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The county forked out something like $450 million, which is actually $2.4 billion when interest is included. Loria campaigned for the money while insisting that the Marlins were losing money at the old stadium. Later when the financial documents leaked, it turned out that he had been turning a profit all along. As a result, he is currently under investigation by the SEC. When the Marlins' real financial situation became apparent, there was a movement to stop construction of the ballpark immediately. However, the contract was written to essentially give Loria the stadium as a gift. The county has essentially no control over the stadium, or even the parking garages which were funded 100% by the taxpayers. The county commissioners fell for it hook, line, and sinker. They didn't even see the Marlins' financial documents before approving the deal. It was just a shady deal all along. The Marlins' finances are fine. They have been turning a profit year after year. They did not need to dump 90% of their payroll. If they wanted to fix the past mistakes Loria should sign Giancarlo Stanton to a long-term deal that isn't backloaded. He should invest in a GM and a long term plan for building a winning culture. He should remove his crony David Samson immediately. If he actually showed any commitment to Marlins fans or even the 5 remaining Marlins players, people would understand. The reality is that he only cares about turning a profit. Yes, they needed to cut salary. But did they need to become the Houston Astros? No. There are a number of problems with the Florida is a bad baseball state argument, I've pointed them out several times before but it is obvious that I'm not going to change anyone's mind even though I live in Miami and have no connection to the Marlins nor any reason to defend them. If there were no Marlins fans, I would tell you that, but the reality is completely different. Miami is not Tampa Bay, there is almost nothing in common between the two cities. You can not repeatedly betray the trust of your fans and expect them to come back again and again. Everyone saluted Dodgers fans for staying away from the McCourts but somehow Marlins fans are bad for not trusting Loria. There are a lot of people in Miami saying "I told you so" today who refused to buy tickets last year. Are they bad fans, or are they the smart ones?

But the Brewers' attendance would never suddenly drop to 2 million because of the relationship that Mark Attanasio and Doug Melvin have built with Milwaukee. Loria already had a bad reputation, so he tried to sell the idea that the new stadium, new logo, new brand meant that things were different now. Many Miamians (the smart ones it appears) were skeptical and didn't buy it, hence why attendance was so low despite the new stadium. For those that did invest time, money, and passion, this was probably the last straw. They will be lucky to draw 1.5 million fans next year.

The 4-2 start was enough to convince me to pick up some tickets to the Bucks-Heat game in Miami next week. I doubt they will win but at least there will be one Milwaukee fan in the arena.

The trade itself isn't terrible but the message that it sends is a complete disaster. Good luck trading for A-Rod or getting any high priced free agent to ever sign with Miami again. Even if the rebuilding works out and the team starts winning, fans will refuse to get behind players that are unlikely to remain with the team for an extended time. I think this trade will actually improve the reputation of Marlins fans, because it will help outsiders understand why nobody wants to support this franchise (see my posts in the Ozzie Guillen thread). On a positive note, ten years from now I think this will be remembered as the moment that Loria finally crossed the line--and it will ultimately lead to his demise. Nobody outside of Toronto is happy with this.

It's nice to see an event at Miller Park but I can't see them having any non-baseball big ticket events. Most big concerts have continued to prefer Alpine Valley which has about the same capacity. Miller Park would be terrible for basketball compared to Indianapolis. The new Vikings stadium is sure to draw big events as well. A Marquette-Wisconsin type game might be interesting at Miller Park or perhaps a Wisconsin hockey game. However, I do not see either of those happening in the next 5 years. I agree that upgrading the heating system may help draw more events in the winter, but there doesn't seem to be any desire to make the change. As a city, Milwaukee needs to focus on a new basketball arena and downtown entertainment district. The one event that the Brewers absolutely should be going for is the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

I agree, there is a strong probability that he might end up with around 2,500 hits and 450 HR. Not standard HOF numbers, especially if the PED issue still hasn't gone away. Hopefully he is still playing like Aramis Ramirez at age 34.

