Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A glimmer of hope or a mirage?



Hechavarria, the weak-hittting shortstop, slams a homer, the Marlins score eight runs and win on Tuesday night. He's batting below the Mendoza line, he has hit one homer per 58 at bats in the Major Leagues, but hey, he's young, turning 24 on Monday, so maybe he can develop some power. Or maybe not.

Remember the biggest losers in baseball history, the '62 Mets, managed to win one out of every four games.

A lot of fans aren't wildly enthusiastic. Rage against the Marlins – http://www.ratmarlins.com – continues its petition drive through whitehouse.gov: “To Create Legislation That Would Force Jeff Loria to Sell the Miami Marlins & Leave Town. We call upon congress to create legislation that requires any major league sports franchise that operates within the United States, who take public tax money to help build a stadium or arena, must maintain a competitive payroll at all times, of at least 90% of the entire leagues average opening day payroll for the previous five years, for the first ten years after taking said money, and the failure to do so would invoke proceedings upon which the governing body of the league, in which the franchise in question resides, would be forced to immediately buy said franchise for fair market value, and the ownership group in question would be forced to sell it to them without dispute.”
 
So far, they have 848 signatures and need 99,152 in next couple weeks to get the White House attention.

Perhaps a free-market approach would be better, like the relegation system in European soccer, in which the worst performing teams are demoted to the minors and the best performing minor league teams are promoted. Maybe that way the Marlins could get some decent competition against AAA – AA? – opponents.

On this Wednesday morning, the 2013 Marlins are 3-11. The '62 Mets were 2-12.

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