Being an NSU student, I have access to an online archive of The Miami Herald from 1983-present. Over the course of the offseason, I will post articles relevant to major events in Marlins history.

 

Today we look at September 19th, 1990, a day after the aspiring owners of a proposed South Florida baseball team made their presentations to the NL Expansion Committee.

MIAMI COMES OUT SWINGING EXPANSION INQUIRIES FOCUS ON STADIUM

Miami Herald, The (FL)

 

September 19, 1990

Author: DAVE VON DREHLE Herald Staff Writer

Estimated printed pages: 4

 

South Florida's would-be Boys of Summer -- the aspiring owners of a National League expansion franchise -- made pitches to the league's expansion committee Tuesday morning, united on the virtues of Miami as a big-league baseball city, divided on the question of who should make it happen.

The committee members listened intently, asked probing questions, and surprised some of the Miami boosters with the issues they chose to emphasize. Lots of inquiries about stadium sites, parking provisions and dimensions down the left-field line. Precious little about crime, even less about race relations.

 

"I think South Florida took a big step forward today," said Rick Horrow, former boss of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority in Miami, now a member of one of three potential ownership groups hoping to land a franchise for Miami.

 

The South Florida presentations led off a three-day series of appeals to the expansion committee by 16 ownership groups representing 10 cities across the country. This is the first step in a long winnowing process that will produce a short list of candidates by the end of this year. From the short list, two new major-league cities will be designated next year, with the new teams beginning play in 1993.

 

Horsehide dreams danced in the eyes of New York financier J. Morton Davis and his band of investors. Visions of an emerald diamond by the bay swam in the heads of Miami banker Abel Holtz and his deep-pocket partners. The crack of bats echoed in the ears of Wayne Huizenga, titan of the video-rental game, to date an ownership group of one.

 

As they emerged, one-by-one, from their 45-minute sessions with the committee, each offered an upbeat assessment.

 

"I think it went well," said Davis.

 

"It went very good," said Holtz.

 

"It went great," said Huizenga.

 

All three bidders shared a boost from the Beacon Council, Dade County's economic development ambassador, whose presentation on the region's glories began at 8 a.m.

 

Jeb Bush -- presidential son, brother of Texas Rangers owner George Jr. -- emceed the show, which pushed hard at the fact that South Florida is the nation's largest television market without a baseball team. Metro Mayor Steve Clark offered a videotaped greeting, followed by the friendly visage of billionaire cruise-ship magnate Ted Arison, part owner of the Heat. A committee member asked about the near-daily rainstorms. Ron Fraser, veteran baseball coach of the University of Miami, fielded the question deftly. His squad averages one rainout a year. "And we've never been snowed out in April," he said.

 

The Davis group followed the overview. Davis, chairman of the Wall Street firm of D.H. Blair, promised to make a Miami franchise the pride of "the Caribbean Basin" -- which includes the Latin nations that have produced hundreds of big leaguers without a team to call their own.

 

Think how many souvenirs you could sell to 30 million new customers, Davis suggested.

 

Davis' group includes former third baseman Mike Schmidt and has a prominent Latin partner in Alfonso Fanjul of the Palm Beach sugar-baron Fanjuls, a prominent black partner in Garth Reeves, owner of the Miami Times and a share of Bayside, and Wometco Chairman Arthur Hertz, head of the Orange Bowl committee.

 

"I'm probably the least impressive of the group, except that I bring some important funds," Davis said.

 

On the issue that deeply divides its competition -- the question of where a Miami team would play its games -- Joe Robbie Stadium or a proposed stadium at Bicentennial Park, site of the Miami Grand Prix -- Horrow said the Davis group ". . . would be compatible with the preference of Major League Baseball." Next came the Holtz consortium, the senior Miami aspirant with three years of preparation under its belt. Holtz has strong thoughts about the stadium question, and he made them known: "We made it clear we would not play at Joe Robbie Stadium. We have a commitment to play downtown."

