Twitter makes people lazy

Next time let's just credit @MarlinsMedia:

Read more...

Spare us, Heath

For a fat dude, you'd think Heath Bell would be a little more jolly...

Bell felt the editing process made it look as if too much of blame on the disappointing season fell on him.

"It wasn't a good experience for me," Bell said. "It was a good experience knowing how television can ruin your life. It was fun. I like some of the guys, the camera guys. They're not bad guys. It's just the guys who were cutting and pasting, they can make it look like one person is the reason we didn't do well, or they can make it look like the team did bad.

"They definitely portrayed me as the only one having a bad year, because you heard it on just about every episode, but not everybody else."

I haven't watched The Franchise (because as Darren Rovell pointed out once, I'm a bad fan, obvi). But television "ruined" you life, Heath?

#FirstWorldProblems

This season can't end soon enough...

Read more...

Showtime Ends "The Franchise" A Week Early Because Can You Blame Them?

Showtime has decided to conclude the current season of "The Franchise" a week earlier than originally planned:

The original plan called for eight weekly episodes, starting July 11. But the Marlins have endured such a trying season that the team will end its run on Showtime this Wednesday — its seventh weekly episode — instead of Aug. 29.

The Marlins still will have upheld their agreement for eight episodes. They also did a special preview episode in April after manager Ozzie Guillen created controversy with his comments about Fidel Castro.

Anyone who has noticed the declining frequency of posts on this here blog knows that Ted and I totally empathize with Showtime. The network thought it would be airing a series about an exciting young team in the throes of a pennant race, and instead it got the biggest disappointment in baseball, a team whose biggest stories involved the Guillen-Castro controversy and the decision to trade away its former franchise player for peanuts.

Then again, do you actually even know anyone who subscribes to Showtime? I've never met a Showtime subscriber in my life, obviously they don't exist. No wonder their ratings are suffering!

UPDATE, via Fish@Bat, here is the trailer for the season finale:

Read more...

Happy Birthday Earl

The great Earl Weaver turns 82 today, so we're using that as an excuse to post our favorite YouTube video ever:

Long live the king.

Read more...

When Worlds Collide

Ted and I are big fans of comedian and Twitter-genius Rob Delaney. So you can imagine my delight when he learned he shares a name with a relief pitcher in the Marlins' minor league system: 

Delaney the pitcher has a 2.50 ERA and 3.23 FIP in 57.2 innings at Triple-A New Orleans this season. So it could be worse. Delaney could be named John Buck.

UPDATE: Rob replies:

@marlinsdiehards Oh, I've known about him for a while! He's awesome. I feel bad that we have the same name since I'm a scumbag.
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) August 14, 2012

Pic via Rob Delaney's tumblr

Read more...

Heath Bell will soon resume destroying your sanity

Via Joe Frisaro:

Manager Ozzie Guillen is leaning towards going with Bell the next time there is a save situation. Guillen still holds the right to change his mind, based on circumstances, but look for Bell to be given a chance to lock down the final outs.

Were the Marlins not 10 games below .500 in August, I'd be more than a bit concerned about this decision. But with the Marlins far from contention, I'm not even going to get mad. I'm going to take a page from the Fins Nation playbook and just enjoy what remains of this trainwreck of a season for what it is: a human catastrophe that I can't help but watch with awe. I'll also be drinking heavily whenever I watch the Marlins, but that goes without saying.

Read more...

The Marlins done got HACKED

Deadspin reports that some glorious hacker has posted a number of inane messages on various MLB teams' social media pages, including the above (now deleted) Miami Marlins Facebook post. Pretty funny (I'm pretty sure owning a pitbull is no longer legal in Miami-Dade County), but the hack artists' other posts are better (Best one: "Fuck Bill Murray" on the Cubs' page).

If we were to hack the Marlins' social media accounts, though, we'd go for more of a kill shot. Something like "Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria to sell the team to Wayne Huizenga, who promises to turn Marlins Park into world's largest Blockbuster kiosk."

But you can do better than that! Leave us your attempt at hackable humor in the comments.

Image via Deadspin

Read more...