







The conspiracy lives. It lives in Miami, where they're destroying baseball, just like they did in another city before. It lives in the hands of Jeffrey Loria and David Samson, the owner and president of the Marlins, the con artists who pilfered Miami's money before moving on to its dignity. And it lives especially with Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball who's letting it all happen again, because he's part and parcel to it.

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By now, in the fallout of a trade nuclear even by Marlins standards, Samson and Loria have been marked radioactive. To dump $181 million in salary like they did Tuesday – to trade Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio to Toronto for a few prospects, a bad-attitude shortstop and a backup catcher – was galling even by their standards. And these were two men who for years lied about their finances, lied about their intentions, lied all to get Miami to build them a $634 million ballpark that was supposed to end this wretched cycle of turning a major league franchise into a swap meet.

And yet all this time, throughout the lies, the SEC investigation, the embarrassing payrolls, the pocketing of revenue-sharing dollars, the cries from the players' union and the gem of a stadium with all those empty seats, not a word from the commissioner. Not a lamentation that by the time the balloon payments on the stadium hit, Miami taxpayers will owe more than $2.4 billion. Not a sign that he intends to protect the sport from the cretins within. And not a chance, unless public outrage on the matter changes his thinking, that he'll use his best-interests-of-baseball clause to keep Jeffrey Loria and David Samson from murdering another baseball market.

This is not some Roswell, black-helicopter, second-shooter conspiracy. This is very real. This is three rich, powerful men getting together and using their influence and business acumen to affect dealings that hurt the sport and help their bank balances. This is an insult to those who care about baseball. And we know this all because this isn't the first time it's happened.

[Proposed Marlins fire sale latest indictment of Jeffrey Loria's ownership | Photos]





"This action is filed by the victims of a conspiracy to eliminate major league baseball in Montreal," begins a lawsuit filed July 16, 2002, by the former owners of the Montreal Expos. Among the defendants: Jeffrey Loria, David Samson and Bud Selig.



In the 45-page complaint, the plaintiffs alleged a litany of claims against the three, including that they had broken laws under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which the government originally intended for mobsters. Loria, Samson and Selig were just that to Montreal, according to the complaint: They systematically devised plans to kill baseball in the city, all so they could move the franchise and profit accordingly.

Selig, the complaint stated, "had secretly determined that major league baseball in Montreal should be eliminated" and went along with Loria's plan to stop televising games and broadcasting them on radio in English. Samson ended complimentary tickets for sponsors. And through a variety of cash calls, on which the minority owners refused to act because they disagreed with the franchise's direction, Loria nearly quadrupled his stake in the franchise, allowing him to pull off the deal that eventually netted him the Marlins.

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