https://baseballfireside.com/fireside-baseball-intro/
It Was Once fun…Until It Wasn’t.
As you know by reading this blog, I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan. When I moved to South Florida I embraced the new expansion Florida Marlins franchise when it started in 1993. I adopted them as my National League team. They played at then called Pro Player Stadium where the Miami Dolphins played. I didn’t expect much from a new team, but then one fall morning in 1997 I woke up to a World Series championship team. My Sox never did this because they were adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Marlins had gotten a walk off single at home in Game 7 of the Series against the then named Cleveland Indians. That large football stadium held 67,000 fans that night. Miami celebrated and the investment by owner Wayne Huizenga in bankrolling star players like Moises Alou, Kevin Brown, and Gary Sheffield paid off…except Huizenga didn’t think so…until he did.
What Huizenga did was the equivalent of buying stock, seeing a sharp drop in prices, and selling without giving it a chance to mature over the long run. The ’98 Marlins could have played over at the University of Miami’s Mark Light Stadium and risked not filling it up. The fans weren’t as dumb or as masochistic as Huizenga imagined they’d be. The saw the minor league team the Marlins put out on the field and made selling out Pro Player a fond memory.
2003: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Art dealer and former Montreal Expos owner (red flag!) Jeffrey Luria bought the Marlins in 2002. The Marlins then went on to win their second World Series in 11 seasons. Yet Luria decided enough winning was enough. Like Huizenga, he traded star players like Miguel Cabrera (a future Triple Crown winner) and pitcher Josh Beckett. The Marlins have not only failed to win another Series since then, they have just won a grand total of one playoff game. Fans had enough to deal with going to Pro Player Stadium. The had to watch a losing team along while sitting in heat, humidity, and rain delays.
Marlins Park
To boost attendance and provide a baseball friendly atmosphere, the team built Marlins Park which opened in 2012. Well, the public mostly built it. The Marlins paid roughly 20% of the costs. The City of Miami and Miami-Dade County covered the rest through bonds. Fittingly, with the current lack of attendance, the stadium has been renamed Loan Depot Park. The park itself is a winner in terms of providing comfort and a beautiful view of the city skyline while eliminating the tropical heat and showers. It is a state of the art facility with a retractable roof and air conditioning. It’s only drawback was the home run sign in left-center field that would light up after the home team went yard. It looked like a Beatles psychedelic knock off of its Yellow Submarine–and this coming from an art dealer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWzkVMLK5Y8
Thankfully this was eventually removed. Luria felt this new park would be enough to save the franchise. Unfortunately he was allergic to spending on recruiting and retaining star players.
The Last Straw
With the Marlins not winning or contending for a title, the main reason to go to the park was to cheer on the stars they actually had remaining. In 2017 Giancarlo Stanton hit 59 homers, and had two games left to hit the magical 60 mark. The crowds were good and were excited to see if a Marlins player could get into the small exclusive 60 homer club started by Babe Ruth in 1927. While Stanton fell short of 60, it was still thrilling to watch him take his cuts in pursuit of this goal. He was voted NL MVP that season. Yet rather than continue to pay him the remainder of his $325 million dollar contract, the Marlins (under new owner Bruce Sherman) soon traded him to the Yankees. They also traded young and promising OF Christian Yelich to the Brewers. In 2018 he succeeded Stanton as NL MVP. In return the Marlins got baseball “immortals” Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison, Isan Diaz, and Jordan Yamamoto. If that wasn’t bad enough they also traded All-Star Marcel Ozuna (.312 BA, 37 HR, 124 RBI) to rub salt in the wound. At that point I dropped the Marlins as my NL team and put my whole energies back into my AL Red Sox, who since the Marlins 2003 title have won four of their own (2004, 2007 ,2013, 2018).
The Beat Goes On
Since then the Marlins have validated my abandonment. They are like a spouse you divorced for cheating on you, only to find out they continue to cheat on their current spouse(s). In 2024 they traded All-Stars Jazz Chisholm, Tanner Scott, and two time NL batting champ Luis Arraez. The excuse usually given is they want to trade to develop young (cheap and unproven) “talent” to “rebuild.” Wrong! They want to keep the payroll low. Marlins Park on most nights can’t fill Mark Light Stadium no matter what official attendance figures they report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWhyPOKXaM
Please click your thoughts in the comments section, especially if you’re a disillusioned Marlins fan!