Erik Cassano thinks there's a sadistic genius in how the Marlins are run, and finds a history comparison dating to Connie Mack and the old Philadelphia A's.
By Erik Cassano
210 west Writer [send email]
The Florida Marlins are the cockroaches of baseball. And that’s meant in the most positive sense.
They can’t be killed off. They are only known to have existed since 1993, but after seeing their long, strange trip, it is entirely possible that this team has been here since the Precambrian Era, and will be on this earth long after man’s extinction. South Beach’s teal-accented contribution to the primordial soup.
The Marlins have been used and abused by their owners, pegged for contraction and consistently ignored by their fan base. They play in a stadium built for football in a town that beatifies Dan Marino but might not remember who started against the Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series (Jaret Wright).
For a town as thick with Hispanic culture as Miami, it sure isn’t much of a baseball town. The Marlins finished third-to-last in the majors in attendance this year. Even the 119-loss Tigers drew more.
But here they are. The unsinkable Fish. World Series participants for the second time in six years. Five postsea-son series wins in five tries. Two-and-0 in game sevens.
The 1997 Marlins were store-bought mercenaries in large part, wooed by the deep pockets of then-owner Wayne Huizenga, who didn’t want to wait for prospects to mature, and had enough money to be impatient.
The 2003 Marlins were built the honorable way, through good drafting, slick trades and the clutch free agent ac-quisition of Ivan Rodriguez.
But their fate may ultimately be the same.
The 1997 Marlins didn’t gush profits the way Huizenga thought they would, so bitter and burned by the apathy of the fans who didn’t show up to watch the ’97 championship run until September, he sold everyone off. Bobby Bonilla, Gary Sheffield and Charles Johnson to Los Angeles; Jeff Conine to Kansas City, Al Leiter and Dennis Cook to the Mets, Kevin Brown to Sand Diego, Moises Alou to Houston.
The 1998 Marlins went 64-98, and Huizenga sold the team to John Henry, who continued the indifference until he sold the team last year.
The 2003 Marlins appear to be built on a much stronger foundation. They’re younger, less expensive and were meticulously pieced together. But maybe they aren’t.
Pudge Rodriguez was signed to a one-year deal to revitalize his career, which he has done sufficiently. Now able to chase the really big money, he probably won’t be back in Florida next year.
On top of that, 16 Florida players are eligible for salary arbitration in the coming years. Losing all those cases could inflate the Marlins’ payroll drastically. And unlike Huizenga, current owner Jeff Loria seems to keep tight clamps on his wallet.
In the end, the Marlins might well into imploding their second straight championship team by the time pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February.
Not that it’s entirely bad. If the Marlins can topple the Yankees, they’ll have two more rings in six years than the Cubs, Red Sox, White Sox, and Indians have managed in more than half a century. For many teams, nine losing seasons in 11 can be damned if the other two years yield titles.
Connie Mack, the man who ruled over the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, made a career out of buying low and selling high. For two stretches, he profited more than a dot-com spec buyer in the 1990s.
The Athletics of 1910-1914 were built around the pitching of Chief Bender and the “$100,000 infield,” which included Eddie Collins. The Athletics won four pennants in the time, and the World Series in 1910, ’11 and ’13. The “miracle” Boston Braves stunned Philadelphia as heavy favorites in the 1914 Series.
But, like in Florida, attendance was chronically sluggish. Collins, the team’s leading hitter every year they won the World Series, was sold to the White Sox in December 1914. Bender, winner of 23 games in 1913, was placed on waivers and signed with the short-lived Federal League, along with pitcher Eddie Plank.
The Athletics plummeted to dead last in 1915 at 43-109. They crashed to a rock-bottom 36-117 record in 1916, finishing 54 and a half games back. Philadelphia didn’t finished out of last place again until 1922, when they ended up one spot above the cellar at 65-89.
Like the Marlins, Mack’s bunch rose again from the dead in 1929. Powered by outfielders Al Simmons and Jim-mie Foxx, and the pitching of Lefty Grove and George Earnshaw, the Athletics trounced the American League with a 104-46 record, knocking off the Cubs in the World Series.
Philadelphia won two more pennants consecutively, defeating the Cardinals in the 1930 World Series and losing to them in 1931.
The Athletics fell to second place in 1932 and by the end of the 1933 season, Mack was at it again. Catcher Mickey Cochrane was sold to Detroit, Grove to the Red Sox, and Earnshaw to the White Sox.
The Athletics move to Kansas City and then to Oakland before they fielded a contending team again in the early 1970s.
The Athletics have had far more losing seasons than winning seasons in 102 years of operation, but the nine World Series titles they have won in their history tie them with the Cardinals for second-most.
Call it the Connie Mack backwards-template for success. Being cheap, spiting customers by intentionally throwing your best employees away, and keeping personnel in a constant state of turnover.
That formula would run Microsoft into the ground, but it made Mack a legend. And the Marlins appear to be doing a good job of imitating it.