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The last time anyone saw this team on the field, it was waving adieu--a group hug for Montreal. The players genuinely were saddened to be leaving such a fine city, but they also were eager to leave behind their old lives and embark on new ones. All the team formerly known as the Montreal Expos ever wanted was to be treated normally, instead of as a foster child forced to endure one indignity after another.

Five months later, it is clear the Expos have gotten what they wanted--and so much more. Relocated and recast as the Washington Nationals, the franchise now possesses something that always was in short supply in Montreal: hope.

"We're on an even playing field now," says manager Frank Robinson. "We have a home. We have a fan base that will support us and a schedule that's the same as everyone else's. If you had been around the last two or three years and you have been around the ballclub this spring, you can see the bounce in the guys. You can see that their eyes are brighter. They're happier. They feel better about the entire situation."

There is hope in every big-league camp this time of year. But in Viera, Fla., where the Nationals train, this hope is special. In a clubhouse transformed from Expos blue to Nationals red, catcher Brian Schneider sits at his corner locker and searches for the words to describe the immensity of the change.

"I feel," Schneider says, "like I've been traded."

When Major League Baseball took over the franchise prior to the 2002 season, the Expos were baseball's orphans, playing in a city that didn't seem to want them, bracing for the possibility the franchise would be eliminated.

In each of the past two seasons, their vagabond existence included 22 "home" games in Puerto Rico, which, in effect, forced the Expos to be on the road far more often than any other team. The club slowly was drained of energy, spirit and--ultimately--hope.

"You're living out of a suitcase all year long," says veteran second baseman Jose Vidro. "It's not easy, especially when you know you're the only team that has to do it."

Now in their new uniforms, in their new city, the Nationals wear their experience like a badge of honor. "No team in major league baseball has ever had to go through that. What we went through the last two years has made us stronger as a team," says outfielder-first baseman Brad Wilkerson. "We're going to thrive now."

"Thrive" may be a hit optimistic. The fact remains, the Nationals still play in the same division--the National League East--that swallowed the Expos alive during their last-place finish in 2004, and one could argue that every team in the division got significantly better. If it is not the game's best division, it certainly is the deepest.

The Nationals, too, appear to be much improved. But they were starting from a much different place than their competitors.

Jim Bowden, who left ESPN to take over as interim general manager after Omar Minaya defected to the Mets, did his best this winter to recast the team with only a modest bump in payroll, to about $50 million. He signed shortstop Cristian Guzman, pitcher Esteban Loaiza and third baseman Vinny Castilla and acquired volatile right fielder Jose Guillen in a trade with the Angels.

Beyond that much of the core that fueled the Expos' unlikely run as contenders in 2003 still is in place.

"I think they're a very respectable ballclub, with the capability of being pretty good," says Braves third baseman Chipper Jones. "They're not by any means a doormat. Those guys are going to play hard, and they have good character guys."

Among the players who form that core, none is more essential than Vidro, who can be described as the soul of the team. Last May, he signed a four-year. $30 million contract extension despite not knowing where the team would play in 2005. Some thought Vidro was crazy; Robinson thinks he was courageous.

"What it said (to his teammates) was, 'This isn't a hopeless situation here. I have confidence we're headed in the right direction,'" Robinson says. "It didn't go unnoticed by the other players who were here last year, and it hasn't gone unnoticed by the players who are here now."

Technically, the Nationals will remain orphans until MLB sells the team. (Don't look for that to occur until after the All-Star break.) Only then will the team's future come closer into view; it is unknown, for instance, whether Bowden and Robinson will be retained by the new owners.

For now, the city of Washington is in the midst of a sizzling love affair with its new team as baseball returns to the nation's capital (the expansion Senators moved to Texas after the 1971 season). About 20,000 season tickets have been sold even though the team's marketing department got a late start because the move to D.C. took so long to complete.

When three players appeared at a downtown restaurant in January to unveil the team's new uniforms and sign autographs, a line of fans snaked out the door, around the corner and down the block.