David Glass in Kansas City, rest easy. Perhaps all it will take to avoid another season of ignominy is to convince Jeff Francoeur he’s not seeing his career waste away in Royals blue.

Robert Nutting in Pittsburgh, fear not. If the 2011 team does fail to finish over .500 again, will anyone really remember whether it was 18 or 19 consecutive seasons?

Whoever is in charge these days in Los Angeles, no worries. Just blame it all on another messy Hollywood divorce and wait for some movie studio to cough up a fat deal for the “inside story” and the filming rights fee to shoot at Dodger Stadium and in real Dodgers uniforms.

Those seeking to stash cash away using tax code loopholes, back-room double dealing and the occasional entertaining political extortion have nothing whatsoever to fear. For there is no possible way you could even be considered as the worst and most disastrous owner currently yanking the chain of loyal baseball fans.

That crown sits easily—and perhaps permanently—upon the head of one Jeffrey Loria. For there has never been a more objectionable individual or brilliantly destructive figure in baseball lore that has not only been allowed to get away wit it, but encouraged at every step.

The two most intriguing aspects of this story is not just that Loria has proven himself to be a consistently greedy and megalomaniacal fraud, but how easily he seems to control and dupe the people charged with reigning in his various schemes.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, and baseball fans themselves.

Suffice it to say the people in Baltimore are still rubbing magic talismans as thanks Loria never succeeded in buying the Orioles. While the current fan base may have little love for Peter Angelos, they need to continually revere one George Stamas.

A partner at the time with one of the most powerful law firms in Baltimore, Stamas helped Angelos put together the ownership group that would eventually buy the team out of bankruptcy. Loria also wanted to purchase the club and tried flaunting his art dealership cash bags in everyone’s face, but Stamas wasn’t fooled. He knew Loria was all talk and no substance and never gave him any credence in the negotiations.

Thankfully, neither did anyone else.

Those who grew up bathed in the history that was Montreal professional baseball still vividly remember how Loria told one bald-faced lie after another and single-handedly destroyed the franchise in record time: dumping exceptional players to insure more of the bottom line profit went into his pocket; recording one of the pettiest moves in sports ownership legend by discontinuing French language radio broadcasts to insure alienating and angering a majority of Expos fans; taking the podium in his first press conference as majority owner of the franchise and saying without the city paying for a new stadium, the team was history.

Three years later, with the help of Major League Baseball in what more than a few legal experts still view as a prime racketeering lawsuit that eventually was decided in arbitration, Loria successfully dumped the Expos and was handed the Florida Marlins.

There remains not one single doubt that Commissioner Bud Selig obviously reviewed every stitch of evidence and concluded no one was better to own and operate a franchise than Loria. It made perfect sense to award him a team that had already been built and destroyed by past ownership. Loria still knew next to nothing about running a sports franchise, and he bought the Marlins with the intent to do nothing more than flip them like a dilapidated home.

After all, Loria’s deal to buy the team from John Henry was approved by Bud and his cronies even before the contact was signed. While the pact has paid unimaginable dividends for the Boston Red Sox under Henry, it helped destroy the Expos franchise and gave Loria tacit permission to line his pockets again while having an uproarious laugh at the phrase, “In the best interests of baseball.”

There’s the real rub in all this. In the case of Selig, we already know the answer to how and why he has allowed Loria to still have his grubby and scheming handprints on anything above a hot dog stand outside the ball park.

It sits right there in the Little Havana section of Miami, bought and paid for by gullible taxpayers and their political hacks who insured its construction with backroom dealings that would make veteran Chicago Aldermen shake their heads in envy.

South Florida is a market baseball has no intention of surrendering. Despite pathetic attendance brought on by seasons of mismanagement, the Marlins reside in a top 20 television market. This means higher broadcast rights fees locally and increasing the value of every national broadcast contract.

