Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky reported Thursday that Marlins President David Samson — right hand man of the despised Jeffrey Loria and utter embarrassment to what’s left of Miami’s baseball fans — was the target of an orchestrated attempt to convince media (including the scooptastic New Times) that Samson had uttered racially offensive remarks concerning OF Marcel Ozuna. Trouble is, Samson insists the tape’s a phony, and Petchesky agrees, but not without adding the following :
Of everyone I spoke to for background on this story, not one expressed disbelief that David Samson might have been caught saying something offensive. (A few even blatantly said they hoped he had been.) Not racial comments, specifically, but something controversial. “If you told me an executive had been caught on tape saying something fireable,” one baseball reporter told me, “I’d guess it was Samson before you finished your sentence.”
Samson makes the perfect patsy for a hoax, because he won’t ever receive the benefit of anyone’s doubt. That same widely-held dislike for him makes just about everyone in baseball a suspect in a set-up. But it’s at least as believable as anything else that there really are Marlins fans willing to go to incredible lengths to clear out their front office. And who can blame them?