King Kaufman's Sports Daily

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Fox misses a great story [PERMALINK]

The presence of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria at World Series games has raised an interesting question about Fox's journalistic responsibility. That is, Does Fox have any? Does the network that broadcasts baseball have a duty to the fans to give them the whole story, or is its responsibility solely to Major League Baseball, the company it pays billions to for the rights to the games?

All a viewer unfamiliar with recent baseball history would know about Loria from watching Fox's coverage is that he's an art dealer, he used to own the Montreal Expos, and he now owns the Marlins. The only story Fox's broadcasters have told about him is one that portrayed him as gracious and generous to a fault. During Game 2 Joe Buck told of how the Marlins had lost eight of nine -- actually it was five of six -- when Loria decided to fly the players, at his expense, to Las Vegas for a few hours of fun on an off-day, loosen everybody up a little. "Then they flew to Pittsburgh and got swept by the Pirates," Buck said dryly.

So, OK, funny story with a nice little twist ending. And how 'bout that old Jeff, splurging on the boys like that.

You'd never know that aside from commissioner Bud Selig, Loria is the most controversial figure in baseball, a man widely despised by people who care deeply about the game, especially, but not exclusively, if they live in Montreal. (You'd also never know from watching Fox that Selig is controversial, or generally hated by baseball fans.)

I won't bore you with too many details about Loria's ignominious tenure owning the Expos. He bought into the club in 1999, promising that he would open the checkbook, improve the team and get a new ballpark built. He did loosen the purse strings enough to sign Graeme Lloyd and Hideki Irabu, not wise signings, but otherwise failed so spectacularly that he's been accused, in court, of actively sabotaging baseball in Montreal to clear the way for the franchise to move to Washington.

His former partners, who became limited partners when Loria maneuvered himself into majority ownership, have sued him and Selig under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. A federal judge told the parties to go first to arbitration, and they'll meet early next year.

Loria became the owner of the Marlins in a deal brokered by Selig. Major League Baseball bought the Expos, setting up an extreme conflict of interest that has lasted two seasons so far, and loaned Loria the money above that purchase price that he needed to buy the Marlins from John Henry, who was allowed to buy the Red Sox after having failed in his efforts to get a stadium built in Miami.

Fox is constantly looking for story lines in its presentation of the games, and here's one staring the network in the face and being ignored: The Jeffrey Loria question. Many longtime Yankee-haters have been stopped short in their reflex rooting against the "Evil Empire" because it puts them on the side of a man who ran a viable franchise into the ground, hardly a sympathetic figure.

But wait a minute. Perhaps Loria's not so bad. Maybe he's turned over a new leaf in South Florida. He went out and signed Ivan Rodriguez in the off-season and then approved a large marketing budget for the Marlins -- contrast that with pulling the Expos off of TV and radio in Montreal.

Ever since then-owner Wayne Huizenga broke up the Fish following their 1997 championship, Marlins fans expect all good players to be sent packing as soon as they develop. The reason so few prognosticators, including me, expected much out of the Marlins this year wasn't because the team lacked talent. We all just figured the talent would be sold off in June and July. "It's hard to be sanguine about a team when one suspects the owner of being ready to commit roster hara-kiri at the drop of a hat," wrote Don Malcolm in a spring forecast of the Marlins' season on Baseball Primer.

After all, just the year before, in the first major move of the Loria era, the Marlins had traded starter Matt Clement and closer Antonio Alfonseca to the Cubs for pitcher Julian Tavares and some prospects in a salary dump.

But the hara-kiri didn't happen this year. Mike Lowell, the most coveted slugger on the team, was taken off the trading block as the Marlins hung around the wild card race. And the Marlins even went out and got closer Ugueth Urbina and outfielder Jeff Conine for the stretch drive. Oh, and one of those prospects in the Alfonseca deal turned out to be Dontrelle Willis, who energized the franchise and sold a lot of tickets before tailing off in the second half of his rookie year.

So maybe Loria's a new man.

On the other hand -- how many hands are we up to now? -- maybe Loria's spending money on payroll and promotion and trying to win with the Marlins for the purposes of his RICO lawsuit. It might look pretty good for him to sit on the witness stand and say, "I didn't sabotage baseball in Montreal, it's just a lousy baseball town. I'm the same guy now as I was then, and look what's happened in Miami, where the conditions were better."

Then as soon as the suit is dismissed, he can break up the team and go back to making money by fielding a low-budget loser and cashing revenue-sharing checks.

It's such an intriguing situation, so much more interesting than the fact that Rodriguez threw seven no-hitters in Little League, which Fox has reported no less than three times this postseason.

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