It's amazing how much dishonest poor mouthing Miami Marlins owner Jeff Loria has done over the years. He conned Miami into the classic Bud Selig illusion that all you have to do is give him his stadium and the franchise would spring back to life like Christ on Easter Sunday.
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/story/_/id/9677383/most-dishonest-owner-sports-miami-marlins-jeffrey-loria-espn-magazine
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/im-not-a-quitter-revisiting-jeffrey-lorias-most-hilarious-lies-about-the-new-marlins-6525128
For years and years he claimed that he was losing his shirt, making no money and the city of Miami just had to swoop in and pay for a hugely expensive stadium for him or he'd just have to take the team and leave. Then came that piece in Deadspin that showed that he's actually been making a profit by pocketing the revenue sharing and luxury tax revenue.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/the-biggest-ongoing-scam-in-professional-sports-is-in-miami/273644/
Not only did he rip off players but off all the Marlins fans in the state of Florida.
Why should we be surprised that he got away with this when you consider that this was under the long reign of Bud Selig who wrote the book on crying poverty as a tactic to extract hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars from your community of baseball fans while at the same time demanding that the more successful baseball teams give you their money?
Yet Selig-and the unctuous Bowie Kuhn-is in the Hall of Fame and Marivn Miller-or for that matter Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens-aren't. It just goes to show you that the alleged morality tale that phonies like Bill Madden and Mike Lupica are quite skewed.
I mean they gave Selig a statue in Milwaukee for the great gift of Miller Park!! Why thank him-he didn't pay for it. Nor did he in anyway deliver on his part of the bargain to field a winning Brewers team-any more than Loria has.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Bud-Selig-s-statue-is-now-deservedly-loitering-o?urn=mlb-264888
The Brewers actually set an MLB record in consecutive seasons during all these years Selig and his daughter Wendy were crusading for a salary cap and reveunue sharing.
Here's a great quote:
"Three years ago, Deadspin, in a terrific piece of investigative journalism, confirmed what many had thought all along. The Marlins were using the rich stream of cash flowing in from Major League Baseball—their cut of the national television contract and licensing money as well as their share of the "luxury tax," the penalty money divvied up after teams like the Yankees go over the salary threshold—not to do what they were supposed to be doing, namely providing their fans with a better baseball team. Instead, the cash flow was simply treated as profit by Loria and team president David Samson. Loria and Samson had, for years, been poor-mouthing, insisting that they were barely breaking even financially (though in 2007 Forbes reported that the Marlins actually had the highest operating income in baseball), and they needed the help of local government to pay $645 million for the new stadium (and accompanying parking facilities) that they said they needed to be competitive."
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/the-biggest-ongoing-scam-in-professional-sports-is-in-miami/273644/
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/story/_/id/9677383/most-dishonest-owner-sports-miami-marlins-jeffrey-loria-espn-magazine
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/im-not-a-quitter-revisiting-jeffrey-lorias-most-hilarious-lies-about-the-new-marlins-6525128
For years and years he claimed that he was losing his shirt, making no money and the city of Miami just had to swoop in and pay for a hugely expensive stadium for him or he'd just have to take the team and leave. Then came that piece in Deadspin that showed that he's actually been making a profit by pocketing the revenue sharing and luxury tax revenue.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/the-biggest-ongoing-scam-in-professional-sports-is-in-miami/273644/
Not only did he rip off players but off all the Marlins fans in the state of Florida.
Why should we be surprised that he got away with this when you consider that this was under the long reign of Bud Selig who wrote the book on crying poverty as a tactic to extract hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars from your community of baseball fans while at the same time demanding that the more successful baseball teams give you their money?
Yet Selig-and the unctuous Bowie Kuhn-is in the Hall of Fame and Marivn Miller-or for that matter Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens-aren't. It just goes to show you that the alleged morality tale that phonies like Bill Madden and Mike Lupica are quite skewed.
I mean they gave Selig a statue in Milwaukee for the great gift of Miller Park!! Why thank him-he didn't pay for it. Nor did he in anyway deliver on his part of the bargain to field a winning Brewers team-any more than Loria has.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Bud-Selig-s-statue-is-now-deservedly-loitering-o?urn=mlb-264888
The Brewers actually set an MLB record in consecutive seasons during all these years Selig and his daughter Wendy were crusading for a salary cap and reveunue sharing.
Here's a great quote:
"Three years ago, Deadspin, in a terrific piece of investigative journalism, confirmed what many had thought all along. The Marlins were using the rich stream of cash flowing in from Major League Baseball—their cut of the national television contract and licensing money as well as their share of the "luxury tax," the penalty money divvied up after teams like the Yankees go over the salary threshold—not to do what they were supposed to be doing, namely providing their fans with a better baseball team. Instead, the cash flow was simply treated as profit by Loria and team president David Samson. Loria and Samson had, for years, been poor-mouthing, insisting that they were barely breaking even financially (though in 2007 Forbes reported that the Marlins actually had the highest operating income in baseball), and they needed the help of local government to pay $645 million for the new stadium (and accompanying parking facilities) that they said they needed to be competitive."
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/the-biggest-ongoing-scam-in-professional-sports-is-in-miami/273644/
Yeah right 'Teams like the Yankees'-you might as well rename the luxury tax the Yankees tax as in the whole existence of this tax going back to 1998, the Yanks have paid over 90% of it in those 18 years.
P.S. If any thread or underlying strand runs through all this it's that if you are pro management in baseball you go far and if you're not you don't at least as far as being honored or having a positive legacy in the sport.
As for the fact that Miller is still not in the Hall, of course I beat up on pious writers like Bill Madden but consider that Reggie Jackson-of all people with his salary history-chose not to vote for Miller as he said Miller was an executive not a player; this didn't stop anyone for voting in Kuhn and Selig.
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