Samson Says, "We Are Down To The Short Strokes"

Samson says, after being in Hialeah for an hour, that "there is no perfect site in South Florida". Samson says "a deal would have to be done locally within about five months." Samson says they've talked again with Portland and San Antonio officials, and may even check out Homestead. Samson says the possibility of a stadium near Huizenga-land is not dead, although "it's been several weeks since he's had conversations about that site." "Samson says he has no intention of seeking assistance from the Florida Legislature." (MLB)

Team Officials Head To Hialeah

The mayor has even whipped up a plan. "Robaina would not divulge details, but said he has a financing proposal in which the city, Miami-Dade County and the Marlins would all contribute toward the cost of a new ballpark. 'We'll decide if they want to be here, then we'll cover the dynamics of the deal,' he said, adding that his plan would not require a referendum." (PalmBeachPost)

Former Marlin Signs With Padres

Some guy named Piazza - only played a week here. (SportingNews)

Alfonseca Signs With the Rangers, de los Santos With the Nats

(MLB)(MLB)

No Fuzzy Marlins

Girardi wants the team to (at least) look 'professional'. (PalmBeachPost)

"That Tri-Rail And Metrorail Link..."

An article on the advantages of Hialeah as the new Marlins home, with a plain-talk explanation of the scheme the Marlins have been proposing in order to "pay" for the stadium, and the need for a change. (MiamiToday)

Gov't Report Discovers That Sports Brings Money Into Florida

"(S)tate Rep. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, who chairs the House Tourism Committee...believes the report proves using tax dollars for government-owned facilities to keep big league teams in the state is good business.

"She also indicated the report might benefit the Florida Marlins, who are threatening to leave the state after failing in several attempts to win state backing for a new ballpark in Miami-Dade County. By statute, the state can only help eight teams with stadium funding.

"'We fund seven teams and the Marlins are already one of them,' she said, referring to modifications to Dolphins Stadium the state helped finance so it could accommodate baseball. 'They're controversial because in essence they want to be funded twice.' (BradentonHerald)

RESPONSE FROM H. WAYNE: "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" (FishChunks)

At Least 10 Marlins Have Been Working Out in Jupiter for Past 2 Weeks

...including Dontrelle; "(N)ew manager Joe Girardi plans workouts that will be more strenuous than those in recent years." (PalmBeachPost)

McKeon Possibility For Cincinatti GM Job

(MiddletownJournal)

ALSO: Michael Hill and Dan Jennings are being mentioned. (SunSentinel)

Now Even Las Vegas Mayor is Making Deadlines

"For 18 of the 61 acres downtown previously set aside by the City of Las Vegas to build a state-of-the-art sports facility to house a major league sports franchise, the time is now or never.

"Citing escalating property values, Mayor Oscar Goodman has given public notice to major league sports franchises that the city-owned property will be held only a little while longer before it is handed over for other development.

"'If I don't have a serious discussion within 12 months that land is so valuable I am going to release it for other projects,' Goodman said." (LasVegasBusinessPress)

A LINE DRAWN IN THE DESERT SAND??: "A Marlins' spokesman says the team has not visited Las Vegas recently and said any announcement about doing so will only come 'when things are finalized from that end.'" (LasVegasBusinessPress)

It's Marlins Vs. Braves in Scoreboard Wars

(GoogleAJC)

Red Sox Flinging Former Marlins Right and Left

They've dealt Edgar, let go of Kevin and both Matts, picked up Josh and Mike and Julian and Rudy and Guillermo, and are now on the verge of dealing Mota and acquiring Alex. (BostonHerald)

Fantasy Guys Discuss Jeremy and his ROY Chances

(RotoAuthority)

Marlins Select-A-Seat on Jan. 28

(Noticias.Info)... but will anyone show up after the "venta de mercancias averiadas en un incendio"? We may be surprised - Marlins spring-training ticket sales are up 17% from this time last year. (PalmBeachPost)

BUT: Maybe most of those tickets were just for the Yankees game. (PalmBeachPost)

Hialeah Probably Has Available Site Between Tire Store and Cuban Bakery

MEANWHILE: H. Wayne DOES want to roof his stadium, but Marlins ain't biting. (SunSentinel)

