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If They Don't Win It's a Shame: The Year the Marlins Bought the World Series

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At first, I read the comments that the Marlin fans had written and I hesitated to buy this book. But it was funny, I'm not going to lie about it. I mean, they don't say this stuff in the morning paper. This is not a suck-up view. This is uncensored, the real stuff. The Moises Alou and the Gregg Zaun bits made me laugh like crazy. Most of the guys aren't nice guys. They don't care about you fans. I just feel sorry that this team broke up. It was a classic World Series, and this book is as in-depth as you're going to get. I reccomend it.

In 1997 the Florida Marlins major league baseball (MLB) team came out of nowhere to win 92 games, losing 70, and finish second in the National League East. But they made the playoffs as a wildcard team, beat the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves in the playoffs, and then took the World Series from the Cleveland Indians in seven exciting games. The last of those World Series games went twelve innings before Marlins shortstop Edgar Renteria hit an RBI single to score second baseman Craig Counsell. The Marlins' success in 1997 stunned me, and until Renteria's hit I thought the Indians would probably win the series (the Indians were a sentimental favorite since they had not won a World Series since the days of Bill Veeck in 1948). That Marlins victory signaled several important firsts. The Marlins were an expansion team, playing their first season in 1993 and only four years later winning the World Series. No team in MLB history had risen to championship status so quickly. They were the first Wild Card team in MLB history to win the Series. They were also a "so-called" small market team, which MLB leaders had been complaining for years could not compete successfully in the post-free agent world because of a lack of revenue. Also, unlike the Indians, they did not have a new state-of-the-art stadium, and therefore no increased revenue coming from a new venue. The Miami area, where the Marlins played, could not be considered a baseball haven, and the football Dolphins were always the darlings of the city.

But the Marlin's beat the odds in 1997 and won it all. Dave Rosenbaum's day-by-day account of this remarkable season is fun to read but too often not insightful. The subtitle says pretty much what the conventional wisdom is about the Marlins' success. As Rosenbaum demonstrates, the Marlins owner, Wayne Huizinga, invested heavily in the team to stock it with both established stars such as Bobby Bonilla, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, and Moises Alou, and young and talented players such as Edgar Renteria, Livon Hernandez, and Luis Castillo. He also brought in Jim Leyland to manage the team, a successful field leader who had taken the Pittsburgh Pirates to the playoffs in 1990, 1991, and 1992.

Huizinga spent a reported $89 million in player salaries that year. It was a lot of money for 1997, although it doesn't seem so high compared to current MLB franchise payrolls. Accordingly, Huizinga was criticized for "buying the World Series," a characterization that was no more appropriate in this case than in the New York Yankees dynasties of any time when their payrolls were much larger than most other teams. Certainly, no one said the Boston Red Sox bought the World Series in 2004 when they finally won it with a $127 million payroll, $57 million shy of the New York Yankees but still $15 million higher than any other MLB franchise. What made Huizinga different, perhaps, was his crass approach to that championship season. He announced that it was his intention to win it all, bringing in a lot of fans and building support for a new baseball-only stadium that he hoped would make the Marlins profitable in the long term. When this did not prove out, no sooner did the team succeed than Huizinga began a fire sale of stars, shedding payroll and allowing the Marlins' 1998 edition to finish last in the National League East with a 54-108 record. By 2000 only three players remained from the World Championship team and by 2002 the Marlins were rumored as one of the MLB teams being considered for "contraction," which would have been too bad, because in 2003 the team won its second World Series.

Dave Rosenbaum, a reporter who covered the Marlins in 1997, tells in excruciating detail the story of the 1998 "Cinderella" season and how it unfolded. He gives an insider account, in many respects from the level of the clubhouse. It is a good read--long on narrative but short on analysis--but worth the time.

