Marlins Park

This year I was able to get two trips in just to see parks. The Marlins just opened this park last year and brought in some fairly high-priced talent. Expectations were high. After all, this franchise has a history of pulling together great teams for a World Series season with a fire sale the following year. The 2012 season was not kind to the Marlins so the owner had the fire sale early – mid-season to be exact. Considering what the community [taxpayers] did to get this park built the fans were angry at the sending all of their good players to Toronto or Los Angeles for a handful of prospects. The prevailing thought was the owner just brought in players just so he could get the ballpark. So now we are in late June of the 2013 season and the Marlins have the worst record in baseball. Fans are staying away in droves.

Before I go on, let’s get one thing straight: this is a mediocre ballpark. There are several reasons why I draw this conclusion.

On the plus side:

The stadium has free Wi-Fi. This is probably the direction all stadiums should be moving towards. I had a good connection. Of course most of the seats were empty, but it was still nice.

The seats were comfortable with adequate legroom.

The retractable roof was closed. At first I was a little outraged to be watching indoor baseball when it wasn’t raining. However, considering how hot and humid it was – I had no complaints about being in air conditioning.

On the downside:

The exterior is exceptionally bland. There is no grand entrance. I asked a few employees where the best place to get a picture would be. No one had an answer. Finally one person said, “The only sign outside the park that says ‘Marlins Park’ is on the roof. You can see it from the freeway. But when you go inside, there’s a huge sign that says Marlins Park.” Inside it does say Marlins Park, but the letters aren’t that big plus they’re right under a bank of floodlights making it difficult to see. I suspect they might be trying to keep the walls clean for when they sell the naming rights.

The prevailing interior color is a God-awful lime green. It’s like they painted it to be the green-screen similar to what they use in TV. Perhaps the local broadcasts put an entertaining background up for viewers since what’s on the field isn’t.

The seats don’t angle towards home plate. This is a stadium built primarily for baseball, not dual-purpose. There is no excuse for this.

Lastly the ushers and vendors are hit and miss. We had a great conversation with two ushers, but later I asked a guy selling cotton candy if he liked the new park. He replied, “I don’t give a f**k about this place.” 

Some other unique features about the stadium:

They have a bobblehead “museum”. This is essentially a large display case on the lower level concourse on the first-base side.

They boast a large…thing in center field that has cartoon Marlins jumping [rotating] after a Marlins home run. It is as ugly in person as it appears on TV.

The fish tanks behind home plate are only accessible to persons with tickets in the first 7 rows behind the plate. We got there as gates opened for the second game and they wouldn’t let me get close. It is hard for me to judge if the tanks are nice as I was not rich/famous enough to have access.

There is a Clevelander Club in left field. We tried to go in there before the game and they wanted a $10 cover charge just to walk in a look. “We’re a full-service club sir!” This is just another place for people who aren’t interested in the game to hangout and be seen. 

I flew down on a Tuesday morning and attended the game that night. I met up with my friend John in Boca Raton so we could get to the new Marlins Park and take a day trip to see Tropicana [which was a new park for John]. I usually buy tickets in advance but we didn’t know how many people would be attending the game. To be prepared I went to the online ticket resellers and didn’t see many tickets available. Just out of curiosity I went to the Marlins website to see what was available and saw that everything was available. We ended up scalping tickets but probably over-paid just a little bit. After we got inside we found out it was 2-for-1 night. But the good news is we got into our seats by the first pitch. The Marlins were 25-50 entering the night. Odds of seeing 2 victories for the home team: about 11.1%. This was going to be my lucky trip as the Marlins won both games. 

The Tuesday night game was against the Twins and then we came back on Saturday night for another game against the Padres. Minnesota was expecting to be competitive but not a dominant team. They have Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau but that’s about all you can say for “star power”. The Padres were over-performing when we saw them. Meaning no one expects them to contend for the division, but they were in second place at the time. 

The second game was “Venezuela night” When the usher told us this we asked what were they going to do to commemorate this? “Nothing” But Oscar D’Leon was there who I understand is somewhat popular [el diablo de la salsa!]. They let him throw the first pitch. Later they tried to interview him between innings and he spoke in Spanish [which is fine] but the audio was so bad that no one understood him. His post-game concert was in the pavilion near the home plate entrance, not in the park. Meaning you didn’t have to waste your money on a baseball ticket if you just wanted to hear Oscar.

The park was empty on a Saturday night – even for Venezuela night. Two rows in front of us remained empty the entire game. One section left of that [towards home plate] there were three rows that were empty until the 5^th inning when four 21 yo’s showed up. Two stayed for half an inning then proceeded to go back and forth to the bar for more drinks. I would be surprised if they knew which teams were playing – or cared.

When you leave the park, we must have picked the worst entrance/exit for the freeway. Once you get onto the freeway, you need to cross four lanes to get into the left-exit for 95-north. I’m guessing a popular route for many fans. Of course the far left lane is stop & go while the lanes you need to cross are moving at 60 mph. If the Marlins get popular, someone is going to get killed trying to merge.

One more thing I want to mention. During BP a guy got hit in the head with a foul ball while he was talking on his cell phone. He never missed a beat with his call. The usher took him to first aid [after his call] and he came back with better seats, a Marlins T-shirt, and an autographed baseball. Darwin was wrong.

