Get your championship gear now!
It’s amazing how many Marlins fans have come crawling out of the Everglades since the clinching of a World Series berth in Game 7 last Wednesday night vs. the Cubs. You’re all a bunch of bandwagon-jumpers.
What’s even more amazing than this rapid invasion of Marlins fans is how fast those “National League Champions Official T-shirts” appeared on the streets, in the stores, on the web, and on people’s backs. The coaches and players were wearing them before the Cubs had left the dugout! Hmm . . . that means they must make them for both teams ahead of time. Where’s the secret vault where they keep those rare and fraudulent shirts that say “Cubs: 2003 National League Champions”? Probably in the same place where poor Steve Bartman who snatched the ball out of Moises Alou’s glove (and gave momentum to an eight-run rally) is hiding out, along with Osama and Saddam, for all we know. At least TV’s going to turn his (short-lived) life into a movie.
If you’re as true a Marlins fan as you claim, go rummage through your closet for that old “Marlins: 1997 World Series Champs” shirt you promised your family you’d never wear again the day Jeff Conine left. How many of the players listed on the back still play for the Marlins, six years later? Only Conine! The Marlins have truly come full circle. First they were Chum, then they were Champions, then they were Fish Bait again, and now they’re our “Miracle Marlins.”
Just because the Cubs and Red Sox know how to commit annual ritual sacrifice doesn’t mean that they’re the only teams with curses. Remember Muscle Boy? He was this ten-year-old kid who would take off his shirt and dance on top of the Marlins dugout. Once he started doing that, we stopped winning games altogether, people were so weirded out. And what about Mrs. Billy the Marlin? She looked like a cursed Billy goat, in a dress (she and her husband are now divorced following his infidelity involving a Heat dancer and lots of cocaine). Anyways, the ghost of Wayne Huizenga should count as curse enough.
Will this World Series be an exciting one? Will anyone outside of Miami actually root against the Yankees? Dave Barry jokes that Fox Sports won’t even be broadcasting the Marlins’ halves of the innings. Don’t forget them before the season’s over! Their bench is good, their bullpen is better, their infield is arguably the best, and they have Josh Beckett.
One ancient Chicagoan complained, “I have warts older than the Florida Marlins, and you guys already have two World Series under your belts.” We may not have a long history of hometown pride, but in addition to the Marlins we’ve got something else Chicago doesn’t have, and those are our nude beaches.
Root for your Florida Marlins! It isn’t every day that they win a pennant . . . it’s only every five or six years.