In the case of both of Florida's major league baseball teams, we view their creation as major league blunders. Neither Miami nor Tampa has acceptable ballparks. The rush to expansion has created several weak franchises besides Florida. How about Montreal, and Arizona. Even Pittsburgh with its new taxpayer paid park is having its problems.
Baseball is a wonderful sport and a fine spectacle.
It's a rich man's toy game relative to ownership. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to bail out major league marketing mishaps. That goes for New Orleans where multi-millionaire Tom Benson is urging state and local tax money to be poured into a badly promoted product. My advice to Commissioner Selig is to wish him and the Florida Marlins well but do not expect taxpayers to support a flagging business operation based on faulty statistics.