The Marlins made a mistake when they gave Rosenbaum more or less complete access into their lives and locker room. He quickly took a dislike to this team (he doesn't seem to like baseball much either), and set about gathering everything he could to put the players, coaches, managers and owners in the worst possible light. Field manager Jim Leyland comes up for the most cheap shots, but everyone gets his share sooner or later. The "bite me" statement Kevin Brown foolishly made to newsmen gets repeated countless times, for instance. Anyone with a shadow companion could be made to look bad in similar fashion; all that shadow has to do is take the negative out of context and offer it as evidence of incompetence. I am not arguing with the factual information in the book, and anyone who truly cared about the Marlins of '97 is likely to find the book interesting because no other book will offer the wealth of detail it does. But we will have to look elsewhere to discover how and why this team took the World Series, because the team portrayed in this book would have been incapable of it. Very disappointing overall, and Rosenbaum's constant sarcasm is particularly unwelcome.

First off, do not believe everything Mr. Rosenbaum has written. For starters, I will be the first to admit that the 1997 Marlins did go out of their way to spend money on hiring great players (Alou, Fernandez, and Bonilla). However, the team had also built a solid core of players over the course of the previous 5 seasons. Rosenbaum would have you believe that prior to 1997, the Marlins were a ragtag collection of misfits not seen since the days of Ron Svoboda and the '62 Mets. Instead, the 1997 Marlins saw talent in players that no one else wanted, used draft picks effectively, and thrived in the fact that they had the Caribbean as their backyard.

Gary Sheffield came to Florida in June of 1993 for then-unknown relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman and Rich Rodriguez. Sheffield had been picked up due to the "firesale" mentality that overtook the Padres following their failed 1992 campaign. Sound familiar? No one seems to rip on the Padres for riding Kevin Brown to the World Series in 1998.

Rob Nen was also picked up in the summer of 1993 from the Texas Rangers. Nen's potential wouldn't even begin to shine until the next season, when an injury to then-closer Bryan Harvey stuck him the role of closer for the first time.

Kevin Brown and Al Leiter were picked up prior to the 1995 season, and both were considered long past their prime at that point. Brown, who had won 20 games with the Rangers in the early 90's, was seen as a castaway who wouldn't last another season or two. Leiter, despite being on both Blue Jay World Series teams, was always seen as the doorstop of the rotation, never getting the prime spot he was looking for. When the 1996 season started, both Leiter and Brown played second and third fiddle to then-Marlins ace, John Burkett. Both Leiter and Brown would go on to dominate the NL that season and the following, firmly establishing themselves in the eyes of skeptics and leading the way for the big bucks that would soon follow.

Cliff Floyd was a last-minute acquisition, picked up just days before the start of the 1997 season from Montreal for Joe Orsulak and Dustin Hermanson. The Marlins were looking for bench power to compliment the recently signed Jim Eisenreich and longtime Florida utility player Alex Arias. This was long before Floyd became the slugger he is today, and he was still recovering from a potentially career-ending injury to his wrist. He was a liability that paid off in spades.

Darren Daulton and Dennis Cook were two pickups that made little sense at the time, but wound up being a hell of a move. Cook, a journeyman reliever, really found his niche in South Florida, and quickly became the best setup man in baseball that year. "Dutch" was picked up from the Phillies at the trade deadline and converted to 1st base to cover for the slumping Jeff Conine. Daulton, a 30-something catcher with bad knees and little pop left in his bat, came alive in his short time as a Marlin, and eventually won the "Comeback Player of the Year" award the following offseason.

The Marlins were also busy developing superstars of their own. Edgar Renteria, Jeff Conine, Livan Hernandez, Luis Castillo, Charles Johnson, and Craig Counsell all came through the Marlins system as complete unknowns and left superstars. All but Conine (1993 Expansion Draft) came up through the Marlins'
farm system.

