Larry Brown Sports

Eventually the whole “he said, she said” charade that is going on between Jose Reyes and Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria will fizzle out, but for now it would appear that Reyes is not content to just let it go. Earlier this month, Reyes claimed Loria encouraged him to buy a home in Miami just days before trading him to the Toronto Blue Jays. Loria fired back by saying that Reyes was lying, and now Reyes is saying that Loria is lying by calling him a liar.

Not only does Reyes insist Loria told him to buy a house days before the trade, but he says the owner also said it during the season as well. According to Reyes, his agent Peter Greenberg was a witness.

“He did it during the season, too: ‘Tell Jose to get a nice place in Miami, a good house,’” Reyes said. “He always told me that, me and Peter. I don’t know why he said he didn’t say that.” Reyes told the NY Post on Thursday: “You can ask Peter if I’m a liar. Two people are better than one.I don’t have to lie about that. He traded me, that’s fine with me. Just be real with me. Be honest. Don’t tell me to buy a house and get a nice place for my family and stuff when you [know] you’re going to trade me. Why [did] you do that?”

In addition, Reyes said that Loria’s claim that he informed Greenberg that Reyes was going to be traded to make sure he didn’t buy a house in Miami is false.

“No. Peter didn’tknow that [Loria] was going o trade me,” Reyes said. “That’s a lie. Nobody knew. So I don’t know where that came from. You guys can talk to Peter and ask Peter. That trade took everybody by surprise. I was on vacation. Peter wasn’t even the one to tell me I got traded.”

Regardless of who is telling the truth, Reyes needs to get over it and stop entertaining questions about it. He’s a professional athlete, and professional sports are a cut-throat business. It’s time to accept the fact that he is a Blue Jay and stop dwelling on the past.

H/T Hardball Talk
Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Jose Reyes is not a big fan of Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, and if you believe the shortstop’s story about being traded you probably don’t blame him.  According to Reyes, Loria encouraged him to purchase a home in Miami just two days before he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. Not surprisingly, Loria has a much different recollection of the dinner that Reyes was referring to when the conversation supposedly took place.

“What you were told is inaccurate,” Loria told reporters earlier this week, via Joe Capozzi of The Palm Beach Post. “I never told him to buy a house. He was looking for a house. I will tell you that he came to an ALS dinner which I invited him to. He sat two people away from me, He came late. I asked him what he was doing in the next week. He told me he was going to Dubai. I said. ‘Has your wife been down to Miami? He said yes she has gone down. She is looking for a home. I didn’t say anything after that.”

In fact, Loria insists the exact opposite of what Reyes says happened actually happened. Rather than encouraging him to buy a home in Miami, the Marlins owner says he made sure Reyes was informed as soon as the decision to trade him was made so that he would not buy the house.

“Three or four days after that, (VP of baseball operations Larry Beinfest) came to me with the trade he wanted to do,” Loria explained. “I immediately called Jose’s agent out of respect for him and said Jose is going to be traded and I want you to call him before he reads about. He hasn’t bought a house yet has he? ‘No, he is contemplating.’ Just call him and let him know.”

Clearly, we have two very different accounts of the conversation that took place. Whichever you choose to believe is a matter of opinion, but Loria is hopeful people will believe his side. The last thing Marlins fans need are more reasons to dislike the team’s owner.

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

When Jose Reyes makes his debut with the Toronto Blue Jays this season, he will be playing for his third team in as many years. Bouncing around from team-to-team can be challenging, but such is the life of a professional athlete. However, Reyes insists Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria tried to make life more difficult for him than it had to be.

In addition to assuring Reyes that the Marlins would never trade him, the shortstop says Loria was telling him to buy himself a nice house in Miami right up until two days before he was traded to Toronto.

“He always told me to get a nice house in Miami,” Reyes said, via Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com. “I was at a dinner with him in New York, and he was still talking about the house.

“Two days later, I got traded.”

Reyes said he was so stunned by the news that he had been traded after the discussion he and Loria had at dinner that he thought someone was playing a prank on him. He quickly realized it was the real deal, and he said he has not spoken to Loria or any of Miami’s management since.

As for the Marlins themselves, Reyes said he feels badly for the city and its fans.

“I feel sorry for the fan base in Miami,” he said.

Why does that sound so familiar? Maybe because he said the exact same thing about the New York Mets last season. Luckily, Reyes said he did not purchase a home in Miami and is not planning to buy one in Toronto. With the way he has been shipped from place to place over the past several seasons, that’s probably a wise decision.

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Ozzie Guillen had already put himself at-risk to be fired after his comments about Fidel Castro, and his team’s disappointing season has done little to help his job status. Now we’re learning that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is unhappy with Guillen and leaning towards firing the manager.

The Palm Beach Post’s Joe Capozzi reports that Loria is upset with Guillen for calling him out regarding the Marlins’ inability to establish stability at manager.

“If Jeffrey doesn’t think I’m doing the job I should do … it’s not the first time he’s fired a manager,” Guillen said on Friday, per Capozzi. “Look yourself in the mirror and ask why so many (bleeping) managers come through here.”

Those comments apparently set off Loria.

Guillen has also questioned the job status of many people tied to the organization in light of the team’s brutal 66-87 record.

“When you are in last place you need a better manager, better general manager, better owner, a better everything when you are a last-place team because we all failed,” he said last weekend.

“Whoever works for the Marlins and denies that he should be fired is full of (expletive). My coaches, myself, the front office, my players, we’re all involved in this thing. We all failed. And we’ve got to be better. Hopefully we learn by the mistakes we made and we move on,” Guillen added.

Some of the people involved with this year’s disastrous team will have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes in future years with the Marlins. Guillen probably won’t be one of them. In a way, they’re both right. Guillen probably doesn’t deserve to be back, and Loria probably deserves to be criticized for getting rid of managers. I’m still wondering why the Marlins got rid of Fredi Gonzalez.

Photo credit: Robert Mayer-US PRESSWIRE

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria commissioned a replica Marlins Park cake to celebrate the opening of the stadium on Wednesday. According to the Miami New Times, Loria wanted a cake that could feed 800 people. The fine folks at Divine Delicacies, which also created LeBron James’ birthday cake, were able to come through with this gorgeous masterpiece that also contained a retractable roof. Don’t ask me how they do it.

The Miami New Times has a few more details on the cake:

Divine Delicacies was notified in advance that it would be presented in Loria’s suite for his 50 VIP guests. It was made with red velvet, guava cream cheese, vanilla rum, and marble chocolate batters. And if four different flavors in one cake weren’t extravagant enough, the cake’s ballpark top even had a retractable ceiling.

Here are a few more pictures of the outstanding cake:

Read The Rest of the Story…