No, probably not. But.

The Miami (née Florida) Marlins are one of the most easily hate-able franchises in pro sports. They were birthed in 1993 and had a World Series win by 1997. Afterwards, they blew it all up, then ramped up and won it again in 2003. For a fan of any other team in the division, that was infuriating. Then they changed their location to Miami, changed their color scheme to obnoxious, built one of the worst stadiums in all of sports (which they cannot come close to filling and cost a LOT of taxpayer money), and Marlins Man started existing. Add to that Jeffrey Loria’s habit of meddling with his team’s business in a way that owners probably shouldn’t, and they’re so very easy to dislike.

And now it’s gonna get even worse, because Loria is gonna sell the team and make a ton of money. According to a Forbes report, the Marlins have a handshake agreement in place to sell the team for $1.6 billion. The team was purchased for $158 million in 2002 and valued at $675 million in March of 2016.

As to who the buyer is, Forbes would only say he’s a real estate developer in New York City, but there’s a hitch:

My sources would not say who the $1.6 billion handshake agreement was with other than he is a real estate developer based in New York City. The problem, according to these sources, is the potential buyer is not liquid, meaning he does not have the cash to buy the Marlins because his net worth is tied up in real estate. Thus, for the real estate developer to purchase the Marlins would likely require more debt than MLB would be comfortable with.

New York? Real Estate? Debt? Does this dude’s name rhyme with Deric Dump?


Kyle: It’s probably not a Trump… but, Loria did donate to Donald Trump’s campaign, the Trumps now-famously own property not too far from Miami, and they are real estate developers from New York who aren’t liquid and deal in fuzzy debt based on trumped up claims about their worth. Donald Trump was obsessed with George Steinbrenner. And though it might seem nuts, buying a baseball team while dad is President would be, like, they least crazy thing they’d do while he’s in office. I am rooting for this almost as hard as I am rooting for Putin to play in that Flyers Alumni game.