FanHouse Jeffrey Loria

Last February, Florida Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez signed an extension that would keep him in Miami until 2011, and after his team finished the season in second place in the NL East you wouldn't think there'd be any reason why the team wouldn't honor that contract. Then word broke out that the Marlins were interviewing Bobby Valentine for a position with the team, but they wouldn't say what that position was.

This fueled speculation that Gonzalez wasn't going to be back for the 2010 season, but on Tuesday sources confirmed that Fredi has nothing to worry about.

Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos isn't all bad?

A few years ago that notion would have seemed unfathomable. The Orioles have reeled off 11 straight losing seasons and appear headed for a 12th. Frustration grew so high among fans in the Charm City in 2006 that almost 1,000 fans walked out of Camden Yards in late September of that season.

Baltimore was once a proud baseball town. Earl Weaver. Brooks Robinson. Cal Ripken Jr. Jim Palmer. We all know the names. But that glory has faded over the last decade as the team has become an afterthought in the loaded AL East.

Given that his reign as Orioles owner has coincided with one of the darkest periods in the franchise's history on the field, it probably isn't much of a surprise that Sports Illustrated recently named him the worst owner in baseball.

I agree with Hanley Ramirez: I hate haircuts. They never turn out looking like I want them to. I tell the barber that I want to look like Mark Paul Gosselaar circa the fifth season of Saved by the Bell (the one with Tori, where it looked like he had yellow toothpaste on his head) and I end up looking like Captain Kangaroo. Haircuts are bogus, and I should be able to wear my hair however I like. Why won't Major League Baseball leave me alone?

That's all I wanted to say. There isn't even a Dugout, I just wanted to say something about haircuts. Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

Like it or not, Major League Baseball in Miami is here to stay. That is the ultimate consequence of the decision by the Miami-Dade County Commission to publicly finance a baseball-only facility, a decision sealed by a 9-4 vote Monday evening.

There is plenty that doesn't feel right about this. Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has been demanding a new stadium almost since the day he purchased a 35 percent stake in the Montreal Expos in 1999. In the process, he has done plenty to kill fan interest in both Montreal and South Florida by way of relocation threats and a religious devotion to paring down payroll that comes with a complete refusal to hold onto star players (at least until Hanley Ramirez re-signed last year).

Ever since 1993 when the Florida Marlins were born into Major League Baseball existence, they've been trying to get a new stadium. Time and time again they failed to get it done. Even after winning two World Series titles in the first eleven years of the franchise history, efforts came up fruitless.

Until Monday when somehow, someway, Miami-Dade County approved of a $515 million to spend on a new ballpark, and another $94 million in parking lots at the former site of the Orange Bowl. That's $609 million to be spent so upwards of 10,000 people can watch baseball in the lap of luxury.

Some good news out of Miami Thursday for anyone who hopes to see a Marlins franchise that does more than develop players who will play out their careers for other teams. The Miami city commission approved plans for a new stadium on the site where the Orange Bowl once stood.

The 37,000-seat stadium has a projected cost of $639 million and would feature a retractable roof. The plan, which calls for a 2012 opening, must now pass a vote from the Miami-Dade County Commission. They are scheduled to vote Monday and, strangely enough, the economic downturn may prove to be the driving force behind their approval.

Last year I attended the infamous "Wrestle FanFest" in San Francisco and somehow found a way to enjoy a warehouse full of crippled old men (and Nick Bockwinkel) peddling poorly stitched Mexican wrestling masks and printed out 8 x 10s of their glory days for ten dollars a pop. Even having done that, I could not stomach something called the "Marlins FanFest," even if I got to meet the players. If I wanted to hang out with a bunch of dirt poor 19 year-olds I'd go to community college.

But, well, Alex Rodriguez can't do steroids EVERY day, so here is a Dugout about the Marlins FanFest.

Your official The Dugout Guide to This Year in the National League East:

• The Mets will win a lot of games.
• The Phillies will win a lot of games.
• The friggin Florida Marlins will win the division with nothing but Luis Gonzalez and a big snapping trading card binder with pictures of actual professional baseball players in it.

Yesterday's Spring Dugz (sprung dugz) dealt with character growth and the development of personality that comes with time. Today's Spring Dugz (springing dugz) is the exact opposite of that, because until Jeffrey Loria turns into a winged monster and breaks the bonds of his life the Marlins are pretty much boned. But boned in a good way, where they win World Series championships.

After the jump, the long road out of Eden.

Marlins baseball is one of those weird professional sports anomalies. The team exists in a large metropolitan area and has had recent success at the highest levels of the sport, but for whatever reason, it takes nothing before the fans begin to ignore the team completely. Sure, the Marlins haven't been the best product in the world the past couple of years, but they do have exciting young baseball talent. Or they did, before they traded all of it away.

On second thought, Marlins fans: I feel you. As for the Marlins players, well, maybe they should reserve excitement until the thing is actually built:

"It's going to be nice," outfielder Josh Willingham said Friday at spring training. "It's going to be for us. It's going to have a retractable roof and all the stuff that comes with it. "But I think it's better for the fans to know they've got a place to take their families and not have to worry about rain or sitting in 95 degrees. I think that's what it's going to be more about than anything."

It will also help if Jeffrey Loria stops pillaging the team every two seasons. "If you build it, they will come," works well for the cornfields of Iowa. Not so much for fans of a team with a $30 million payroll and South Beach as a viable recreational option.

Luis Gonzalez is forty years old and will spend his 2008 season with the Florida Marlins, a team whose combined age does not equal forty. I think the oldest player on that team is Billy Marlin, and I think he was supposed to be "born" when he debuted.

There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said on Fanhouse, but I'd like to add "Jeffrey Loria is running his team like a SimCity game he's tired of, so now he's just going to put in a bunch of combustible elements and watch with mild glee as Bowser tramples Florida."

I think he just wanted a guy who'd been a corn maze. You trade the Gonzo, you trade ya bongos, after the jump.