Suddenly, It’s Open Season on Marlins

It seems that everybody is trashing the Florida Marlins nowadays.

This from Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“The [Marlins] are the biggest disgrace to baseball since the Black Sox. They are the payroll bulimics of the game, first bingeing and then purging.

“Their World Series championship rings, ripped from Tribe fingers while they were being sized, look today like Cracker Jack toys.”

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More Marlins: Greg Cote in the Miami Herald: “The people who are trying to save the Marlins for tomorrow by ruining the Marlins today demonstrated once and for all Friday that nothing, and nobody, was ever safe.

“No sentiment whatsoever would be weighed when the economic machete swung.

“So Charles Johnson leaves us, just like that. And takes the last of the club’s soul with him.”

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Trivia time: Which player holds the record for points scored against the Lakers in a playoff game?

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Who were the others? Oakland Athletic rookie outfielder Ben Grieve was one of the first to see Chicago Cub rookie Kerry Wood’s blistering stuff.

“I faced him five times,” said Grieve, who grew up 10 miles from Wood in Texas. “He struck me out a couple of times, but I did get a home run off him. He’s one of the better pitchers I faced in high school.”

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Stylist: A reader wrote to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Having Jay Leno sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ at Wrigley Field certainly gives new meaning to the phrase chin music.”

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Our capital: Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post thinks Chris Webber wasn’t traded so much as he was banished by the Washington Wizards:

“If you’ve got an NBA map, Sacramento’s about three stop lights past Nowhere.”

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Persevering: Detroit’s Jeff Manto after stealing his first base in seven years a few weeks ago in a game against the Angels:

“You can’t be afraid to fail. I haven’t been--because my whole career has been based on failure.”

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Seeing double: Mike Veeck, owner of the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, on what he’d do if he bought the Minnesota Twins:

“I’d have all the ushers be twins. I’d have them work in tandem. I’d put in a call for every set of twins in the state. We’d be the only team to have one person escorted to his seat by two people.”

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Geriatric elimination: George Foreman, 49, is scheduled to fight Larry Holmes, 48. Said NBC’s Conan O’Brien: “The winner will fight Morley Safer.”

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More old-timers: From comedy writer Earl Hochman: “It will be the first time in boxing annals that the referee’s instructions will be “Shake hands and come out breathing.’ ”

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Looking back: On this day in 1990, Monica Seles ended Steffi Graf’s 66-match winning streak and won the German Open with a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

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Trivia answer: Sleepy Floyd of Golden State, 51, on May 10, 1987.

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And finally: Denver Nugget General Manager Dan Issel is uncomfortable with the made-for-TV game show the NBA draft lottery has become:

“The worst part about it is that we have to go up there and sit in front of the TV camera and it’s basically, ‘Hey, these teams stink. Look at ‘em smiling. What are they smiling about?’ ”