Let's go Washington Montreal Expos! - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Here is what serious people understand that unserious people do not: the name “Washington Nationals” is no longer appropriate. It may have worked in the past, when the bar for naming a baseball team was low and hope was high, but that time has passed. Language has moved on. Geography has matured. Baseball, most of all, has entered a symbolic era. And in this new era, there is only one name that properly reflects the moment. The Washington Montreal Expos.

 

Not Montreal Expos. Not Washington Expos. And certainly not Nationals. The Washington Montreal Expos. Every word essential. Every syllable earned. It is not a compromise. It is not a merger. It is the name.

 

To understand the necessity of the change, one must first acknowledge the insufficiency of the present. “Nationals” is a placeholder. It’s a word that gestures vaguely at identity without offering one. It suggests a team that belongs to everyone and no one. A committee word. A fill-in-the-blank. A soft vowel salad hiding behind red, white and beige. Even its abbreviation - “Nats” - sounds like something you should spray for. No, the time has come to move past the Nationals. The era of “Nats” baseball is over. The era of the Washington Montreal Expos is now.

 

The name, at first, may seem like a puzzle. Why combine these words? What does it mean? The beauty of it is that it means exactly what it says, and nothing more. It is not for us to interpret it. It is for us to accept it, with the reverence we show for glaciers, flags or ancient rocks we aren’t allowed to touch. Washington Montreal Expos. Say it aloud. Feel how it moves. Eight syllables, three words, two cities and something that feels older than either.

 

It contains its own contradictions. That’s what gives it force. Washington Montreal Expos is a name that resists coherence in the way true art always does. It is too long for a scoreboard and too majestic to abbreviate. It cannot be parsed or shortened without reducing it. That is the secret. Its power is in its refusal to be streamlined.

 

Some have suggested that the name is confusing. To that we say: good. Confusion is productive. Confusion is a sign that the mind is encountering new forms. What is baseball, after all, if not a ritual of confusion followed by brief moments of clarity? The infield fly rule. The balk. The designated hitter. None of these make sense and yet we honour them. The name Washington Montreal Expos continues this tradition. 

 

The rhythm alone sets it apart. Washington. Montreal. Expos. Three nouns balanced like a philosophical equation. Say it too fast and you get ahead of yourself. Say it too slowly and you begin to understand something deeper. It has the pacing of a legal ruling. It has the sonic weight of a final exam question. It is, in short, a name that slows people down, which, in our times, is an act of mercy.

 

There are those who will continue to resist it. People who demand justification. Who insist on coherence. Who ask questions like “where will the team play?” or “what does Montreal have to do with any of this?” These are the same people who once doubted the wave, or thought instant replay would ruin everything, or believed mascots had to be animal-shaped. These are not serious people. These are people who cannot let go of the idea that names must correspond directly to things.

 

But baseball, like poetry or the postal system, has never been that literal. It is a game of gestures, symbols, delays. We do not go to the ballpark to be informed. We go to be reminded that something old is still moving slowly in the grass and we do not need to know what it is. The Washington Montreal Expos is a name worthy of that mystery.

 

Already it is growing on people. Already they are saying it more frequently than they meant to. It lingers in the mind. It glides into group chats and crawls up the side of casual conversation. You hear someone say “Nats” and your brain auto-corrects. The spell is beginning to work.

 

And make no mistake, this is a spell. It is incantatory. It is vast. The name does not ask for support. It plants itself like a flag and waits to be saluted. You do not chant “Washington Montreal Expos” because you believe it. You chant it because it changes you. It re-calibrates what a team can be. It replaces coherence with conviction.

 

So do not scoff. Do not hesitate. Do not ask where Montreal comes in, or why Washington is first, or how one name can contain so much implication and still sound like it belongs on a foam finger. Just accept what is already obvious to anyone paying attention: this name was always waiting. It has been hovering just beyond the outfield wall, half-visible in the mist, like a pop fly lost in stadium lights.

 

The Nationals are a memory. The Washington Montreal Expos are a destiny.

 

And they are already 1-0.