So, to make a short story longer, the 1997 Marlins were not a team that was put together over one offseason. Would they have ever made it as far as they did without Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, or Alex Fernandez? Probably not, but they were darn good without them. Revisionist history would have baseball fans believe that the 1997 Marlins "bought" the World Series as if the Cleveland Indians just keeled over and let Florida have their way with them. Mr. Rosenbaum would have you believe that a World Championship was a lock all the way in April, when that was hardly the case (The Fish were a sub-.500 team at one point in May). I'm not making any of this up. A quick check on Basbeball-Reference.com can back up every word.

Read this book if rumors, gossip, and "shocking stories" about jocks interests you. If not, leave the men in the locker room, and just enjoy the boys on the field playing a game.

This is a book that will be hard to put down. Dave Rosenbaum did an out-standing job when he wrote this book. The year he spent with the Marlins reveals the problems they went through. I recommend this book to any baseball fan. I know that I will re-read this book again, and add it to my collection.

I am sure an excellent book could be written about the 1997 Florida Marlins, but this book is not it. Filled with cheap shot after cheap shot, this cynical author seems to so dislike baseball, one wonders why he bothered to write it at all. A "Ball Four" wannabe, however without the charm or humor of that classic.

First of all, this book will make you laugh time and time again. It's just plain funny. And the "Me-First" Marlins certainly gave the author plenty of material. If you've been wondering why you don't love baseball as much as you once did, but couldn't find the words to explain your feelings, this book does it for you...it's about time professional athletes learn that every action has a reaction...and if they can't stand the heat, they should stay out of the locker room. The book's a gem.

In "If They Don't Win It's A Shame: The Year the Marlins Bought the World Series," Dave Rosenbaum provides us with the proverbial view of the 'fly on the wall.' The 1997 Florida Marlins, winners of the World Series, are the protype of the 'buy now-win now' baseball teams for the next century. Rosenbaum had the distinct good fortune of following a play-off contender for a year, and made the most of it.

The cast of characters are as motley as any you might find in a baseball clubhouse. Rosebaum, in the tradition of John Feinstein's, "Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball," points outs the dichotomy between the game boys play and the business men participate in. Although the World Series ring is the prize, money is the focus. Which player can command what salary, and for how long.

Rosenbaum treats us to the behind-the-scenes look at the Marlins, for better or worse...as players and as men. Though, we see Marlin manager Jim Leyland as the benevolent baseball man, Rosenbaum portrays him as a kind of manic-depressant personality. Trying to reconcile the personas may prove challenging, but perhaps we know as fans of baseball, that winning the big games requires many emotions from the manager.

Following teams around and writing about the experiences is nothing new to baseball bibliography, but Rosenbaum provides an enlightening look at a team destined to win, and destined to be torn apart at the baseball seams.

As an insider account of a team's championship season, particularly of a team that hard to believe won the Series just two years ago but seems more like a thousand years ago given what's happened to the Marlins since, this book is a must. Unfortunately, Dave Rosenbaum in my opinion goes way too far with his mean-spirited sarcasm and desire to denigrate everything the 97 Marlins accomplished. Sure, they bought a championship quickly in the hopes of a new stadium payoff which didn't come, and sure there's a lot of unpleasant stuff that take place in the locker room. But at the same time, you do have to give credit to Jim Leyland and his team for being able to win it all that year and I think it's unfair to denigrate that as Rosenbaum does merely in light of what happened to the team afterwards. Considering how the Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers and Anaheim Angels have tried to duplicate what the Marlins did through the same approach and failed miserably you have to in my opinion still respect the accomplishment in spite of the warts that Rosenbaum uncovers along the way. In my opinion, he simply doesn't do enough of that.

Sadly, this book is more like a bunch of blog entries (although this is from the pre-blog era so more like a running diary). I got tired of the Leyland vs. the media jag. I get it--Leyland doesn't like the media...move on. About the only fascinating thing I took from this was Bobby Bonilla can skate and likes playing roller hockey.

Go read Rosenbaum's "Miami Ice" (on the NHL's Florida Panthers beginning thru to the '96 Stanley Cup Final run) as that seems better put together. The added bonus is, unlike baseball players, hockey players are not world-class jerks.