It will be interesting to see if Braun's blacklisting is a one-year exclusion or a permanent thing. My feeling is that it is probably a one-year blacklist to make up for the award that many believe he shouldn't have gotten last year. The unfortunate part about it is that even elite players only have a 1-3 year window where they perform at the top of the league. Then the younger generation takes over. I don't really care about the gold gloves, the voting for that award has repeatedly been so bad that it has lost legitimacy. As for the HOF, he has a long way to go for that. If he puts up the numbers and doesn't test positive again, he's probably ok. A larger concern is if those nagging injuries start to become a bigger problem in his 30s.

I like their current logo. It seems like a mistake, doesn't blend with the ballpark at all. The Astrodome had orange seats. Also, the current "star" is much more interesting than the new generic orange star. Orange and blue do not go together. On the plus side, maybe everyone just associates the current logo with losing, so it was probably best to move on. Sort of like the 1990s Milwaukee Brewers--that logo is bad, but it is made worse because there are no good memories associated with it.

All other indications besides TV ratings indicate that baseball is more popular than ever. It's just not TV friendly in its current format--and while the audience has changed, the game itself has changed significantly as well into a slower, more boring, more drawn out affair. The time and pace of the World Series games is a big problem, which is exacerbated by the poor announcing. There's an extra 30-45 minutes of nothing...long pauses, more pitching changes, commercials. The announcers have nothing useful to add. I watched more of the division series because there was often 2 games on to flip between. I just randomly pulled up the time of game of the 1982 World Series, most of which were high scoring games: 2:30, 2:54, 2:53, 3:04, 3:02, 2:21, 2:50 Compare that with this year: 3:26, 3:05, 3:25, 3:34 How does it take 3.5 hours to play a 2-0 game? Some of the other suggestions here would help. Getting rid of the extra off days will help reduce the number of pitching changes. There should also be a limit of the number of time outs that can be called by the batter, pitcher, and catcher. The batter shouldn't be allowed to step out of the box unless he calls time. The pitcher shouldn't be allowed to step off the mound without calling time either. If the batter does not swing at the pitch, he can't step out after the pitch (why they need to adjust their batting gloves after NOT swinging is beyond me). Ending those ridiculous mind games will not diminish the integrity of the game at all, it's just a logical response to the slowing of the game that has occurred in the last 20 years. Imagine how bad it would be if the scoring was still as high as the steroid era! I think they will eventually shorten the season with a few scheduled day/night doubleheaders (separate tickets for each game). It is kind of unfortunate that the sweep happened because the bad weather tonight and tomorrow might have spurred some action with the series going into November again. The season will never be reduced to 154 games. They can cut out a week of spring training. If the temperature projections are correct, warmer baseball weather will be extended by a week or two in a few decades anyway. It seems like the current contract with Fox basically requires MLB to bend over backwards to meet their demands. So when it runs out they should give up a few million dollars to get back their ability to control when the games are played.

Everyone felt the same way about CC Sabathia in 2008 vs. the Phillies. We all know the result.

That is why Wisconsin is an amazing place.

She came along to that Marlins game in September and didn't notice that he was missing. It wasn't really big news when he left so I guess I never bothered to even mention it.

I understand where you guys are coming from but I still disagree--at least with respect to the Marlins. The Marlins' attendance numbers at Dolphins Stadium (now Sun Life) are similar to what the Brewers drew at County Stadium in the late 90s: an average of around 1.5 million fans per game. Both facilities had the same problems: bad weather, poor amenities, bad sight lines, etc. It's too soon to say how the Marlins will draw at the new ballpark long term. But I suspect it will be about the same as the Brewers drew at Miller Park when they had a bad team and bad ownership (Wendy)--somewhere in the upper 1 million to low 2 million fans per game. Yes, Miami has a much larger population, but a big chunk of that population lives near the poverty line, especially around the stadium. The Brewers do not draw fans at all from inner city Milwaukee, Brewers baseball is almost completely a white suburbanite activity. Maybe more Cubans will show up in the future without "communist" Guillen around. I doubt Miami will ever have the sort of fan loyalty that Milwaukee has, but they can't even start building that kind of loyalty until Loria is gone--or at least until he shows some kind of commitment to stop trading away star players. If there's one thing Miami fans really like it's their star players. Offering a nice contract to Giancarlo Stanton would be a big step forward--until then everyone is going to assume that he will hit the road like everyone else. I can't speak as much for the Rays because I don't live there, although I did spent a little time in that region while traveling. St. Pete/Tampa has many of the same problems (bad ballpark, poor accessibility). But the Rays' attendance is inexcusably low considering the quality of the product on the field. I agree that the Rays should be a relocation candidate. The Latino fan base in Miami is very important and if the Marlins have any kind of success, they have the potential to be popular in other Latin American countries. The Rays...not so much. I think the population is too old and too many of them are non-native around Tampa.

