Atmosphere is lighter in a winning clubhouse

 

DAN LE BATARD

 

dlebatard@herald.com

 

 

The laughter.

 

The relentless insults.

 

The clubhouse volume.

 

The pitcher-is-a-belly-itcher heckling from the bench.

 

The dugout clowns.

 

They're all back after months of too much quiet.

 

''It's like a high school around here,'' catcher Paul Lo Duca says.

 

''Just like last year,'' third baseman Mike Lowell says.

 

Lowell stood in this very clubhouse a few weeks ago, marveling at how dead the team and atmosphere around it were.

 

''But it's all back,'' he says now. ''And with a vengeance.''

 

A smile.

 

''Winning,'' he says, ''changes everything.''

 

They are weary. So very weary. And it showed during a crippling doubleheader loss at home to the woeful Expos on Wednesday. Lowell and Lo Duca are exhausted after a long season and an impossible recent stretch that included home games on the road and, ho hum, a couple of natural disasters. They are leaning back side-by-side in black-leather recliners, watching poker on the clubhouse television.

 

A FUN WEEK

 

''The last few weeks have been so asinine that it has been kind of fun,'' Lo Duca says. Lowell's pregnant wife is expecting any day now. A crying newborn, that will make for a lot of good rest.

 

'I come home last night and my wife's parents say, 'You look beat up,' '' Lowell says. ''And today, we have not one game but two! And I'm looking forward to both of them.''

 

Across the room, Jeff Conine is saying, ''Winning cures everything -- back pain, slumps, fatigue, everything.''

 

They are on adrenaline fumes now, and the most important stretch of the season is just starting with no days off and too many days with two games instead of one. Baseball and hurricanes shafted the Marlins, giving the Cubs more home games and giving the Marlins fewer as they race for the same finish line, but we have all seen what this team can do when staggering odds get stacked against it. Odd as it sounds, the defending champions are underdogs. Just how they like it.

 

With the elbows of Armando Benitez and A.J. Burnett balking, talent might not be enough to carry this winded team from here. But, as we learned last season, fun just might be enough. Fun is fuel.

 

SOME COMPLAINTS

 

Take those monumental games last week against a tight Cubs team saddled with a century of pessimism and doing things like complaining about a critical broadcasting team. At the height of tension, left fielder Miguel Cabrera did an uproarious pantomime routine on an uncatchable foul ball off the bat of Moises Alou.

 

The ball was 30 rows deep, but Cabrera jumped into the crowd anyway, a la Alou last season in the playoffs. And then he began imitating Alou's frustrated, stomping, glove-waving when notorious Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a catchable ball against the Marlins.

 

The Marlins found this David-Chapelle-Ali-G-Jon-Stewart funny.

 

The Cubs, it goes without saying, did not.

 

It was viewed as some sort of blasphemy and disrespect, as the funniest things often are.

 

''We're having fun,'' Lowell reminds, ''playing a game.''

 

As for mocking the darkest moment in Cubs history?

 

''Bartman wasn't the darkest moment in Cubs history,'' Lowell says now. ''The darkest moment in Cubs history came after that. When we kept getting hits. And they made errors. And then we beat them in Game 7.''

 

You know how the Ravens open games, bobbing around Ray Lewis, ratcheting the intensity? The Marlins are now doing a similar thing in their dugout before introductions, shouting things like ''Kill 'em!'' and ''Crush 'em!'' and other things that can't be printed here. Mike Redmond walks onto the team bus holding up a middle finger and asking, ''Anyone forget one of these?'' Carl Pavano was dissed by former girlfriend Alyssa Milano in a men's magazine about, um, the size of his bat, and this triggered such unrelenting laughter and mockery from Dontrelle Willis, Juan Pierre and Lenny Harris that the clubhouse became the barbershop scene in Eddie Murphy's Coming to America.

 

COMING TOGETHER

 

A bunch of Marlins played basketball together outside the hotel after a game in Chicago -- Lo Duca, Cabrera, Pierre, Lowell, Benitez, Willis. That's a lot of different cultures coming together, uniting around a ball.

 

They do the same thing playing poker on team flights, all mocking how Josh Beckett tries to scare seven millionaires out of a hand by raising it 25 dollars.

 

''We have fun in pressure,'' Redmond says. ''I know it sounds crazy, but it is true. That's when we are at our best. Too many people get wrapped up in the magnitude of the pressure, but our guys relax in it.''

 

It is a brutal stretch toward the finish line, as Wednesday's crippling doubleheader reminded us.

 

But kids at the playground are usually enjoying themselves too much to realize they are tired.

 

Listen to Dan Le Batard weekdays at 4 p.m.-7 p.m. on 790 ESPN Radio.

Great Article....

 

Even if we don't win the Wild Card. It's nice to see that we are having fun.

I read that this morning EXCELLENT article :thumbup

 

the carl thing was hilarious!!

the carl thing was hilarious!!

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That is very ironic your post came out like that.

 

Ooops. It's been fixed. Before it said size1Carl'sthing{size

the carl thing was hilarious!!

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That is very ironic your post came out like that.

 

Ooops. It's been fixed. Before it said size1Carl'sthing{size

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Carl's thing lol

 

that was so mean of her :mad : She was just jealous

Great article this makes me feel good about our chances of winning this thing. During yesterdays game I forgot if it were the TV or raido annoncers but they said before the game Dontrelle and Lenny were playing basketball with one of their lockers and the D-Train spun past Lenny for the dunk, that must have been one of the funniest things to see.

Awsome. Glad to see the team is having fun. You gotta love the Marlins, theyre such a fun team. I never get tired of hearing about the Cabrera mimick, Miggy got spunk. Even if we dont win, it was an awsome year. But theres still time, and the Marlins can do it.

Awsome. Glad to see the team is having fun. You gotta love the Marlins, theyre such a fun team. I never get tired of hearing about the Cabrera mimick, Miggy got spunk. Even if we dont win, it was an awsome year. But theres still time, and the Marlins can do it.

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And if they continue to play loose and have fun, they should make it interesting. The Fighting Fish never quit and they'll show that tonight. This team always bounces back.

Le Retard actually wrote a good article for a change! Congrats on that.

 

This is a great demonstration of why the Marlins will be there til the end. They dont get uptight - they keep it loose and keep plugging along. We can all learn from that.

 

I still believe that this team is going to the postseason - not just because I am a fan, but because these guys have something intangible that the other teams dont. These guys love playing with each other and they are very good at it. You cant keep this team down for long.

 

Take it away, Frank the Tank...

Mike Redmond walks onto the team bus holding up a middle finger and asking, ''Anyone forget one of these?''

 

 

 

 

:fyou :rofl

What a great read...it's so nice to hear how much fun they are having despite the brutal schedule.All the more reason why I love the Fish!!!

I thought it was a funny article. I was cracking up about the Carl thing and Redmond flipping the middle finger asking if anyone needed one. That was hilarious!

They do the same thing playing poker on team flights, all mocking how Josh Beckett tries to scare seven millionaires out of a hand by raising it 25 dollars

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That. Is. Awesome.

what an awesome squad

Gotta love these guys. And this is the type of media coverage that these guys should have been getting all along.

 

Another reason to believe in this team.

Awesome article, even though I don't like the one who wrote it.