Former Montreal Expos French play by play announcer Jacques Doucet is honored by Topps Baseball Cards and the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020 (photo by Cooperstown in Canada)

Last team to Relocate and the Atléticos Saga

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi Gonzalez

The Montreal Expos played their final season in Montreal in 2004, averaging under 10,000 fans per game during that final season, and they had a 23-year playoff drought. They moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals.

In Montreal, the predominant language is French, 71% of the Montreal population speaks French. From 1969 to 2004 (35 years), Jacques Doucet called the games in French for the entire duration of the team’s existence in Canada’s most French city.

Doucet is the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, 84, and retired. I had the pleasure of meeting Doucet.. His career in baseball broadcasting was unique, as the only French announcer in the Major Leagues.

That career ended as the team changed cities. With their new name, the Washington Nationals, the Nationals played their first three seasons at RFK Stadium while Nationals Park was under construction. During those three seasons at RFK Stadium, they averaged between 23,000 and 33,000 fans per game.

Nationals Park was completed in 2008, and the Nationals played their first home game there on March 30, 2008. Since moving to Washington, D.C., the Nationals have won five NL Eastern Division titles, one NL Pennant in 2019, and the World Series against the Houston Astros that year.

Athletics relocation: The A’s have a good spring training home in Arizona. Their home opener is scheduled against the Chicago Cubs on March 31 at 7:05. Their plans for their permanent destination, Las Vegas, Nevada, are still on a bumpy road.

They have unsuccessfully hit up potential local investors in Sin City for months, but no takers have contacted them. Recent reports show that A’s expected to build the Las Vegas stadium, which will cost around $1.75 billion. Most of the cost, estimated by John Fisher and his family, is around $1.75. Originally the stadium’s projected $1.5 billion price tag went up to $1.75 because of inflation and the addition of 70,000 square feet of ballpark features.

The A’s announced they have sold out for the 2025 season at Sutter Health Park, Sacramento. The capacity is 14,014, which includes 10,624 permanent fixed seats and additional lawn seating on the grass berms beyond the left- and right-field walls.

Major League Baseball did not schedule the Los Angeles Dodgers to visit the A’s in Sacramento this season, which proves some relief to the A’s organization since the LA Dodgers generally travel with a rather large group of Japanese media reporters mostly following Shohei Ohtani, who is the #1 talent in the Major Leagues.

Those hardcore baseball fans in Sacramento if they want to see the Dodgers and Ohtani this year, they will have to travel to Oracle Park in San Francisco. These are the dates the Dodgers visit San Francisco this year. April 1-3, May 13-15, June 28-30 and July 22-25 The Traveling A’s, indeed.

Only God knows where the A’s will end. We see this year they stopped in Sacramento for three years, but Q: are they done traveling? A:Nope.

The Oakland Athletics called Philadelphia their home until 1955 and spent 13 years in Kansas City before relocating to the Bay Area (1968-2024) When the Athletics left Oakland after the 2024 season and move to Sacramento they will be the franchise with the most relocations in history across the major U.S. sports.

Amaury Pi-Gonzalez – Cuban-born Pi-González is one of the pioneers of Spanish-language baseball play-by-play in America. Began as Oakland A’s Spanish-language voice in 1977 ending in 2024 (interrupted by stops with the Giants, Mariners and Angels). Voice of the Golden State Warriors from 1992 through 1998. 2010 inducted in the Bay Area Radio Hall of fame