and the usually empty Olympic Stadium, it also creates a new fan base for the team and Major League Baseball in general.

The newly housed Expos greeted their new homeland with a four-game sweep of the New York Mets, only to then be swept in a three game series by the Atlanta Braves. Over the weekend, the Expos ended their first Puerto Rican home stand with a 2-1 series win over the Cincinnati Reds.

After ten games in Puerto Rico, it seems as if the experiment is a success. The Expos have already drawn over 150,000 fans to a park that has a capacity of 20,000. But anything would be viewed as a success for the Expos after they drew a pathetic 813,536 fans last season at Olympic Stadium -- in which many games were attended by more stadium employees than fans. MLB officials had to make a change somewhere. After flirting with the idea of having the Expos share Fenway Park with the Red Sox for a year, MLB officials decided to have the Expos play 22 home games in Puerto Rico.

Hopefully, this park will create large amounts of revenue for this small market club and could potentially serve as a permanent home for the Expos after this season.

Opposing players must love this new setup as well. Who wouldn't enjoy a little three-day vacation on a paradise island, especially in a place where the locals are crazy about baseball? These might be the loyal baseball fans that Bud Selig has been searching for.

Not only is this ballpark in paradise, it looks like a Little League ballpark with short right and left field fences. It's the kind of park that makes big league bashers salivate. In ten games played at the park, there have been 34 home runs and tons of offense in general.

The fact that many of the Expos players are of Hispanic origin, has also helped the early popularity of the team in Puerto Rico. Second baseman Jose Vidro, pitcher Javier Vasquez, and infielder Wil Cordero all hail from Puerto Rico and call the island home in the off-season and thus, they have proven to be the fan favorites.

Many of the visiting team's players also call Puerto Rico home, such as Roberto Alomar and Rey Sanchez of the Mets and Javy Lopez of the Braves. Lopez is a huge island favorite and responded to the fan support by hitting two home runs on April 17. This included a grand slam in the tenth inning that set off a festive celebration and propelled the Braves to a 14-8 win over Montreal, concluding a three-game sweep of the Expos. Lopez had a career-high six RBI in that contest.

Montreal's strength this season has been its young rotation with some contributions from some key veterans. Tony Armas, Jr., Javier Vasquez, Tomo Ohka, Zach Day, and Livan Hernandez -- who was traded from the World Series runner-up San Francisco Giants during the off-season -- make up the rotation. Hernandez should provide some great leadership for this young staff. Vasquez has started out hot, with 37 K's at week's end.

Despite losing momentary-ace Bartolo Colon in an off-season trade, the Expos gained two pitchers with a lot of post-season experience in Hernandez and his half brother Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez. El Duque joined the club in the three-way Colon trade from the Yankees and has a proven track record as one of the best postseason pitchers in Major League history. At this moment he is on the disabled list, but when he returns he should provide them with great support either in the rotation or in the bullpen.

The Expos return to San Juan to play series from June 3-11 and from Sept. 5-11. If the team can keep it together with its young pitching staff, the talent level with superstars Vladimir Guerrero and Vidro will be able to measure up against any other NL East team. There is no reason that the Expos won't be playing in October this year. We will just have to wait and see if San Juan becomes the permanent home for these youngsters.