Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria denies telling Jose Reyes to buy a house in Miami

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.

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