 

Holtz was ready for questions about "problems in the community and how we would deal with them," but they didn't materialize. Instead, the committee pressed him for details about the proposed ballpark in Bicentennial Park. When would it be built? How would it be financed? What would it look like?

 

With help from Miami attorney Al Cardenas, one of his four partners, Holtz sketched a panorama of baseball by the bay, a stadium where fans could behold a moonrise over sparkling waters. "The finest stadium yet," Cardenas said.

 

The Holtz group outlined the mix of state contributions, local taxes and private financing that could be used for construction. "All we need is the green light from baseball," said Cardenas.

 

Holtz summed up: "I don't think they felt we had our head up in the clouds. They saw our financing, they saw our design, they saw our seating arrangement. They asked about rapid transit and we gave them an answer. I think they were impressed."

 

For good measure, Holtz, a Cuban native, pointed out that awarding the franchise to him would open the ranks of big-league ownership to a member of an ethnic minority.

 

Huizenga went third. The Fort Lauderdale millionaire, owner of the Blockbuster Video chain, pushed the idea of baseball in Joe Robbie Stadium -- not surprising, given that he owns half of the park. His task was to persuade the committee that the stadium is intended for baseball, even though it is home to the Dolphins.

 

Somehow, the committee had gotten the idea that JRS would have a laughably short left-field fence -- perhaps from the fact that in exhibitions played there, the left-field fence has been laughably short. Huizenga explained that retractable seats will be installed by next spring, allowing for a respectable 335-foot target to left.

 

"We reinforced the fact that from Day One, baseball was designed for that stadium. If anything is compromised by bringing baseball to Robbie Stadium, it will be football," Huizenga said.

 

What's more, he told the committee, JRS, located at the Dade-Broward line, is "in the middle of all the people" of South Florida, with roughly two million citizens to the north and two million to the south. Just as Holtz said he would never put a team at JRS, Huizenga insisted he would never play in downtown Miami. Too far from Broward and Palm Beach.

 

By the end of the morning, all three groups were sailing on adrenaline, and several players expressed sorrow that they will have to wait until December to discover if Miami has a place on the short list. All three groups expect their strongest competition will come from Denver and the Tampa Bay area.

 

The selection committee will make no comment on the process until all the presentations have been made, a National League spokeswoman said. That will be Sept. 28.

 

But Horrow, a veteran of the campaign to bring the NBA to Miami, said he felt more confident than he ever felt about the Heat

photo: J. Morton DAVIS, Wayne Huizenga and Abel Holtz

Edition: FINAL

Section: SPORTS

Page: 1D

Dateline: NEW YORK

Copyright 1990 The Miami Herald

 

Seventeen years later we see how flawed Wayne Huizenga's logic was on putting the stadium "in the middle of everything" was and how ahead of his time Holtz' proposed downtown ballpark by the bay was. This was 1990, Camden Yards was still on the drawing board, SkyDome and the coming Comiskey Park II were the new 'marvels' of baseball stadium construction, retro hadn't come to be and urban ballparks were still a thing of the past. Surrounding ballparks in a sea of asphalt was still the accepted way to build a ballpark, all the owners wanted a ballpark "just like Kansas City."

 

 

More of these to come in the coming days, weeks and months of the offseason.

 

I'll say this, I've read a few articles from other days, and the stuff talked about is very haunting. It seems like everything that could have happened to doom baseball down here came true.

If only Holtz could have been awarded the team. :banghead :banghead :banghead :banghead

Haunting.

 

To be honest, the biggest mistake may have had nothing to do with the stadium, but rather in not giving the Davis group more credibility. Schmidt and the Fanjul family certainly have the financing and local and national clout we've sorely lacked, almost constantly.

Looking back the Davis group would have been so much better for S. Florida. H Wayne has set the franchise and the S Florida community the worse possible injury. The healing won't begin until the stadium issue is resolved. To think Bicentenial park was a viable option then gives me shivers.