UPDATE July 2016: I attended SABR 46 in Miami and attended two games. The first was the SABR outing. Before the game they held a Q&A session with Don Mattingly, Barry Bonds, Andre Dawson, and Tony Perez. This would have been awesome except for the idiot asking the questions. For example, he managed to avoid asking Andre Dawson any questions about Andre Dawson. Additionally the guy who designed the stadium talked about that process. For the games, they were poorly attended by any standard. When considering that Ichiro Suzuki was at 2998 hits the crowds can officially be called pathetic. Sadly Ichiro did not get to 3000 while I was there. The Cardinals were in town and neither team was expected to make the post-season. St. Louis took the first game 11-6. Miami took revenge the next night winning 11-0. Of note in the second game, newly acquired pitcher Colin Rea made his first and only start for the Marlins. He left the game after 3+ IP. It turned out the Padres neglected to tell the Marlins about his injuries. He was sent back to SD the next day. 
wrong.

Sky Dome / Rogers Centre

I took a three-day weekend this year to visit Toronto and the Rogers Centre. Sky Dome was completed in 1989 at a cost around 570M CAD. By comparison, other baseball stadia built in this era included Tropicana Field in 1990 for $130M, New Commiskey in 1991 for $130M USD, and Camden Yard in 1992 for $110M USD. Since the exchange rate around this time was 1 USD = 1.05 CAD that means Sky Dome cost over $100M more than the next three ballparks combined. Of course Sky Dome had a retractable roof which was still a relatively new innovation for sports stadiums. Also note that Olympic Stadium in Montreal had a retractable roof at a higher cost than Sky Dome, but Olympic stadium was built for the Olympics. [aptly named!] One final note I will mention, Sky Dome was the last baseball stadium designed to be dual purpose with football and is one of the two remaining major league parks to co-occupy with a professional football team. Other stadiums can be configured for football games but are not intended for a full time NLF [or CFL] team. 

My friend and I decided to stay at the hotel connected to the ballpark. We opted not to get one of the rooms that look into the park at triple the rate of the normal rooms. We attended two games against the Texas Rangers. Over the past few seasons, Texas has put together some good seasons. Toronto has been struggling in part due to being in the division with the biggest arms race [Yankees & Red Sox] making it hard to compete. This was going to be their big breakout season. Boston was terrible last year, the Yankees were starting to look their age, and the Marlins conducted a fire sale at the end of last year sending everyone of value to the Blue Jays. There were high hopes in Canada! As we approach the All Star break, it turns out getting everyone of value off a last place team doesn’t have the kind of impact they were hoping for. The Blue Jays look like they might finish in last in their division. Their roster looks pretty good on paper with RA Dickey coming off a Cy Young season, Jose Reyes, and Melky Cabrera. Texas is living up to expectations and is battling for first place in their division. They ‘lost’ Josh Hamilton in the off season to free agency but it turns out he is under-producing in Anaheim. The Rangers have Yu Darvish and Joe Nathan. A great ace and reliever – but beyond that they are achieving success with good players and no superstars.

The first game we saw was Tepesch for the Rangers against ‘Staff’. Apparently the scheduled Toronto starter couldn’t make the start s they let the bullpen pitch the whole game – and they pitched great. One run on four hits/one walk. Tepesch looked pretty good too until he melted down in the sixth inning. The Blue Jays handled this one easily. The whole game took 2:10 to complete. 

The second game was Mark Buehrle against Yu Darvish. The Jays looked strong early. Colby Rasmus hit a line drive into center scoring two. Rasmus ended up scoring too on a throwing error. Things were cruising along until they Rangers scored one in the 8^th and were two outs away from winning when back-to-back RBI’s at bats tied the game. The bullpens both stood up and pitched great. In the bottom of the 18^th inning Emilio Bonifacio hits a one out single and later advances to third on a bad pickoff attempt that went to the backstop. Rajai Davis gets the game winning base hit to end it. This turns out to be the longest game ever in Toronto. [The Expos had a few games that went longer.]

A few more notes about the stadium.

·        The stadium is relatively quiet. There is very little noise or sound clips coming over the PA system. Even the vendors don’t yell. They just walk to the bottom of the stairs and look to see if anyone waves them over to buy beer, pretzels, etc.

·        For the 7^th inning stretch they have this “Let’s Go Blue Jays” song with calisthenics. And the fans are doing the exercises! This is definitely not a Philadelphia crowd. They also have a 17^th inning stretch + calisthenics.

·        The fans represent their team well. Most people wore jerseys or T-shirts with player names. Among the jerseys we saw with current and former players, we noted; Alomar, Bell, Carter, Stieb, Halladay, Lawrie, Delgado, Stairs, Fielder, Hentgen, AJ Burnett, Gruber, and a Clemens. I was hoping to see a Fernandez jersey but was denied.

·        For some reason I cannot explain, Blue Jay fans have a love affair with Munenori Kawasaki. The crowd went nuts every time he came to the plate. He’s also hitting just over .200 and doesn’t seem that strong defensively.

·        Finally, the CN Tower is adjacent to the stadium. We took the elevators to the top observation deck. Not the big round thing but where the color goes from concrete gray to white. [That’s an additional 33 stories above the big observation deck.] While we were up here they opened the dome. While I can’t technically call this one of the parks I was ‘in’ while the roof was opening, I was kind of in their airspace.