Five years in the making and $30 million in the red, the Florida Marlins capped an unbelievable season in storybook fashion Sunday night.
Down to their final two outs in Game 7 of the World Series, the megabucks Marlins bounced back to tie the game in the ninth inning and shocked Cleveland 3-2 in the 11th, becoming the youngest team in major-league history to win a world championship.
Florida tied the game 2-2 with one out in the ninth on Craig Counsell’s sacrifice fly off Jose Mesa, and won it in the 11th on a bases-loaded, two-out single up the middle by Edgar Renteria off Charles Nagy.
“We’ve dedicated this on behalf of the Florida Marlins to Muhammad Ali,” Florida manager Jim Leyland said. “He was my theme throughout the Series. . . . He fought a lot of people, but when it came to the heayweight fight, which in our case was the World Series, he trained harder, he trained smarter, he trained with more dedication.
“I read one time where he was the hardest-working athlete in the world, and I said that I wanted to pattern this World Series after his career.”
Florida, the first wild-card team to win it all, might not have done so without a dramatic error in the 11th by Cleveland second baseman Tony Fernandez, whose name will go down in Cleveland infamy alongside Earnest Byner, the running back who fumbled away a memorable playoff game for the defunct Cleveland Browns.
Fernandez made the most crucial World Series error since Boston’s Bill Buckner watched a Mookie Wilson roller trickle under his glove in Game 6 of the 1986 Series, giving new life to the Mets. Fernandez failed to pick up a routine groundball hit by Counsell with one out in the 11th, setting up the Marlins’ winning rally.
“I just missed the ball, I guess,” Fernandez said. “That’s life. That’s why you have to live it one day at a time.”
Cuban defector Livan Hernandez, the sensational rookie who won two games in the Series, was named most valuable player. His mother, Miriam Carreras, was granted a visa to fly to Miami for Game 7.
The end came suddenly for the Indians. Bobby Bonilla singled to lead off the 11th, and Counsell came to the plate with one out after a popped-up bunt attempt by Gregg Zaun. Counsell grounded to second, and Fernandez made a futile wave at the ball as it headed into right field, sending Bonilla around third.
“That was a tough play for him,” Counsell said. “It was a slow roller and he had to get it on on the run.”
Jim Eisenreich was intentionally walked to load the bases, and Devon White’s grounder to second forced Bonilla at the plate. But Renteria, on an 0-1 pitch, stroked a sharp single that tiptoed its way over Nagy’s glove and into center field, breaking the hearts of Clevelanders once again. Cleveland’s 49-year championship drought is the fourth longest in baseball after the Cubs (89 years), the White Sox (80 years) and the Red Sox (79 years).
“We played hard,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “We didn’t give the game away.”
No, they airmailed it away. There’s only one way to describe what happened to the Indians in Game 7: “Totally Cleveland.” The town whose sports fans have been tortured over the years by the likes of Michael Jordan, John Elway and Art Modell was on the verge of celebrating its first World Series title since 1948 when everything fell apart in stunning fashion.
Rookie Jaret Wright owned a 2-0 lead on Fernandez’s two-run single and had held Florida to one hit when Bonilla homered leading off the seventh. The Indians still led 2-1 in the ninth and were two outs away from popping the corks when Mesa blew the lead in inimitable Cleveland style. After Moises Alou singled and Bonilla struck out, Charles Johnson poked a single to right on a 1-2 pitch to put runners at the corners with one out. Johnson had been hitting .160 with two strikes on him.
Counsell then smoked a liner to right for a sacrifice fly to score Alou and tie the game, sending Marlins fans into delirium and sending the game into extra innings. At that point, all of Ohio knew how this story would end.
Florida owner Wayne Huizenga spent $89 million to build a contender and then claimed the team lost $30 million this season, forcing him to put it on the block. Now he’s got a championship team that managed to galvanize South Florida for one shining month.
Leyland led the Marlins in a victory lap around the field after the game, but it may be a last hurrah for both the manager and his team. In a season of firsts, Florida may be the first team in history to win a world championship one day and begin the dismantling the next.
That’s baseball, ’90s-style.
