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How an early stint with the Marlins influenced Craig Counsell's career as a player and manager

Lynne Sladky/AP Photos

MIAMI – It’s been 27 years since a young Craig Counsell, the Florida Marlins logo emblazoned across his pinstriped chest, stepped in the batter’s box in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series. Even now, so far removed from that moment with the tying run on third, there was no way he could forget what was going through his mind.

“I was just telling myself, ‘Swing,’” Counsell recalled in a conversation with the Sun-Times this weekend, as the Cubs took on the Marlins in a three-game series.