If you didn’t see enough of it last night as the news initially broke, you’re going to see plenty of columns, editorials and fiery rants today about how Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is a scumbag because he is willingly killing his second baseball franchise because he’s horrible at what he does. And many of them will be great – I like this effort by Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan and this more subtle rundown by Deadspin – because as much as writers, analysts and experts love to argue about every little meaningless thing in sports, hatred for Loria runs deep within the majority. Jeffrey Loria destroyed the Montreal Expos and now he is destroying the Miami Marlins. That’s pretty much all you need to know.
So why? Why did the Marlins trade Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck, Emilio Bonifacio and Mark Buehrle to the Toronto Blue Jays for Yunel Escobar and several prospects that don’t even include Toronto’s best? Was it a brilliant move to clear money? Was it an admittance of mistakes in even signing Reyes and Buehrle in the first place? Was it just the same old fire sale that we’ve come to expect from the Marlins? Or is it more likely the story of a man under investigation by the SEC for allegedly fleecing the city of Miami in the construction of a new baseball stadium that he couldn’t even fill with a stable of stars because he already created a product so tainted within the community that people refuse to buy in until his stink is washed away?
Who knows? But while Toronto fans celebrate their new windfall of more than $150 million in guaranteed contracts from guys who dug their own graves by signing with a franchise famous for not allowing no-trade clauses, there are Marlins fans and baseball fans in general who can see just how terrible this is. For Miami, for baseball, for fairness. Jeffrey Loria sucks, my friends. And people on Twitter really want you to know that.
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For best results and enjoyment, listen to this while you read these Tweets:
For starters, here are some Marlins player responses:
And someone immediately had some fun with Loria’s Wikipedia profile. It has since been corrected but I was able to screen grab it in time. Click for larger images.
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