What little hope the Marlins had left for the sake of their franchise was crushed by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig Thursday, when he indicated he would not block the trade that would basically decimate their whole team. Selig said that since there was really no precedent for such a thing, there was nothing for him to do. Owners will be owners, amirite?

In an attempt to achieve relevancy the Florida Marlins are undergoing a complete image overhaul as they get set to open their new stadium in downtown Miami next season, including a new set of eye-catching unis.

Thanks to a story in the Boston Globe yesterday on the Red Sox’ September collapse, the clubhouse habits of Sox pitcher Josh Beckett are in the spotlight – namely, that he allegedly hung out there with fellow members of the Sox’ rotation to eat fried chicken, drink beer, and play video games rather than stay with the team in the dugout. Well, he didn’t start doing all that this year.

Don’t worry, Leo Nunez’s teammate has a solution for his identity confusion.

You’ve heard of MLB players having ID issues – generally, it’s for faking their ages. Miguel Tejada did it. So did Alfonso Soriano. And now, we can add Marlins closer Leo Nunez to the list – he said he was 28, but it turns out he’s actually 29. At first, this doesn’t sound so bad – hey, it’s not like he’s the first, and it’s only a year. But what if we told you that in addition to faking his age, “Nunez” also faked his name and will miss the remainder of the season after having to leave the country?

It seems that the Florida Marlins, in addition to becoming the Miami Marlins when they move into their new stadium next year, will do some re-branding on the logo (and presumably uniform) front as well. What you see above was recently tweeted by Marlins blogger Fish At Bat. It’s apparently legit, though another Marlins blogger is saying it’s this one. (Awfully close, which leaves me with little doubt this is essentially the real deal.) There’s been some strong (mostly negative) reaction, including from within the SportsGrid ranks. And so allow me to open myself up to potential ridicule and say: is this really so bad?

Watching baseball can, at times, be slow goings. That’s why some of us choose to leave a game on as background noise while we do other stuff around the house. Unfortunately for pitchers in the bullpen, though, they have to sit through an entire game with little to keep them entertained. As the Cleveland Indians recently proved, something as random as a squirrel running around the bullpen, can be enough to solve this inconvenience.

The Florida Marlins‘ bullpen didn’t have the luxury of a furry animal hanging around their quarters during Thursday’s 2-1 loss in Philadelphia, so they took matters into their own hands.

In order to get play as many games as possible before a hurricane potentially sets their schedule back, the Florida Marlins canceled a game against the Cincinnati Reds scheduled for tomorrow and moved it to today, meaning the teams are playing a doubleheader. Marlins games are not generally well-attended to begin with. Combine that with today’s game being played on short notice, and…

Santiago Casilla had never taken a major league at-bat. And with the Giants ahead 5-2 in the top of the ninth, Giants manager Bochy wanted Casilla to… just stand there. If the virgin hitter Casilla swung and, say, pulled an oblique muscle, the Giants would be out a pitcher. Basically, his job in this case was to go up there, take three strikes, come back to the dugout, then get ready to record an easy save.

Except it didn’t quite work out that way.

Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon is 80-years-old. So rather than criticize him for this quote, why not enjoy its genius?