Here’s a tough question: Who’s the most recognizable face of South Florida sports today? For decades, that was an easy answer. First, it was Dan Marino. Then, even through the LeBron era, it was Dwyane Wade. These days, however, there’s no clear choice for the big dog of South Florida sports.
The Miami Heat has played 56 of its 82 regular-season games, but for some reason, the NBA All-Star break this weekend still feels like the midpoint of the season. Maybe that’s because Heat fans are so used to playoff basketball stretching into May and June.
Miami’s seemingly never-ending saga of Jeffrey Loria, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb might finally be coming to a close. Loria owns the Miami Marlins, a taxpayer-funded rich-person welfare program that occasionally hosts baseball games. After buying the team in 2003 for roughly $150 million, the sports-team equivalent of cereal box tops…
Jeffrey Loria’s endgame has always been obvious. Loria has spent two decades constructing an elaborate baseball Ponzi scheme, starting in ’99, when he dropped just $12 million for a stake in the Montreal Expos and culminating in 2011 when he wrangled a new Miami Marlins stadium paid for by the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County to the tune of $2.4 billion.
The Miami Heat used to be really, really bad. Way back in January 2017, the Heat was a putrid basketball team that had lost 30 of 41 games. People wanted Miami to start tanking. They said the Heat should trade Hassan Whiteside for Carmelo Anthony. They threw dirt on the season before it was confirmed dead.
It’s February, and — sorry! — South Florida sports kinda suck. The Marlins are months from returning and will probably be bad when they do. The Heat is driving its tank in the wrong direction. The Panthers aren’t anything to write home about. And football is finally leaving us for good following this weekend’s Super Bowl.
Uncle Luke predicts the Liberty City kid will be Super Bowl MVP.
Florida legislators have long fought efforts to expand gambling. But apparently, their steadfast morals vanish when it comes to daily fantasy sports websites such as the controversial FanDuel and DraftKings. Once again, a lawmaker has filed a bill to make daily fantasy sports sites – in which people bet real money on real athletes in real time – fully exempt from state gambling regulations.
We all agree that 2016 was an epic dumpster fire of a year. To be honest, it was more like 12 months of increasingly large dumpsters filled with increasingly terrible-smelling refuse being lit into ever-bigger pyres of reeking, flaming garbage. No one disputes this. However, some truly great things also happened right here in Miami in the past year. Before sending 2016 out with the drunken binge it deserves, let’s recall some of that good stuff.
Florida Panthers owner Vincent Viola could soon run an entire wing of the U.S. government. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Viola, a military veteran and low-profile New York billionaire, to serve as secretary of the Army. That job requires caring for the well-being of thousands of Americans who volunteer to do the hardest jobs, and serious empathy for those who develop mental illness in the service.
The Miami Dolphins are an NFL playoff team. What is an NFL playoff team, you might ask? It’s a team that plays all 17 regular-season games and then plays an additional matchup in a single-elimination tournament that concludes with a game between the final two remaining teams, called the “Super Bowl.”
It’s been a long, tough, and overall stinky sports year in South Florida. Thankfully, we have only a month left of a 2016 that has mostly brought us tears and heartache. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh left the Heat. Jose Fernandez tragically died. But it hasn’t all been bad in Miami sports. There have been moments of greatness that make even the worst of times not so bad.
The Miami Dolphins have not lost a football game in 45 days. Think about that. Their last loss came to the Tennessee Titans October 9, the same day as the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. All that stands between the Dolphins and a six-game winning streak is the 1-9 San Francisco 49ers, the worst team in the NFL not named the Cleveland Browns.
Florida is a hotbed for football talent, young and old. Many of Miami’s high schools are basically factories for college football programs and, by proxy, the National Football League. When players retire, many of them choose to buy mansions on the South Florida coast. And because the state is crammed with retired NFL players, it’s a mecca for both football-related wealth and injuries.
The greatest athlete in the history of South Florida sports history returned to his house last night, and what a night it was. For one evening, at least, all was back to normal along the bay. Dwyane Wade was back on the Miami Heat’s floor for a home game…
The Miami Dolphins are a .500 football team. Hi, haters! Since the funeral everyone held for the team following its 30-17 loss to the Tennessee Titans October 9, the Dolphins have won three straight, catapulting themselves to the top of the pack of teams hunting for that last AFC wildcard spot.
Four games and almost one week into the Miami Heat season, fans now have a better idea of what kind of team they’re cheering on. For better or worse, the chips are starting to fall and a clearer image of the team is taking form.
Tonight is Halloween, which means you have a legitimate reason to go to clubbing on a Monday, and you need a killer topical costume to show off how cool and clever you are on social media. A last-minute banana suit from a pop-up costume shop simply won’t do.
Jose Fernandez had cocaine and high levels of alcohol in his blood when he likely piloted his boat into a rock jetty just off Miami Beach last month, killing himself and two passengers. That’s the finding of the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner in a report just released to the press.
The Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills 28-25 Sunday behind a 200-yard rusher, a tough defense, and a clutch, deep-bomb touchdown pass. It might or might not be a coincidence this happened the same day The Walking Dead returned.
College students are America’s future. They’re the brightest hope we’ve got — statistically speaking, they’re among the most tolerant and friendly people in America. They study physics and poetry, shave their heads and start punk bands, and get pissed off about microaggressions and trigger warnings. A small percentage of them,…
As evidenced by the Miami Dolphins shocking 30-15 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers this past weekend, there is a reason the phrase “any given Sunday” is so popular. Any NFL team can beat any other team on any week, and that really isn’t all that surprising once the initial shock…