Looking back the Davis group would have been so much better for S. Florida. H Wayne has set the franchise and the S Florida community the worse possible injury. The healing won't begin until the stadium issue is resolved. To think Bicentenial park was a viable option then gives me shivers.

 

Well, that's a bit of a hyperbole. While he 'owned' the team, Wayne was, without question, the best owner we've had. It's what happened once Don Smiley set out on his forgettable campaign to buy the team that tore us to shreds, culminating in the one sided lease negotiated by John Henry the owner. As luck would have it, Wayne was simply the beneficiary. From '93-'97, you couldn't say there was anything that could have been done better, or should have been done differently.

 

It was MLB's fault for allowing a shared facility without a guarantee for a future baseball only stadium.

I think most of you here were too young to remember the expansion negotiations of 1990. That article paints a rosy picture of the other groups, but what it doesn't mention is the fact that Wayne eventually forked over the expansion fee in one nice lump sum cash payment. It also doesn't mention that MLB enjoyed working with a sole owner (Wayne) instead of other groups with questionable finances.

 

Put yourself back in 1990. You have two ownership groups made up of various folks with no stadium or stadium financing in place, and you have one guy, with one check, and he happens to own half of the stadium where they're going to play. Who do you choose?

 

That's the reason why Wayne and "South Florida Baseball" beat out the other two groups, as well as the groups from Tampa, Washington, Phoenix, Orlando, and Buffalo back in 1990. I remember those days well because I was following the whole thing from afar while in college and I was stuck having to read the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times accounts of the expansion race. There was no internet back then, so having the luxury of reading the Herald online just wasn't there! It was the way the whole thing was portrayed by the Tampa media back in 1990 and 1991 that made me hate every sports team from that area, as well as their sports media, from then to today!

That's the reason why Wayne and "South Florida Baseball" beat out the other two groups, as well as the groups from Tampa, Washington, Phoenix, Orlando, and Buffalo back in 1990. I remember those days well because I was following the whole thing from afar while in college and I was stuck having to read the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times accounts of the expansion race. There was no internet back then, so having the luxury of reading the Herald online just wasn't there! It was the way the whole thing was portrayed by the Tampa media back in 1990 and 1991 that made me hate every sports team from that area, as well as their sports media, from then to today!

 

This will be discussed in later articles. :mischief

wow, i'm amazed at the knowledge on the board. you make me feel retarded

I think most of you here were too young to remember the expansion negotiations of 1990. That article paints a rosy picture of the other groups, but what it doesn't mention is the fact that Wayne eventually forked over the expansion fee in one nice lump sum cash payment. It also doesn't mention that MLB enjoyed working with a sole owner (Wayne) instead of other groups with questionable finances.

 

Put yourself back in 1990. You have two ownership groups made up of various folks with no stadium or stadium financing in place, and you have one guy, with one check, and he happens to own half of the stadium where they're going to play. Who do you choose?

 

That's the reason why Wayne and "South Florida Baseball" beat out the other two groups, as well as the groups from Tampa, Washington, Phoenix, Orlando, and Buffalo back in 1990. I remember those days well because I was following the whole thing from afar while in college and I was stuck having to read the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times accounts of the expansion race. There was no internet back then, so having the luxury of reading the Herald online just wasn't there! It was the way the whole thing was portrayed by the Tampa media back in 1990 and 1991 that made me hate every sports team from that area, as well as their sports media, from then to today!

H Wayne being the sole owner was the deciding factor at that time...He mixed in with the fraternity of other baseball owners, or so it seemed at the time, Baseball has changed significantly since then quite a bit, becoming more corporate. Huizenga, never really cared for the business of baseball with it's strong player union and walked away as soon as he could. He screwed John Henry in the deal when he sold him the team, the staduim lease agreement was armed robbery. Henry had no choice but accept the deal along with the team. It is evident he expected a baseball only facility to be built afterwards but the politicos in S. Fl. turned their back on him. Then MLB screwed us with Loria