Dayn Perry's Overview of the New Marlins

"Overall, the Marlins have incontrovertibly worsened themselves, but it's perhaps not to the degree that's anticipated." (FOXSports)

Marlins Moving to Charlotte

...according to the proposal of Jerry Reese of Charlotte. (News14Charlotte)

MORE: Jerry Reese of Charlotte has proposed these kinds of things before. (CharlotteObserver)

STILL MORE: On the plan and the man. (CharlotteObserver)

EVEN MORE: On the man. (CharlotteObserver)

He 'Juan' S'more

"Pierre, acquired in a trade with the Florida Marlins, is seeking $6.5 million after earning $3.6 million in the final season of a multiyear contract. The Cubs are offering $5 million." (CNNSI)

#2 Market Without MLB Franchise Cautiously Pessimistic About Marlins

"If Major League Baseball wants to come to Norfolk, the welcome mat is out, (Mayor Paul) Fraim said. But we are not going to get in a position where we are bidding against other communities for this team.

"He added that he doesnt think the Marlins will leave Miami, a market of more than 5 million people.

"Everything we know about Major League Baseball is that they hate relocation, Fraim said.

"They know it casts a certain image of failure over the league.

"Its hard for me to see a scenario where they would leave Florida.

"Yet if they do, he added, were willing to talk." (Virginian-Pilot)

H. Wayne Refurbishing Stadium With Marlins Subsidy Money?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! "Talk about rubbing salt in the wound." (PalmBeachPost)

Alex Gonzales May Interest the Devil Rays...

...or 'the Rays' or 'Tarpons' or whatever they'll end up being called. (StPeteTimes)

Dontrelle Avoids Arbitration and the Minimum-Wage

(FishStripes)

Dontrelle Files for Salary Arbitration

Incidentially, so does Josh Beckett. (CNNSI)

Super Wal-Mart Being Built Across Street From Stadium

And down the road a bit, even Tootsie's has to move to make room for Starbuck's (how obscene!) (MiamiHerald)

MORE: H. Wayne beginning "massive overhaul" of rickity old stadium just in time to "not disrupt the Marlins' or Dolphins' seasons and which team officials hope will be completed in time for the 2007 Super Bowl. ...Also, new giant high-definition LED display scoreboards are being installed at the stadium in time for baseball season." (SunSentinel)

IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING: "The renovations will not include a roof -- which was considered -- and are unrelated to ongoing discussions with the Marlins about possibly building a baseball stadium on nearby land." (MiamiHerald)

Bye Bye Larry?

"Marlins GM Larry Beinfest has emerged as a top candidate to become the Nationals' next general manager." (USAToday)

Orioles Pile On More Former Marlins

First Conine, and then Kevin Millar, and even Gracesqui. (BaltimoreSun)

UPDATE: David Pinto wonders what the Orioles are doing. (BaseballMusings)

A Matter of Pride

It has become an obvious note of some concern that we in the South Florida community are rapidly running out of unacceptable solutions to the Marlins stadium dilemma.

A sad day it is when the news media must annoint the solid-dome of Mr. Huizenga as the producer of the Marlins front-office's last remaining opportunity to reject some quasi-reasonable concept as 'unworkable'. (Nevertheless his selfless and courageous attempt to save our franchise by undoubtedly designing and constructing some continuously-flowing money-stream to himself should not go unrecognized.)

It is, unfortunately, the sight of our brave young team president having to scooter himself across the continent, trying manfully to discover somewhere, somehow, some new impossible-to-agree-to conditions that he can ultimately dismiss out of hand, which is a vision that should irk the ire of every red-blooded true-blue Miamian that lives wherever the hell Miamians live these days.

Right here in this town WE have the technology, manpower, and especially the in-bred ability instilled through decades of ozone-less sunshine to come up with buckets- and oceans-full of Unacceptable Options (or Un-Op's, as in 'Un-Ops per Off-Season', or 'Un-Op-Offs'), enough of them to make Mr. Samson's heart giddy with glee (or Gliddy).

