Miami Vice

Reality (h/t Dr. Black):

In certain ZIP codes in places like Homestead and Florida City, around 25 percent of the homes are in one stage of foreclosure or another. Countless others were built by developers and sit vacant in ghostly subdivisions, with not a buyer in sight.

In the days after Andrew, then-Dade County Emergency Management Director Kate Hale famously said on national TV: ”Where the hell is the cavalry on this one?”

The same could be asked now, in this new disaster. People in south Miami-Dade — just like people in foreclosure-strewn cities across the nation — are wondering: How did we get here?

Fantasy (via The Sports Law Blog):

The stadium did undergo some renovations in 1999 to make it more baseball-friendly, but the Marlins have been drawing low attendance figures. The Marlins averaged 16,688 fans last year, their third straight season averaging under 17,000 per home contest.

As Marc Edelman notes at the link above:

Last year, the Marlins team payroll was just $22 million…by far the lowest in the league. Rather than investing in their own team, Marlins President David Samson often used the threat of keeping a low payroll as part of his strategy in demanding public subsidies.

Miami-Dsde officials, as those from Montreal know well, must be really stupid if they think Jeffrey Loria is going to invest in making the team competitive just because they just wrote him a Very Large Check. Then again, maybe they figure one more vacant property won’t make a difference.