As Jeffrey Loria and David Samson go on the offensive this week to try to raise their Miami-area approval ratings above those of the Castro brothers, one big question has gone unanswered: Why on earth would anyone believe either one of these guys when it comes to the Marlins' finances?
Yet there they were last night in a Marlins Park luxury suite, trying to sell Miami's baseball press on the idea that they just had to start an offseason firesale because Miami fans wouldn't support their ballclub. Let's consider some of their more notable lies and outrageous statements about the Marlins' finances, shall we?
See also:
-- Six Lies About the Marlins Stadium
-- The Marlins Keep Lying About the Marlins Stadium
Here's Samson in December 2004 to the Miami Herald:
"[Jeffrey Loria] has been losing money like crazy."Here he is again, four years later, to the Sun Sentinel after Forbes estimated the Fish had banked $35.6 million in profits (the second best in the bigs):
"Every year I continue to be surprised at the absolute inaccuracy that a so-called reputable magazine is willing to print. It's just a shame their readership is forced to read numbers that aren't true. I know the number they have for the Marlins is simply wrong."Guess what? All lies! We know this for a fact, because Deadspin later leaked dozens of pages of the team's financial records showing that in 2008-09 the team turned nearly $49 million in profit by banking revenue sharing instead of buying new players. (Not that Loria or Samson saw fit to tell taxpayers that tidbit before taking $500 million to build Marlins Park.)
So now, when Samson says stuff like this to the Miami Herald --
"We misread last year on and off the field ... We did not have the bump we expected after the winter meetings... That got us worried. Not panicked, but worried."-- and Loria tells the same sports writers that his club lost "tens of millions" last year because fans didn't flock to the stadium, there's really only one proper response from Miamians:
After all, Samson's single most truthful moment in public came in a speech to business leaders at the Beacon Council last March, when he didn't realize he was being recorded by a Miami Today journalist:
"We don't care if nobody comes... We'll play in front of nobody, and we'll have all the money."Good news, Dave: You'll have a great chance to test that theory out all year long at Marlins Park.
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