When the 'fine city' of Vancouver wanted, but didn't get, a baseball team
City had dream of seeing a ball team anchor its new stadium, but it didn't become a reality
The West wanted in.
Forty years ago, movers and shakers from Vancouver wanted to see a Major League Baseball team in their city.
And that's why they had travelled across the country to meet with MLB executives in Montreal on July 12, 1982.
The baseball bigwigs were in town for the all-star game — the first outside of the United States — that was being held the following day.
The Vancouver delegation was making the case that their city was ready for their own team. A new stadium, BC Place, was being built and could serve as a home for that hypothetical team to play.
"It's very important for the stadium to have baseball in as its major tenant," said Vancouver Mayor Mike Harcourt, when speaking with reporters.
"That gives you about 80 or 90 dates out of the 250 you need for the stadium to be viable."
City 'capable' of supporting MLB ...
Lee MacPhail, the president of the American League, had good things to say about Vancouver, but not about the city's prognosis for a future team.
"Obviously, Vancouver is a fine city," he told reporters. "It's a beautiful city ... I'm sure it's capable of supporting Major League Baseball."
He also said no expansion plans were on the horizon.
"As to expansion, it's really hard to say when that will come about," said MacPhail.
National League President Charles "Chub" Feeney declined to comment on the idea of having a team in B.C.
... but expansion 'not likely'
As the CBC's Don Macpherson pointed out, there were lots of other places that wanted to have a baseball team as well — big American cities with more clout than Vancouver, including Denver, New Orleans and Washington.
"Until they do, there's not likely to be a third Canadian city in the major leagues," Macpherson told viewers on The National.
Macpherson was right: Vancouver was not getting a team.
Denver would get a MLB franchise in the 1990s, and baseball would return to the U.S. capital a decade after that — when the Montreal Expos were moved there and turned into the Washington Nationals.
