As a former Miami resident and lifelong baseball fan, I’m delighted that the area’s politicians have finally approved construction of a stadium for the Marlins, thus assuring major league baseball will remain and likely prosper in South Florida.
As a former Miami resident and taxpayer, I’m disturbed that the public must bear most of the financial burden for building a projected $634 million facility that will enrich private owners and whose tickets likely will prove too costly for many lower-income folks to afford.
If this all sounds familiar, just change “Miami” to “Washington” and you’ll see why. The District, which sorely needs new schools, libraries and other public facilities, contributed hundreds of millions toward building Nationals Park. Ditto Miami, for better or worse.
Is this wrong? Of course, unless you consider rounders to be a necessity in any city that wants to be “major league,” whatever that means.
And is that concept wrong? It’s a subject that could be debated until world peace envelops the globe or the Nats win a pennant, whichever comes first.
As far as Miami is concerned, it’s good news that the new ballpark will be located on the downtown site of the Orange Bowl, within easy reach of many Latino citizens who can or care to pay $25 for an unreserved grandstand seat, $4 for a warmed-over hot dog and $7 for a watery brew.
The club’s current home - known variously as Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Stadium or Dolphin Stadium - is 14 miles north near the Dade-Broward county line. Like most multipurpose digs built in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s, it’s fine for football and horrible for baseball, especially when its upper decks are closed off for what used to be called the national pastime.
Construction on the park is scheduled to start this summer and be completed in time for the 2012 season. No less than 16 years of political hassling and haggling preceded affirmative recent votes by city and Dade County commissioners.
In keeping with today’s trend toward cozy ballparks, the place will seat just 37,000 and come with a retractable roof that’s essential in a tropical climate where summer showers often appear and disappear every 10 minutes.
And, thank heavens, the team will be called the Miami Marlins, restoring a proud minor league name that endured until the city’s Class A franchise vanished in 1988. The handle “Florida Marlins” might have been OK when the club began play as the state’s only major league team in 1993. Now, as you may have heard, there’s a big league club on Florida’s west coast. Matter of fact, the Tampa Bay Rays won the American League pennant last season.
Personally, I hate teams that use the name of a state instead of a city. It made sense when the original Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961 and represented both Minneapolis and St. Paul, but the appearance of the “California” Angels later that decade confused me more than the balk rule. What, had the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants moved back to Noo Yawk?
Although our family left Miami before the Marlins arrived, I’ve always felt a kinship because I know how excited I would have been at their birth. And they’ve been an exciting, if inconsistent, franchise that won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. If you’re scoring at home, that’s one fewer title than the Orioles have collected in 55 seasons and one more than two versions of the Senators nabbed in 71.
True, two sets of owners held fire sales afterward, but the Marlins are still a worthwhile club with one of baseball’s best young players in shortstop Hanley Ramirez. So I won’t be rooting against them too hard when the Nats open the season at accursed Dolphin Stadium on Monday.
Back when I lived there, the almighty Dolphins and Don Shula dominated a South Florida sports scene that had no major league baseball, basketball or hockey franchises, nor a men’s basketball program at the University of Miami. As far as baseball was concerned, spring training was it. The Miami Herald stated the case very well in a 1982 headline: “When the season begins, the season ends.”
Now the situation is very different and much more enjoyable for some fans in that troubled metropolis. The new ballpark won’t solve other problems, but at least it should bolster baseball in an area that should be a horsehide hotbed.
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