Was watching the Tigers game last week--Prince Fielder was up to bat. I say to my wife--hey, look who's up to bat, do you remember him? She looks shocked and says--hey, that's not right, Prince Fielder is on the Brewers! When did they trade him? Facepalm.

No, that's not the problem. If Loria ran the Milwaukee Brewers, Miller Park would be mostly empty as well. There are plenty of baseball fans in South Florida and early fears about traffic/accessibility problems at the ballpark were never realized. The problem is that the Marlins have repeatedly screwed their fans over--starting with the 1997 fire sale which turned many fans away permanently. In fact, 1997 is the only season outside of 2012 where the team had any sort of preseason expectations, and both times they drew more than 2 million fans. In 2003 they stunk until late in the year. Then there's Loria who is reason enough to avoid the Marlins--he purposely held payroll low and was pocketing millions in revenue sharing dollars, then he lied about it to get $450 million in taxpayer money right when the county was facing a huge budget shortfall. They drew some attention with the new signings this year but they had no plan, they just gave a blank check to any free agent who was willing to come down here. It could have been worse, they almost got stuck with Pujols as well. That being said, the fans are very happy about Ozzie hitting the road, so if they can get A-Rod and a decent manager, they might be able to salvage some sort of fan interest going forward. The roster isn't terrible.

The new manager will be the 8th manager in the 12 years since Loria took over the franchise. Actually the 9th if you count Jack McKeon twice. There are problems with management at many levels. A decent portion of the population is still very upset at the large amount of tax dollars used to build Marlins Park. The attendance was far below projections this year, even early in the year when the team was playing well. There were only 3 sellouts all year. I think most people believe that Loria has no interest in building a winning team, which is probably true for the most part. Getting rid of Ozzie was the right move, but the bigger picture is that this is a stagnant franchise that is likely to continue having problems into the future. They are plagued by bad ownership, unfortunately.

I haven't really been watching the game, but it is quite enjoyable to see the Cards about to blow a 3-1 series lead. Such a playoff performance was long, long overdue.

The Cardinals are 5 wins away from back to back world championships. Perhaps we are being haunted by the ghost of Quantrill?

I was too young to remember, but the Brewers/Mariners had a bit of a rivalry going for most of the early 1990s.

Hahahahaha this is just ridiculous, but not surprising I guess. Assuming the Nats get eliminated, all my teams of interest will be gone. See you all in 2013.

Welcome to postseason baseball, Nats fans.

What a disaster for Cincinnati. But then again, the Brewers nearly suffered the same fate a year ago, game 5 could easily have gone the other way.

Completely agree. Did they even look at the matchup? Jets vs. Texans? High blowout potential there. Huge opportunity to get millions of people to flip over to baseball if the game is bad.

Even with this result, I still support the 1-game playoff. It glues me into the TV which is exactly what MLB wants. The Braves usually have trouble selling out playoff games, but an overflowing crowd of 52,000 was packed in for this one. I don't have time to watch a 5 or 7 game series but for 1 game on a Friday night, it was enough to mark my calendar. Poor umpiring can ruin any series, MLB had 20 minutes to reverse the call and they didn't do anything. The umpiring can easily be solved with instant replay, which hopefully will come faster if these mistakes keep happening. The worst part of this going forward is that St. Louis now hosts games 1-2 of the NLDS vs. Washington thanks to the stupid home field rules put in this year to satisfy the TV people.

What if the Cardinals go on to win the World Series as the 10th best team in baseball? And the garbage spewing from the color guy was just nauseating..."classy" Yadier Molina again...Braves fans "embarassing themselves"... etc. etc. That might be the first time in Atlanta sports history that the fans actually cared enough to get angry.