HispanicBusiness

MIAMI -- Step back. Sometimes, to really appreciate a view, to see scope clearly, you have to take a step back. This can be true whether you are looking at the art that made the owner of the Miami Marlins rich, or the new ballpark he has built, or the suddenly expensive business blueprint he is now trying to stuff inside it. Step back from the lucrative offers being made to baseball's stars, away from the florescent and distracting details ($200 million?! Albert Pujols?!), away from even your earned cynicism about whether this is all an elaborate sham meant to create interest, and look at the bigger picture taking shape. It really is a sight to behold.

Do you see what's happening, right before your eyes, an ethnic business plan being constructed piece by piece, rising from the dusty ground every bit as surely as the new ballpark that will soon house it? The Miami Marlins, changing even their name to fit a changing country, are looking to become Latin America's team, catering to the fastest growing minority in the United States, throwing unprecedented dollars at an experiment that will prove, once and for all, right there on Calle Ocho, whether Major League Baseball can indeed work in Miami's weird and wonderful market.

A sold-out stadium in 1993 didn't prove it. Two championships haven't proved it. But the Marlins, building from the ground up in almost every way, are literally banking on it working now. It is not a coincidence that, in introducing their new uniforms, their new look, the new Miami Marlins did so with Emilio Estefan and Pitbull, old Miami and new Miami merging to be very, very Miami. It is an interesting and expensive risk, one that couldn't be taken until a new ballpark could act as a safety net, and it means taking a wrecking ball to the way the Marlins always have done business. It isn't merely that a franchise that has a local and national reputation for being cheap is pushing mountainous millions toward Hispanic faces. It is that, even outside the dollars, the Marlins are doing things they never would have even considered previously, things that don't even make sense until you realize that the international business plan takes precedence over the local baseball plan.

Take Ozzie Guillen, for example. The erratic, colorful new manager of the Marlins doesn't fit at all with a management team that has run off company men such as Joe Girardi and Fredi Gonzalez. In fact, based on what we've seen publicly at least, this is the most flammable marriage in the big leagues, a management team that has clashed with two very conservative managers getting in bed with maybe the most combustible leader in sports. Not only that, the Marlins traded prospects for Guillen and paid him millions. They never would have done either of those things before, never mind both of them, but they are doing both now even though they've never even thought the manager is that important. Why? Because it gives them a famous Latin face and accented, foul-mouthed Hispanic voice, that's why. And it gives them the kind of buzz and momentum and credibility they are looking to build, piece by piece, just like they built that new ballpark on Calle Ocho, tucking beisbol amid the cafecitos and croquetas .

The crown jewel on this construction, of course, is named Albert Pujols. What the Marlins are offering him only goes against almost every single principle they've ever believed. The total dollars are in dispute, depending on whom you believe, but the number of years offered is not. Nine years. That's insanity, especially since, like a lot of teams, the Marlins believe Pujols to be older than the 31 he claims to be. It doesn't matter if the offer is $190 million or $225 million, it is still a breathtaking move for this group, which hates long-term contracts and prefers to work the system with young, cheap talent. The Marlins, given their history and reputation, given how they've always preferred to do business, are actually the least likely team in the sport to offer a player that age that many years. Keep in mind, the Marlins told popular Dan Uggla they wouldn't ever give a player older than 30 a contract of more than four years. And now they're offering nine to Pujols, whose age they don't even know.