Miami Marlins President David Samson is a very proud, confident man. Sure, his baseball organization is considered the fool’s gold standard throughout professional sports, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at him. Samson doesn’t have time to sit around and sweat the little things like creating a consistent winning franchise that will help establish baseball tradition in a city that has long been indifferent to America’s pastime. No sir, David Samson is a winner, and he’s going to be out there winning at everything else while his employees stay behind and worry about the thousands of empty seats in their stadium.
That’s because part of Samson’s winning ideology that he shared with the people for Survivor, the classic CBS reality series that Samson is competing on this season, is that he likes to be “leading without actually being a leader.” Translated: Use the Jedi mind trick to make the peons think they’re doing all the work without actually saying it. But that’s not the only nugget of wisdom that the 45-year old dropped in his contestant profile. Here’s a much better one…
Personal Claim to Fame: Got local government in Miami to contribute over 350 million dollars to a new baseball park during the recession.
Hold on, I just received this response from the people of Miami:
In fairness to Samson, the Miami Herald already asked him about this particular quote and naturally he claims he’s being taken out of context or perhaps misquoted.
“I would have worded it in a way that was different,’’ Samson said. “I certainly would say a claim to fame, not the claim to fame, is getting a ballpark built with a public-private partnership.”
“My personal claim to fame is no doubt the health and happiness of my children,’’ he continued. “My top professional claim to fame is certainly being a part of the ballpark project, securing the future of the franchise forever, and having the ballpark be a successful example of a public private-partnership.”
You see, he would have worded it differently to make it sound more professional and less of a douchebag’s sociopathic ravings.
For those unfamiliar with such contempt for Samson and his boss and father-in-law, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, it stems from the fact that such a number as $350 million is an understatement, because the taxpayers and city and county governments are on the hook for as much as $1.2 billion in the long run. And yet this glorious monstrosity and giant neon fish statue were built on the promise that a new stadium was essential for drawing larger attendance numbers. It was, ultimately, the means to a beginning in terms of baseball tradition in Miami.
Then a funny thing happened when the doors opened – the Marlins couldn’t draw worth shit, because the product on the field sucked. Sure, Loria and Samson spent on players like Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle in 2012, but they were shipped to Toronto with Josh Johnson and others before the 2013 season because the team’s payroll was too expensive. The result of such a salary dump? The Marlins ranked 28th in total attendance in 2013 and 29th in average attendance with just 19,584 people per game. Hell, they had the upper deck closed for many games because the Marlins couldn’t give tickets and food away. And even that was a farce, because a lot of us have eyeballs and cameras and could see that it was pure bullshit.
But sure, Dave. Keep telling everyone (and especially yourself) how much “Winning!” and your “desire to be extraordinary and doing what all say they could not do” is why you’re going to win on Survivor. We’re all cheering for you*.
*To be humiliated and eliminated early on.
