There Is No Miami Marlins Legends Hall of Fame Without Dave Dombrowski

Remember those times the Miami Marlins won the World Series?

Neither one of those championships in 1997 or 2003 happen without the fine work of former general manager Dave Dombrowski.

There's just no sugarcoating that fact. While a case could be made for founding owner Wayne Huizenga, or perhaps even their first team president in Carl Barger, no one did more to shape the first decade plus of Miami Marlins baseball than Dombrowski. A decade plus that was without question an era where the team enjoyed its greatest success.

All of which makes Dombrowski an absolute must for admission into the Miami Marlins Legends Hall of Fame.

Is it a slight case of bad optics that Dombrowski is actively working to defeat the Marlins at least thirteen times this season in his capacity as acting general manager of the NL East rival Philadelphia Phillies? Perhaps, although not as bad as the optics would be for putting in a Huizenga or Jeffrey Loria- owners who oversaw a championship only to go on to order at least one firesale. Indeed it is out of the ashes of that first and most devastating Marlins firesale that Dombrowski's greatest claim for admission into Miami's Legends Hall can be made.

Winning a World Series is no easy thing even under the best of circumstances- something Dombrowski knows all too well after forty years working in MLB front offices. In all that time, he can only put two World Series officially on his resume, that first Marlins title in 1997 and a 2018 championship with the Boston Red Sox. Yet even though the Marlins never had a winning season again under Dombrowski's watch once Huizenga told him to take a wrecking ball to the 1997 champs, he went right to work building up the core of the 2003 team.

Case in point? Only three members of the regular starting lineup for the Marlins in that 2003 postseason weren't directly obtained by Dombrowski, and only Pudge Rodriguez wasn't added to Miami's roster because of a trade involving assets Dombrowski had acquired. So his fingers are all over that 2003 trophy in addition to the one he got a chance to lift himself in 1997.

Miguel Cabrera? Signed under Dombrowski. Dontrelle Willis? Acquired for a player Dombrowski signed. Same with Juan Pierre. Come to think of it, if you're tired of reliving those championship glory days, the same even goes for Hanley Ramirez. Remember, the Marlins only ended up with him in exchange for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell- two Marlins icons, and two more notches on Dombrowski's belt.

Plus, as has been well established by this point, every Marlins player from 1993 through 2001.

Again, there's just no argument to be made against this. The Marlins couldn't have done any better with the first four names they put into their Legends Hall of Fame- Jeff Conine, Jim Leyland, Luis Castillo, and Jack McKeon. Marlins greats through and through, without question.

The only thing that would make more sense is the Marlins putting the name responsible for three of those four names being there in the first place right alongside them.

Time to make Dave Dombrowski a member of the Miami Marlins Legends Hall of Fame.