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New Uniforms Discussion: New Uniforms Seen FIRST on SoFlaMarlins.com
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BY GREG BY COTE
GCOTE@
Reborn, renamed and re-branded, the newly christened Miami Marlins reintroduced themselves Friday night at their brand new ballpark, unveiling a sweeping makeover including new uniforms, new colors and a new logo.
Those new colors, splashes of reddish-orange and blue and yellow, won’t be to everyone’s liking to put it mildly, but here is a guarantee:
Fans will like the new uniforms much, much better with Albert Pujols wearing one of them.
Yes and even the biggest critics will agree those colors are a perfect match for Jose Reyes.
Clothes make the man? Not in baseball. There, it’s the other way around. You put the right players on your sparkling new diamond and they’d make dirt-brown uniforms shine. They’d make silver jerseys with candy-stripe sleeves look good.
It was a remarkable thing, what happened Friday in this long-awaited “11-11-11” event with which the Marlins’ new era launched.
The club upstaged itself.
The new uniforms, colors and logo were meant to own the marquee but were relegated to mere window dressing. They were nice, like bells and whistles often are. But they were not the big story going on with baseball franchise on this day.
See, on the day the Florida Marlins officially became the Miami Marlins, club owner Jeffrey Loria — notorious for years of penurious under-spending on player payrolls — was undertaking a transformation as stark as the change in uniforms but in some ways even more stunning. And ever more important.
He was opening his wallet. Wide.
He was revealing himself as a man at long last prepared to spend hugely to field a winning team — something as important as the new stadium to the long-term success of this franchise preparing for its 20th season.
Players were milling around the new stadium earlier Friday in a dress rehearsal for the night’s festivities as Loria and other club executives were giving a private tour to Pujols, the Hall of Fame-bound slugger from the St. Louis Cardinals, and now a free agent. There was Pujols up on the stadium’s jumbo video screen, photo-shopped into those new Marlins colors.
Miami’s Pitbull performed for the hundreds of VIPs, politicos and media at Friday’s private party at the new ballpark. But the Marlins acting like pitbulls in free agency is what’s remarkable right now.
In years past the low-spending Marlins were not players for guys like Pujols. The Cardinals already have offered $200 million over nine years to keep him, and it is almost unfathomable to imagine the Marlins might match that, yet sources indicate Loria on Friday made a “competitive” offer to Pujols.
That is astounding.
Pujols, in baseball, is what LeBron James was in basketball as the Heat won him in basketball free agency last summer. The grand prize.
But it isn’t only Pujols.
Reyes, the all-star Mets shortstop? All-star former White Sox starting pitcher Mark Beurhle? Cuban-defector outfield sensation Yoenis Cespedes?
The Marlins want them all. Indications are Loria has tendered serious offers to Reyes and Beurhle along with Pujols.
Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson led the parade of Marlins modeling the new uniforms Friday. Imagine those two and Mike Stanton and the rest being joined by Pujols or Reyes? Or both?
A traditionally cheap club, always bit players in free agency, suddenly is the talk of baseball, the most active player right now.
This is beyond stunning. The Marlins’ payroll would skyrocket into the $130 million range if Pujols, Reyes and Beurhle all are signed. Only the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies had bigger payrolls last season.
That doesn’t mean Miami WILL land every star it is after, but the effort alone is extraordinary.
The Marlins are smartly seizing what they see as a ripe opportunity to stop being a distant third among this market’s pro teams. The long-reigning Dolphins have fallen on hard, losing times that have disenchanted their fan base. The recently reigning Heat are in a no-play, no-winners lockout that threatens to wipe out an entire NBA season and leave residual resentment.
In ride the new-look Marlins, with a new stadium, a proven champion new manager in Ozzie Guillen, and now what seems a genuine push to cause a tidal wave in free agency.
Loria told the invited crowd: “It has always been about creating something spectacular.”
He meant the new ballpark, which qualifies.
Putting Pujols and Reyes in the new park? That would surely qualify, too.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/1...#ixzz1dSZGHs8W
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Miami’s Pitbull performed for the hundreds of VIPs, politicos and media at Friday’s private party at the new ballpark. But the Marlins acting like pitbulls in free agency is what’s remarkable right now.LHP Chad James-Jupiter Hammerheads-
5-15 3.80 ERA (27 starts) 149.1IP 173H 63ER 51BB 124K
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