Urban renewal for Urbina and New York; destruction for Montreal

Question: Who are the only two teams in Major League Baseball history to be denied a World Series appearance (assuming their league-best records would have held up throughout the playoffs) because of a strike?

No, the 1904 cancellation of the World Series was not due to a strike -- New York Giant manager John McGraw refused to play the champion of the upstart American League, and simply proclaimed his team to be "World Champions."

Referring to 1981, you might be tempted to say that the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds were deprived of a possible Series appearance because of the inane split-season format conceived by then, MLB Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn; but then again, a World Series was held that year, and the Cards and Reds couldn't have made the Fall Classic together.

Sorry, nice try.

Baseball fans, the correct answer is: the New York Yankees and the Montreal Expos. While both coming from major cosmopolitan cities on opposite sides of the U.S.-Canadian border, the Yanks and Expos represent two teams that could not be more diametrically opposed.

The Yanks, the U.S. Steel of baseball, now with 26 championships (22 back in 1994, the year of the Series-cancelling strike). The Expos, with nary a Series appearance.

The Yanks, with tradition-laden Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built. The Expos, with the crumbling, debt-ridden and soulless Olympic Stadium.

The Yankees, with big, loud crowds, especially in October. The Expos, with the smallest, most silent, and tomb-like gatherings anywhere in the majors -- and never in October, of course.

The Yankees, with no sideshows on the field -- just classic pinstripes, the classically intertwined "NY," and Bob Sheppard on the PA. The Expos, with the curious logo, the curious crowds, and a weirder-than-weird orange blob of a mascot named "Youppi."

But here's the kicker: the Yankees are richer than rich; the Expos poorer than poor. The Yanks always get their man to reach the next level; the Expos, just when they could reach the next level, give up their man -- again and again and again.

And so it is entirely fitting that the Expos dealt Ugueth Urbina, their star closer, to the Yankees for the usual assemblage of promising minor leaguers who will become something.

Memo to D'Angelo Jimenez and Brandon Knight, the two youngsters headed for Montreal: you might be the lucky ones, because your stay in Montreal might not be very long.

One can only wonder what new owner Jeffrey Loria is trying to do with Les Expos du Montreal. He paid Graeme Lloyd and Hideki Irabu handsome sums when he signed them before the 2000 season. He claimed that he wanted to keep baseball in Montreal. But as plans for a new stadium in Montreal have faltered, Loria now seems intent on tearing down the team and setting up a move to greener pastures in the U.S.

But wait a minute: why, then, did Loria fire Felipe Alou, one of the very best managers in the game, under the premise that the Expos were going nowhere and needed a lift in their sagging fortunes this season?

Yes, Jeff Torborg is Loria's buddy; yes, Loria could very well be set on bringing Torborg with him to Charlotte or Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C. Still, the mixed messages coming from Montreal are as curiously sad as the history of the Expos franchise since its humble birth in 1969.

As for the Yankees? Oh, they simply seem primed to become "The Team" once again. Yeah, Nomar Garciaparra is beginning workouts later this week, and yeah, the Red Sox will hang tough. But consider this: if the Yankees lead through seven innings, is anyone going to tell me they're going to lose more than five percent of those games? Who wouldn't kill for the chance to hand the ball to Urbina in the eighth inning, followed by Mariano Rivera in the ninth?

With an eye on October, I can just hear the cosmic worry emanating from Seattle. Pedro Martinez is no longer the only worry the Ms might have in a short playoff series. When you consider that the Mariners have scored more than three times as many runs as their opponents in the eighth inning of all games this year, Urbina stops that bit of Sodo Mojo dead in its tracks.

Seattle and Boston aren't the only cities worried about the Bombers now that Urbina is in the Yankee pen. If I'm in Cleveland or Minnesota, what had been a five or six-game lead for the wild card a few weeks ago is shrinking, and might very well turn into a deficit -- a considerable deficit -- before the season is through. It suddenly looks as though the East, not the Central, is the odds-on favorite to provide two playoff teams in the American League.

So, life goes on as usual for both the New York Yankees and Montreal Expos. For the Yanks, it's life to the full, with the promise of another run deep into the October chill. For the Expos, it's a life on the verge of a different kind of chill: the chill of death.