It's because he's a Marlin. 

And the fact that when he tried to self-dye his hair blond yesterday, it turned red, makes Hanley Ramirez the quintessential Marlin. The Marliniest Marlin that ever Marlined from beneath the Krusty the Klown-iest looking orange poof at which we've ever laughed.

"Hanley told me he did that because he's going to be en fuego the next five weeks," said manager Edwin Rodriguez last night at the 'do's debut, taking the ridiculous situtation from every ninth grade girl's hair debacle to an absolutely hysterical mishap.

Because of course the 63-62 Marlins find themselves in a situation in which players think dying their hair might make a difference. Ownership already changed managers, and that didn't help. They were caught with their fat fingers in the cookie jar, too, and that didn't help, either: they just signed a few players to longer contracts, and went on losing.

Then they were caught with whole hands in the cookie batter, riding high on the coat tails of a team purchased for free and made to subsidize its owner while the county ponied up.

Poor is rich, good players get no help, and blond turns red on the head of the superstar trying to style himself into a straw-topped winning streak.

And it actually worked, for at least a night, as Han-Ram went 4-for-5 with a run and an RBI as the Marlins beat the Mets 5-4.

Short of everything that has to do with Jeffrey Loria, we wouldn't have it any other way. So Hanley Ramirez now looks like an orange frosted Pedo bear -- isn't that the sort of thing that keeps the Fish lovable in the face of failure? 

We say yes. If they can't be the Yankees -- and thank goodness for that -- they can at least be the sort of team that sports a fuzzy orange tootsie pop at shortstop, the sort of team that loses its Rookie of the Year in a pie-facing incident, and the sort of team that downsizes its clubhouse candy selection to a single choice of gummi bears.

The sort of team with a guy on the roster who'll show up looking like that and still ask, straightfaced, "I want to hear the opinion from the fans, what do they think. Should I keep it?"

Absolutely. It makes us laugh every single time we think of it -- and without distractions like that, there'd be tears.

Janie Campbell is a Florida native who believes in the pro-set and ballpark hot dogs. Her work has appeared in irreverent sports sites around the internet.