It's Black Friday, the time of the year when online retailers try to dump a ton of inventory by marking it down and accepting pennies on the dollar for it. In other words, the likes of Best Buy and Wal-Mart do exactly what Jeffrey Loria does every other season. It's also the start of the Christmas shopping season, which means gift lists for family, friends, and anyone you want to bribe. It also means gifts for folks you don't actually like, from nagging in-laws to far removed cousins to your boss.
Thankfully, the Marlins are here to help with their online clearance section. What better way to say, "I simply don't care for you" then to give half-price jerseys of players dumped in a maddening fire sale? With that in mind, we here at Riptide would like to provide you with a Black Friday shopping guide to the saddest, most pathetic sports items available in Florida.
Item 1: Miami Marlins Authentic 2012 Jose Reyes Home Cool Base Jersey w/Inaugural Season Commemorative Patch
Price: $248.97
That's a lot of words for what amounts to a really expensive rag. It takes some chutzpah to sell jerseys for players who aren't on the team any more. But it takes some serious cojones to charge $250 for the jersey of a marquee free agent and franchise cornerstone who you trade less than a year after signing him.
Item 2: Miami Marlins Gaby Sanchez Collectible Mini Figure
Price: $9.97
It's hard to say what's sadder: That the Marlins even made a Gaby Sanchez mini-fig, or that they went with the cheap Lego imitation brand.
Item 3: Florida Marlins 24KT Gold Baseball In Glass Case
Price: $190.97
Be careful if you give this as a gift; it'd probably hurt to have this flung at your head when the recipient unwraps it and realizes you spent $200 on a gold baseball with an outdated logo.
Item 4: Miami Marlins Ozzie Guillen (@OzzieGuillen) Twitter T-Shirt
Price: $19.97
Celebrate the profane, one-year reign of the irascible Marlins manager with a T-shirt dedicated to his favorite medium of communication: 140 mostly unintelligible words. Sadly, the front of the shirt isn't just a silkscreen of this gem.
Item 5: Miami Marlins Hanley Ramirez "Hanley Knows" T-Shirt
Price: $12.97
Hanley Ramirez was the first 2012 Marlin to know the truth about this franchise: That it would happily sell you for nothing to save some cash. Marlins fans probably wish they'd known that at the season's start.
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