What Will We Call the Expos Now?

Posted on September 30, 2004

Now that the Expos are definitely coming to D.C., the next question is — what will Washington’s new ball club take as its new name? (Because they’re certainly not going to take the field as the “Washington Expos”.)

Over in the comments on my last post about this, my friend Joe Dailey made an excellent suggestion on the subject:

Name them the “Grays” — after the legendary Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, who used to play a good number of their games at old Griffith Stadium in Washington. In their heyday, the Grays featured a number of incredible players — among them Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Buck Leonard, all of whom were kept out of the major leagues by the color barrier, and all of whom are now in the Hall of Fame.

What cooler gesture could MLB make than to honor these men and their teammates by bringing baseball back to Washington under their banner?