New York-Penn League (1994-2005)
Tombstone
Born: October 12, 1993 – The Jamestown Expos relocate to Burlington, VT1Clarino, Chuck. “Pro Baseball’s Back in Vermont”. The Daily Herald (Rutland, VT). October 13, 1993
Re-Branded: November 15, 2005 (Vermont Lake Monsters)2Donoghue, Mike. “Lake Monsters unleashed”. The Free Press (Burlington, VT). November 16, 2005
First Game: June 16, 1994 (L 6-5 vs. Pittsfield Mets)
Last Game: September 8, 2005 (W 15-9 @ Tri-City ValleyCats)
New York-Penn League Champions: 1996
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Attendance
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Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007
Background
The Vermont Expos were the short-season Class A farm club of the Montreal Expos during the final decade of that Major League club’s existence. The Expos won their lone New York-Penn League crown during their third season of play in 1996.
Local businessman Ray Pecor, operator of Lake Champlain’s ferry transport service and one of Vermont’s main cable television operators, worked tirelessly to return pro baseball to Burlington after the Vermont Reds/Mariners of the Class AA Eastern League departed for Ohio in 1988. Pecor stuck a deal to buy the Eastern League’s Williamsport (PA) Bills for $1.4 million in July 1988 and relocate the club to Burlington for the 1989 season. But Eastern League owners quashed the deal in September 1988, one day after the lame duck Vermont Mariners lost the 1988 league championship series.
Pecor finally got his club five years later when he persuaded the Montreal Expos to sell their Class A farm club in Jamestown, New York in September 1993.
Based in Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, the Expos played in the oldest minor league ballpark in America, Centennial Field. Depending on who’s doing the counting, the 4,400 seat park was built in 1906 or 1922 (when much of the park was re-built after an earlier fire). Either way, Centennial indisputably became the oldest ballpark in minor league baseball after Pittsfield, Massachusetts lost its own New York-Penn League franchise in 2001.
Expos to Lake Monsters
The Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. after the 2004 season and became the Washington Nationals. Thanks to a delay in re-branding the ball club, Vermont played one final season with the Expos nickname in 2005. During the 2005 season, a fan contest to re-name the team drew more than 30,000 entries. “Vermont Lake Monsters” beat out “Green Mountain Boys” when the new moniker was announced in November 2005.
During the pandemic winter of 2020-21, Major League Baseball radically re-organized the Minor League system. As part of the shake-up, the entire New York-Penn League was wiped off the map. Left without a league to play in or a Major League parent club to partner with, the Lake Monsters entered the Futures Collegiate Baseball League in 2021 as an amateur club featuring college players with remaining collegiate eligibility.
Links
“The Last Team With the Expos Nickname Will Play Its Final Game“, David Leonhardt, The New York Times, September 8, 2005
New York-Penn League Media Guides
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