How 'Bout Dem Fish - Florida Marlins Mystify the Corner Sports Mavens

MLN MAJOR BLOGS - 09.17.06 - OPINION -  The Old Guys cigar club meets in front of the corner Starbucks near my house every weekday morning.  I've always thought that George Bush, Kofi Annan and even Bud Light should hang with these dispensers of wisdom who have a solution, and an opinion, for everything. 

The South Florida sages rendered their opinion on the Florida Marlins' January White Sale of players last winter.

"It's the dumbest thing anyone's ever done in baseball, to sell off anyone with talent on your club," opined one cigar chawing  scholar.

Of course, like most major league fans, they look at weighty issues like the retooling of the Marlins roster with the depth of a mirror.  The club roster revisions had as much to do with the fact that guys like this crab a lot, but don't show up to the games, as anything.  When your average attendance regular season teeters below 10,000, you have to go to Filenes and pick up some bargains who are hungry.

Usually I try avoid weighing in, but, as I was sitting there, looking at the trades that Loria's legions made for top-drawer talents like Hanley Ramirez, Yusmeiro Petit, and Annibal Sanchez, I was thinking that maybe they might like to know that there was hope yet for the 2006 season.

"They picked up a lot of exceptional young talent," I remarked, telling them in particular about that troika of picks.  That put me square in the sights of one of the coffin-nail burning bombasts.

"No way the Marlins go anywhere this season," was his prognostication, gorged in that self-satisfaction of the transplanted Yankee fan in paradise. "No way that group of green nobodies does even .500 ball." 

Nobodies?  That's when the Bugs Bunny in me starts coming out, that little voice in my head that says "Of course you know this means War..."

"Except the Marlins have taken green know-nothings and kicked the Bronx Bombers sorry asses," I replied, tossing a heater back at the 'I'll Take Manhattanites.'  

"You can't run a club without the majority of it being major league talent," stated the sage, with a few supportive 'harumpfs' from the other wise men of the coffee round table.

"Really?" I said with a smile. "Explain that logic to the World Series Angels, the World Series Marlins, and a bit less to the World Series White Sox.  Hungry guys with everything to prove and nothing to lose play with heart."

"Heart can't beat your Derek Jeter on a club full of super-stars," chimed in a Bronx-thick accented voice of another NY-capped wise man. 

"That's the fatal flaw of the almighty dollar baseball fan," I shot back. "Nine of the best high-dollar guys on one field do not a club make. Sure, the Yankees can get to the playoffs by buying cream talent, but the ability to play as a club, to play together, for all those mega egos, is tough. If it was easy, the Yanks would walk away with the World Series every year."

Of course, when you talk about walking away with the World Series every year, you watch Yankee fan's eyes light up  briefly in the Nirvanah of that notion. 

They forget that even the superstar-led classic Yankee clubs of the pre King George era still had a mix of quality common and phenom players who pulled together.  It was the "Us" generation after WWII that allowed guys like Maris and Mantle to share the stage.  This is the big "M" "ME!!!!" generation.  Nine individuals occupying space on the dirt and turf wearing the same uniform do not necessarily make a club.

"This is a game about the money," sneered one particularly grating guru. "You don't know what you're talking about. I will tell you now that the Florida Marlins are going nowhere. They'll be lucky to make .500, and they deserve no one showing up to see a bunch of minor league ballplayers playing against real major leaguers." 

"I won't sit here and tell you that they'll make the World Series," I shot back, knowing that all 'real' major leaguers started out as these hungry young scrubs. "Jack McKeon was a big driving factor in shaping Marlin talent, and this year I don't know how that will change, but I will tell you that, with those great trades that they made, they have the potential to get very close."

It was impassioned, well thought out, and fell on deaf ears. I got the dismissive 'idiot' wave from a couple of the sports savants who then turned to each other to solve our problems in Iraq and argue whether or not their stogies contributed to global warming.

Fast forward to the waning days of summer. Anibal Sanchez throws a no-hitter, with Hanley Ramirez helping him defensively cap it up.  The Marlins are in the hunt for a Wild Card berth in the National League Championship Series (NLCS).

I walked into the 'Bucks, passing them at their tables of High Court, found my favorite grandiloquent gentleman who opined the sub .500 season for the Marlins, looked him square in the eye, and said:

 "How about them Fish?"

I smiled and glided by.  I'm such a stinkah.