BEST BEANBALL

After buying the dismantled 1997 World Series champion Marlins from H. Wayne Huizenga, John Henry made lots of promises to South Florida baseball fans, a couple of which he actually kept. In the process he proved the fallacy of the expansion-team philosophy: Add more teams because TV needs more sports and fans will come. He also proved that, these days at least, megamillionaires have a hard time convincing the public of the need to underwrite new sports stadiums, even when they issue threats and plead a kind of rich man's poverty. So Henry sold the Marlins to Jeff Loria for $158.5 million and disappeared from Miami-Dade. But not before plunking down $600 million to purchase the Boston Red Sox.