MARLINS HISTORY

The National League awarded a franchise to Wayne Huizenga, chief executive officer of Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation, owner of the Miami Dolphins football team, and chairman of the board of the Florida Panthers hockey team on the 10th of June, 1991. The Marlins' first manager was Rene Lachemann, a former catcher who had previously managed the Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers. Lachemann kept Florida out of the Eastern Division cellar during the 1993 season as the team finished the year five games ahead of the last-place New York Mets. After the Marlins finished last in their division in 1994 and fourth in 1995, Lachemann was replaced as manager midway through the 1996 season with the Marlins' director of player development, John Boles. The Florida Marlins is a professional major league baseball team. The team is based in Miami Florida. The team is a member of the Eastern Division which has five teams playing in its division. The team was formed in 1993. In 1997, the Florida Marlins led by new Manager Jim Leyland won the wild card, finishing 92-70. They swept the San Francisco Giants 3-0 in the National League Division Series, and then went on to beat the Atlanta Braves 4-2 in the National League Championship Series. In the same year team owner Huizenga, claiming massive financial losses which would prove to be mostly false as he reported team and stadium earnings separately, dismantled the championship team in 1998, and Florida posted a 54-108 record that season. This angered fans, and Marlins home attendance plummeted. After the World Series victory, Huizenga dismantled the team by trading off most of the club's most talented players. Among them; Moises Alou, Bobby Bonilla, Kevin Brown. The Marlins' record in 1998 slumped to 54-108, making them the first club ever to win a World Series and then lose more than 100 games during the following season. Leyland resigned as manager in October 1998, and Huizenga sold the club to businessman John Henry during the off-season. The club slowly worked back to becoming a respectable ball club despite attendance issues, driven by young stars such as A.J. Burnett, Luis Castillo, and Mike Lowell. Between 2000-2002, the Marlins consecutively put up three 75+ win seasons. In 2002, Tony Perez was replaced by Jeff Torborg as the new Marlin's manager. Torborg put up a 79-83 record in his first season with the Marlins. The Marlins acquired 10-time Golden Glove winner Ivan Rodriguez from free agency and Juan Pierre from the Colorado Rockies. In 2003, Florida clinched the National League Wild Card for the second time in team history with a 4-3 win over the New York Mets on September 26, finishing with an overall record of 91-71. The Marlins clinched the Division Series against the favored San Francisco Giants going 3 games to 1. In the two Division Series games at Pro Player Stadium, Florida drew over 130,000 fans. The series ended with Marlins catcher Ivan Rodriguez tagging out a charging J.T. Snow at the plate after catching a perfect throw from Jeff Conine, which made it just in time to make the play. Although posting a winning record of 83-79 (only their third winning season of their history), the Marlins' aspirations of successfully defending their World Series title fell short as they finished nine games behind the Houston Astros for the National League Wild Card title, thus the Marlins became the fourth consecutive Major League Baseball team not to repeat as World Series champions.