No team is headed in more directions than
http://www.hssmstore.com/cameron-artispayne-jersey-c-1_40.html the Miami Marlins right now.
Despite the nightly heroics of Giancarlo Stanton and the honor of hosting this year
’s All-Star Game, it has been a hazy season in the all-encompassing purgatory that is the majority of the National League East. Because as it has been for nearly a decade, the Marlins remain one of baseball’s most consistent underachievers.Amid the dependable struggles, there is finally reason for legitimate hope in South Beach. I'm not talking the type of "wait for the other shoe to drop" type of hope that Jeffrey Loria (more on him later) is known for, but legitimate, sincere hope. Despite the roller-coaster of despair that has surrounded the team, the biggest story of the year in Miami is not floating along to another seemingly inevitable sub-.500 finish. Nor is it even Stanton
’s one-man home run derby down the stretch. Rather, it is the process that begins in earnest to rehab the bruised legacy of the Marlins.It has been 15 years since the Marlins last
http://www.yadeos.com/daryl-worley-jersey-c-1_12.html made the postseason, when they won the 2003 World Series in the first year of Loria
’s oversight. They have not posted a .500 record since 2009, a year before Stanton made his Major League Baseball debut. Only once since moving into Marlins Park has the team finished higher than 27th in attendance, which was a so-so 18th in the first year of the stadium’s existence.Now, the pressure to turn that all around falls on the shoulders of Miami
’s newest white knight of optimism, Derek Jeter, in his reinvented media mogul self. Jeter’s next trick could be his greatest: reviving one of baseball’s most thoroughly lost franchises in the image of excellence that has become synonymous with his name.As the new ownership group prepares to take the reins of the organization, the Marlins find themselves in desperate need of a reset. Jeter is preparing to be more than just the face of his new club, but also a liberator looking to free the team from the clutches of Loria. No owner in baseball has caused more comprehensive damage than Loria did during his 15-year run. Deploying a notoriously fickle, vindictive, overly frugal and misleading decision-making style, Loria found some incredibly egregious ways to make the people of Miami rue his existence. This included firing the National League Manager of
Jorge Posada Youth Jersey the Year in Joe Girardi for daring to disagree with him
— the first of seven managers Loria axed. (Not to mention the two-pronged error in the case of naming general manager Dan Jennings on-field manager midseason, despite Jennings having no prior in-game execution experience prior to his appointment.)