As that area has recently jumped to No. 16 in the nation, this speaks to a growing population base. Miami is the largest city in the Southeastern US with more than 35 percent of the population of Hispanic origin, mostly from Cuban roots. Baseball remains the American major sport with the highest number of Latin players, and that becomes a marketing key for MLB. They will do what it takes to stay in South Florida.

That meant a new ballpark, replacing the multi-purpose stadium shared with the NFL Dolphins. Despite the fact almost 30 percent of the Miami population base lives below the poverty line, Selig and Loria knew they had the perfect corrupt city government to fleece a gullible electorate.

Carlos Alvarez is Mayor of Dade County, home to the City of Miami and where the new Marlins Stadium rises in preparation for the 2012 season. Alvarez ran such a blatantly corrupt government that he was forced out in a special recall election. One of the items top of the backdoor dealing list is that stadium.

Loria and cohorts pleaded baseball poverty, claiming to be constantly losing money and thus requiring Dade County and the City of Miami to either pay the majority of the stadium construction costs or lose the team to another city.

Sound familiar?

Despite Loria refusing to allow even a fleeting glance at the Marlins financials, the County eagerly voted to fund the bulk of the construction cost. And with good reason. Several reports revealed hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts being handed to those companies led by well-connected, political donors. Former Dade County Commission Chairman Bruno Barrerio pocketed some $40,000 from companies interested in bidding on the project.

After the deal had been solidified, leaked financial documents showing the Marlins—under Loria’s leadership—were making tidy profits in the years leading up to their claim of desperation for help from taxpayers to build their palace.

Loria scored big with the rubes in Miami. In a horrific economy, taxpayers were hooked for over $350 million to build the ballpark. Independent estimates note the increased value of the franchise thanks to their new stadium has added another $202 million to Loria’s initial investment.

And that ballpark, or the next shakedown project, will have the Marlins as the only tenant for at least the next 35 years.

Selig gets a solid franchise base even if attendance drops into double digits. Loria gets a product he can build just enough to have ready for the auction block when the economy recovers.

The key to every good con job is to find the right mark, the right target. Seek and ye shall always find the most gullible person or collection of bumpkins to fall for shiny baubles and promises of wealth.

Welcome to Miami, the city of crooks and suckers.

There is nothing illegal in what Loria did, at least not what anyone can prove at the moment. With bluster, obfuscation, half-truths and brilliant maneuvering, he has taken his place among history’s great con men. Frank Abagnale, Charles Ponzi, Victor Lustig and Bernie Madoff could learn more than a few lessons from Loria.

As the Marlins begin their seasonal fade early this year, thanks once again to Loria overseeing a roster built with some of the cheapest players he could find, he, as expected, blames everyone but himself. Edwin Rodriguez saw what was happening and how he would be torched for these failures and resigned as Manager to save his dignity and career.

Loria’s response?

Rehire 80-year-old Jack Mckeon as manager for the remainder of the season. A solid baseball man, but little more than a stopgap PR stunt. Loria once again holds everyone else accountable save himself, and has told the Marlins fan base this season is essentially over.

The message from Loria is simple. “Keep coming to the ballpark, everyone! We’ll spend plenty of money once the new ballpark opens! Promise! And that promise I made to spend that money right after the stadium was approved? Hey, not my fault the economy tanked! We’re going broke here, and all I want to do is ensure a winning team and plenty of jobs for everyone! Dammit people, I’m a savior here, not the bad guy!”

Selig currently flaunts the phrase, “best interests of baseball,” insuring Frank McCourt is forced to sell the LA Dodgers. This, as we conveniently forget, was Selig and his fellow owners who gave the blessing to McCourt as he financed the purchase not with assets and cash, but with debt that was destined to implode.

The best interests of baseball are squeezing as much money as possible out of weak-willed fans.

The best interests of Jeffrey Loria are no different.

I have this great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn, a tower in Paris, and a “can’t miss” stock deal guaranteeing 400 percent profit in less than one year.

Better start looking for office space in Miami.