Jeff Passan: Marlins Trade is a Baseball Tragedy

[HUGG]

What is Al-Queada?

[emkayseven]

Is it related to Coughlan?

[Mainge]

Let's see how many more times you can make that joke.

[Todd]

Gorilla warfare sounds much more dangerous than guerrilla warfare. Gorillas are big and they throw their poop.

[CrimsonCane]

Right, I'm not saying that he isn't using language or ideas from the complaint. I'm saying that he's using them as an example of Loria previously being accused of fleecing a community and Selig being previously accused of complicity -- that the content is an example of how people have reacted in the past, not that the content is factual. The point I took from the article is that Loria and Co. betrayed a fan base before and they are doing it again.

The problem with this ownership is not how they are being portrayed by the media. The problem is how they conduct themselves and their business.

What value do those statements have if they're not true? "People thought they did all these crazy evil things that they may or may not have done"?

The first bolded sentence you talk about it as an accusation. In the second one, you treat it as fact.

[Flum]

The truth of the statements is that the fan base, or at least those that brought the lawsuit, FELT betrayed (that's what I meant by the last sentence). Whether they were in fact betrayed is (or this fan base was in fact betrayed) is more difficult to determine and would likely require a very in-depth investigation which none of us have the resources to undertake.

The point I'm making, and the point I think he's making, is that Loria's actions leave a lot of very upset people in their wake.

[Chewford]

What is Al-Queada?

Seriously punk, you're going to do this spelling shit? I mean just the other day I was wearing my Confederate flag T-shirt at Taco Bell when the bitch behind the counter was like, "That shirt is racist." I couldn't believe it. "Actually," I explained, "the Civil War was about states' rights, not slavery." I considered walking out then and there but was really hungry for a chalupa. So, I handed the female my $2 bill, but--and I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering the level of education in this country--she refused to accept it. "It's legal tender!" I said. "You cannot refuse it! It is my right to use it!" She wouldn't budge, claiming that there was no place in the register for $2 bills. (For fuck's sake.) "Alright," I said, handing her my $1 coins. I was half expecting her to raise a stink about that, but she didn't. I guess there's still some hope. "No need to be so niggardly," I said. She flipped. "Niggardly," I said, "not n***erly. Don't you know the difference?" Anyways, as I left, I raised my arm in a Roman salute, and another bitch behind the counter shrieked: "Nazi! Oh my god, he's a skinhead!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing; I am not a racist, and I am not a Nazi. "Actually," I calmly and coolly explained, "before this salute was co-opted by the Nazis, it was the symbol of French republicans, and before that, it was a common greeting in Ancient Rome. But I guess they don't teach you that in school anymore, do they?" Seriously, why should World War II overrule two thousand years' worth of Western history? Anyways, as I left, an older gentleman came up to me, and placed his hand on my arm. "Thank you," he said. "I fought in World War II, and I'll be damned if we let the Nazis win." "No," I replied, "thank you for your service." (Although, I sort of suspected that the US government had placed him there for propaganda purposes.) I got into my car and ate my chalupa with a feeling of accomplishment.

[oakelmpine]

What value do those statements have if they're not true? "People thought they did all these crazy evil things that they may or may not have done"?

The first bolded sentence you talk about it as an accusation. In the second one, you treat it as fact.

Because it will be a betrayal if they have dumped all this salary and keep the team in perpetual abyss until they can unload it onto another "sucker".

What have they done to make me think otherwise ?

At this point, last year looks like a sham, a dog & pony show to get interest in the team and make it look like a good investment, and dare I say I believe these guys are such scam artists that they would have sold it right then and there had the right sucker walked up.

It didn't work so now you go to the polar opposite, and keep all costs as low as you can and now try and unload it onto someone that way.

Meanwhile you keep telling people that the other way didn't work and that you're trying a different approach and just keep raking in the money from revenue sharing. You already maxed out your 1st year crap to sell all those new jerseys & other new logo crap, so its time to retract, get small and pay out as little as we can, and sell this crap team to some sucker who "just loves baseball". We walk away with hundreds of millions in profits.

If you can't see this is what is happening, you are just being a blind fool.

[CrimsonCane]

The point I'm making, and the point I think he's making, is that Loria's actions leave a lot of very upset people in their wake.

I think that's a very tortured reading of Passan's article that gives him way too much of the benefit of the doubt. If that was his sole intent, I don't think he includes a bunch of details from the lawsuit.

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Oakelmpine. You are missing my point entirely. Nothing that you said relates to my comment at all.

[Flum]

I don't think it's that tortured.

And I also don't think he's so stupid that he would think that the allegations in a lawsuit are facts. I think he's looking at the overall situation under which Loria left Montreal and the back-room manner in which he sold the Expos and acquired the Marlins (which we are all familiar with and most of us acknowledge as ethically dubious), then he's using the lawsuit as a "source" that represents the feelings of the fan base that felt betrayed. I mean, his last reference to the lawsuit is that the plaintiffs lost and that hurt feelings are not enough to sustain the claim.

Surely, he's not dumb enough to say "Loria and Selig are in cahoots because this failed lawsuit says so." As I read it, he's saying "Loria and Selig did a bunch of shady things because they're greedy and ultimately destroyed baseball in a community. The fans in that community felt so betrayed that they sued Loria but did not win. Now, Loria is once again being a greedy bastard and betraying another community. He took their money under the false pretense that he would reinvest it into the team but now is stripping its assets to maximize his profits. And since Selig allowed him to betray a community before, he will probably allow him to do it again."