A sign of our times
Christian Yelich wins the National League MVP. The Marlins get a new logo. Have you noticed our exes — Jay Ajayi, Gerard Gallant, John Henry — are winning once they get out of town?
The Marlins released their stylish new logo and snappy new colors on Thursday as relatively new owner Derek Jeter re-branded the franchise for the fourth or maybe fifth time in its 25-year history.
In other baseball news, exMarlins outfielder Christian Yelich won the National League Most Valuable Player Award after a great season in Milwaukee.
That sums up South Florida’s sports world, right? We lead the league in new logos and infernal regret. We watch athletes lose here and win there. Our teams may stink, but look at the upside:
We’re on the greatest nine-month run of exSouth Floridians in our history – if it’s actually our history anymore.
Former Dolphins running Jay Ajayi won a Super Bowl a few carries after being traded by the Dolphins last season.
Former Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton went to the first playoffs of his career in his first Yankees season.
Gerard Gallant had a magical run to the Stanley Cup Finals in Las Vegas the season after the Florida Panthers fired him as coach. His top line consisted of a couple of other Panthers rejects,
Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith.
Do I need to go on? Because I can with a mix of jealousy and bemusement. It’s not just our ex-athletes winning for us by proxy. Former Marlins owner John Henry teamed up with former Marlins general manager Dave Dombrowski to win the World Series in Boston. That was Henry’s fourth ring since buying the Red Sox in the worst trade in South Florida history – Henry to Boston, Jeffrey Loria to the Marlins.
We can debate that, if you wish. Or we can talk about the Marlins’ new logo. We can compare it to the Dolphins’ new logo and the Panthers’ new logo. Or we can debate if the Heat’s “Vice” uniform tops the Dolphins’ throwback jersey.
If you’re 14 years old, it’s a fun debate over which South Florida team is winning the styles wars. For everyone else, the question remains why our former athletes must get out of town to get some success.
Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh left the Dolphins after three overpaid and underwhelming seasons to be part of a great Los Angeles Rams team this year. He even wrote in social media after the Dolphins’ run defense gave up a long, preseason touchdown: “Right up the gut, lol.”
No one will be surprised if Suh wins the Super Bowl this year. That’s because of the Dolphins factor. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2000. But there’s a line of ex-Dolphins winning rings from Ajayi last February to New England’s Chris Hogan in 2017, Denver’s Billy Turner in 2016, New England’s Rob Ninkovich in 2015, Seattle’s Tony McDaniel in 2014, Baltimore’s Dannell Ellerbe in 2013 …
Enough. There’s only so much happiness we can have for exes leaving for winning pastures. It’s like the joke about the prisoner who had one limb after another amputated until, finally, the prison warden said he understood what was happening.
“You’re escaping,’’ he said.
Or maybe it’s nothing like that. Maybe it’s just like Yelich’s smile at being awarded the NL’s MVP award. I get why the Marlins had to trade him. I really do. But it’s tough to watch him play five seasons in Marlins Park knowing a superstar was waiting to bust out and watch it confirmed his first season in Milwaukee.
So he got the trophy a few hours after the Marlins got another logo. That’s a normal Thursday afternoon for us, right? The only surprise is Stanton didn’t win the American League’s MVP award at the same time.
One final note that tells just how pervasive this phenomenon has become: Former Sun Sentinel baseball writer Gordon Edes took a job inside the Red Sox organization with Henry and Dombrowski. So even he left town and won a ring.
I’m not jealous, though. I’m too busy deciding where the Marlins’ new logo ranks among the new logos in town.