Apparently not yet satisfied with the public shaming he received after his full page "explanation" ad in a local paper, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has now gone straight to the press to explain himself further. As you might expect, it didn't go well.
In a progressively contentious 25-minute interview with the Miami Herald Loria proved that he is the arrogant, clueless ass that everybody believes him to be. There were many moments in the interview that simply defy belief, including Loria's steadfast denial of the recent story that he advised Jose Reyes to buy a house just days before Reyes was traded, but the single line that will ensure him a first class ticket to hell is this:
But you can't make promises in this game because strange things happen all the time.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jeffrey Loria is going to lecture us all on promises. This is the man who "promised" to enter a good faith agreement to build a new ballpark in Miami, only he cooked his financial books so that the city would give him more money. This is the man who "promised" to use the stadium and its revenues to build a winning club and the blew it to smithereens in the matter of one calendar year.
It only gets richer though when Loria said in reference to why the Marlins even bothered to sign Reyes given Loria's (now) obvious concerns over their lack of young talent, "I certainly kept my promise and said in this first year we're going in, let's get our shortstop."
Speaking of other promises, there was one more he tacitly made in the piece. If you were counting on the Marlins ever diving back into the free agent pool to make more big splashes, you are going to have to wait awhile:
No. We'll never get to $100 million. We don't have the TV contract yet to do that. We will one day.
That TV contract, by the way, doesn't expire until after the 2020 season, which should be right around the time that the regional cable sports network bubble should be bursting. In other words, the Marlins aren't ever going to spend big, so good luck with that because Loria also stated in no uncertain terms that he is not going to sell the team either.
Naturally, Loria sees nothing wrong with anything the team is doing and claims that he only receives adulation in the fans he meets or speaks with on the phone. In fact, according to Loria, the only reason anyone is upset about this is because Jose Reyes was so likeable and nobody wanted to see him go and nobody likes watching a loser.
Here are a few of the other highlights (lowlights?) from the interview:
-Loria claiming he blew up the team because it hadn't worked for two years, even though he most of the major players he traded had been on the team for just one season and that the roster purge began halfway through the 2012 season with the trades of Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez.
-Claiming that he does not make unilateral decisions for the team, with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions, he claims, was signing Ivan Rodriguez, a move many cite as a primary reason the Marlins won the 2003 World Series. How convenient, Jeffery.
-Loria gave this indignant response to the mere usage of the "fire sale" term, "It's not a fire sale. You can call it a fire sale. It's called hit the restart button. because it didn't damn work.
-Passively aggressively insulting the reporters interviewing him by claiming "don't even know the names of three or four of the players we have." He really does know how to sweet talk the press, doesn't he?
-Going out of his way to inform everyone that he met Giancarlo for lunch in the Eiffel Tower. Why? Because that's how he rolls.
-Throwing Heath Bell and Mark Buehrle under the bus for no apparent reason with this comment, "I'm sure nobody loved Heath and his games that he lost and I'm sure Buehrle nobody really focused on him."
-Accusing the Miami Dolphins of engaging in "smear campaign" against the Marlins.
By all means, give the whole thing a read, assuming that you have a high tolerance for ego maniacs with no self-awareness.