Permit me to gather up and present a few of my own suggestions (yes, I know they are works of genius, but in times of crisis I must think of others)...

*Un-Op 1 - Build a solid-dome park next door to H. Wayne Hstadium. When it rains the team can play inside the dome, and when it's sunny the team can still play in the dome because it's too damn hot. If non-retractability is a problem, don't worry - after the first few weeks of hurricanes it'll retract plenty. Then we could call it Blue Tarp Park.

*Un-Op 2 - Reject the idea of a stadium completely, and just have the fans pay for tickets to watch the games on TV. Face it, it's where almost everyone would rather watch the game anyway. They could tier the prices - enormous for a HD plasma with a BarcoLounger, reasonable for a 5" B&W at the kitchen table. The teams could play in secret locations in the swamp decided at the last minute by radar and infrared so that no one would be able to mistakenly view a game in person. As a good-will gesture the Marlins could bring in Joe Arriola to simulate crowd noise.

*Un-Op 3 - Instead of just inviting Joe, how about stretching him across the open top of Good Ol' Underwear Stadium? Then we'll get both hurricane protection and crowd noise (we'll need a lot of both anyways).

*Un-Op 4 - The team could play so, so, very badly that the Marlins could convince Portland, Vegas, San Antonio, San Juan, Monterrey, Jersey, Charlotte, et. al., to pay the team money to NOT move to their towns. (Wait a minute, I think I've just discovered the Master Plan.)

Samson and Beinfest in the Dumpster

(PalmBeachPost)

Jim Bouton on the Stadiums of Selig

"Bouton is emphatic in his condemnation of Selig and MLB ownership in general over their ongoing program of using public money to construct new stadiums. Bouton finds the concept disgusting, and 'worst of all,' he laments, 'they aren't even embarrassed about it.' That any private, for-profit commercial enterprise should demand taxpayers to fund its facilities is bad enough, Bouton fumes, but it's most appalling in an economically troubled municipality such as Washington, D.C. 'How anyone could walk through the public schools of Washington, D.C.,' Bouton wonders, 'and then say that paying for a new professional baseball stadium should be that city's priority, amazes me.'" (HardballTimes)

"Cabrera is Embroiled in an Incident"

"I didn't hit anybody and nobody hit me," said Cabrera. (Uh,oh.) (SunSentinel)

Deadspin scratches his head over this story. (Deadspin)

Look Out World, It's JeremyHermida.Com

"2006 will be the year that Jeremy Hermida becomes a household name. Already compared to stars like Shawn Green and Eric Chavez, the ceiling on Hermida's talent is sky-high. MLB be warned, Jeremy Hermida is taking names." (JeremyHermida.com, revealed to the world through Deep Fried Fish)

MORE: Joe Frisaro answers questions about Hermida, Pokey, Pinto, Tyler, Nolasco, trades, the stadium, and Sammy Sosa(!) (MLB)

Baseball Prospectus Takes a Look at the Marlins

"Oh, things are ugly in Southern Florida." (BaseballProspectus)

Portland is Monday's Stop on the Imaginary Stadium Tour

(MLB)

Portland pro-and-cons. (SportingNews.com)(BaseballMusings)

Charlie Hough to be Pitching Coach of the GBL Fullerton Flyers

"I only got three singles off the guy total in my career so I can't wait to turn him loose on our pitching staff." - Garry Templeton, Flyers Manager (OurSportsCentral)

MORE: This may be incentive to add more objects of veneration to the Shrine to Charlie Hough.

MEANWHILE: The Marlins announced their minor-league staffs. (MLB)

"Hard Times For Any Team Looking For A New Stadium"

Check out how the other teams are doing. (HardballTimes)

Another South Florida Institution Leaves Us

Goodbye Skipper Chuck. (NBC6)

Say Goodbye to the Other Josh

Whoda thunk that when Wilson scored the winning run of the last game of last season he might as well have just kept running out of the stadium? John Baker (middle name probably not "The") was also DFA'ed. (MLB)

UPDATE: Josh Wilson traded to the Rockies for something or other. (MLB)

Dog Who Threw Out First Pitch At Marlins Game Passes On

Really, this was some dog. (BocaRatonNews)