Florida doesn’t deserve the Marlins, so how about Mexico City? or Japan?

Larry Brown Sports pointed me to an article which said that there may have been only 200 fans to see the end of a Florida Marlins game on Monday.

Obviously, that’s an extreme on the low end, but the Marlins have averaged only 16,791 fans per game, only 500 away from Tampa Bay for the worst mark in the majors

I don’t mind when historically inept franchises like Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay or Kansas City fail to draw crowds. If your team’s been bad for a decade, you don’t have to show up and support it.

But this is the Marlins, winners of two World Series in the last decade. It’s ridiculous that a successful franchise is among the lowest in attendance, when others who haven’t won in decades continue to draw crowds. In 2003, when the Marlins won it all, they were 15th out of 16 NL teams in attendance, averaging fewer fans than they are this season.

I know they’re having an off year, but they happen, and they were competitive a year ago. It’s not like Miami is a really small market, it’s 16th in the U.S.

My first instinct when I heard this story was that it could be good for them to move somewhere, but there’s nowhere for them to move. This Wikipedia list is handy, and shows that the biggest U.S. markets that don’t have an MLB team are Orlando (close to Tampa) and Sacramento (close to San Francisco and Oakland, the latter of which doesn’t draw well either).

So let’s have some fun. Cities the Marlins could move to which would never happen, but would be fun:

1. Mexico City — Their population is huge (8 million in city, 19 in surrounding area), and if you look at a map, it’s really not that far from Houston, Arizona or San Diego from a plane. Why not add some Mexican flavor to the game. Assuming the tickets weren’t way too expensive, the stadium could be packed every night. And having a team in Mexico City would make it even easier for players to obtain steroids and HGH. Ole!

2. Havanna, Cuba — Why not take my craziness one step further? Is Cuba really our enemy any more? We know they love baseball there. With so many Cuban players coming to the U.S, and a location not that far away, why not?

3. Las Vegas — The market probably couldn’t support a team, but it’d be funny to have a baseball team in Vegas, just for the potential stories that could come from it.

4. A third team in the New York or Los Angeles area — those baseball-crazy markets are easily big enough to support three teams. Why not start more local rivalries?

5. Japan — This would be a logistical nightmare, so the Devil Rays would probably have to go with the Marlins (and maybe start a couple of expansion teams there to give them their own division). But after the U.S., I’d say Japan is the biggest baseball fan-filled country there is. If this were to magically happen, we could have a true World Series.