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Goodbye to a ballpark: Looking back at the Marlins’ tenure in Sun Life Stadium
By Dan Le Batard
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
Funny, the things you remember, faded but alive, like paging through photographs in an old scrapbook:
Center fielder Chuck Carr, always wearing a leather jacket with his face painted on the back. Second baseman Bret Barberie, talking about why he was still a virgin. Shortstop Walt Weiss, teaching me about Warren Zevon. Manager Rene Lachemann, storming across the clubhouse in his underwear to yell at me. Catcher Benito Santiago, looking through a rich man’s catalog, trying to buy a dog that was blue.
Leathery ol’ Charlie Hough, surrounded by so much young and serious ambition, emerging from the trainer’s room with an ever-present cigarette tucked inside his smile. Backup catcher Bob Natal, introducing me to the writing of Michael Crichton. Big, burly pitcher Jack Armstrong, showing off his lovely singing voice with the aid of the echoing acoustics in the bathroom. Trevor Hoffman, so young then, 601 saves ago, coming out of the bullpen with his cap pulled super low on his head to face Barry Bonds because he was scared and trying to hide. Orestes Destrade and Jeff Conine and Rich Renteria and Dave Magadan, genuinely trying to help me be better at my job.
What I’ll remember most, though, is that I grew up there. It was my first sports home.
I wasn’t ready, of course. I was a kid, a rookie being asked to be Major League. I had one thing in common with the 1993 Marlins: We were both new to the game. They lost a lot, and I was lost a lot, but you always remember the place you did your growing, right? I was raised a few blocks from the ballpark, in Miramar, a kid with a paper route who wanted to become those guys whose work I kept tossing on neighborhood lawns. And now I was in the big leagues a few blocks from my childhood, talking to a last-place team’s second baseman about his virginity, but in the big leagues nonetheless. I didn’t much care that it was actually a football stadium. You don’t notice the furniture in your best dreams.
Years later, my mother would struggle to leave that old house on Granada Boulevard. But, Mom, I said, it is just drywall and a ceiling. The best stuff, you always take with you, and it stays with you forever. And isn’t that where we are today, as the Marlins have outgrown the rundown home of their birth? They play their final home game there Wednesday, but nobody is going to get unnecessarily romantic. Only the box and wrapping and ribbons are left behind. The gifts, we take with us.
It is kind of a sad dump for baseball now, truth be told, too empty too often and too wet, too. Nobody will much miss it, even though a lot of good stuff happened in that place. Everything ages, and what once was modern is now merely spent, and not in the valuable way of antiques or heirlooms, either. But there are two precious jewels in that dumpster, forever. That has to make Cubs fans insane, that you can go to Wrigley Field and find no such jewels in that treasure chest.
I’ve been covering football and baseball games for almost two decades in that stadium near my childhood — wow, that’s a lot of bad football and baseball — but there are two that stay with me more than the others. The Super Bowls? No. The World Series? No.
One was going to the park on a whim with my father, for his birthday, a last-minute decision, just he and I. I almost always went to the stadium to work, not to have fun, though I suppose my livelihood makes those two things synonymous. And, if we did go as fans, it was with family and friends in tow. But on this night Dad wanted to go with just me, so we bought two tickets, sat in some seats behind home plate, ate peanuts, laughed and started punching each other in the arm and elbowing each other as the outs accumulated at the end. There were plenty of seats available. It was a meaningless regular-season game. But the birthday gift turned out more priceless and memorable than any other. It was the only Marlins game my father and I have attended alone, just the two of us. And we couldn’t quite believe that Anibal Sanchez chose that night to throw his no-hitter.
I can’t imagine how many of the fathers and sons know how good that kind of sharing feels, sports as a glue that bonds generations, and I can’t imagine how many times two of the seats in that building held that feeling.
The other game was even more personal, believe it or not. Most people around here will remember 1997 for the Game 7 triumph in the World Series, Craig Counsell hitting home plate and lifting all of South Florida off the ground, but that was just the punctuation for me, not statement. Liván Hernández, a Cuban symbol, let me into his life during that playoff run, allowing me to trail him in the streets and at home as Miami fell in love with him and his tale. This was before he fell to his knees in the outfield grass shouting, "I love you, Miami!" in an accented English familiar to all of South Florida. His was a uniquely Cuban and uniquely Miami story. He came over alone, defecting in search of a better life, and his mother couldn’t sleep at night back in Cuba, having actual nightmares about her little boy scared in the United States streets, carrying his luggage and lost. But he built a world for himself here, and Fidel let his mother come over to enjoy it, something that would have never happened had the Marlins not kept winning. To me, the national anthem echoed a little louder on those nights he pitched, especially the World Series evening when his mother was in the skybox and Liván whispered to me through a smile that she’d never be going back to Cuba, the American dream and his dream coming together on a diamond, baseball the bridge to freedom.
The day he beat magician Greg Maddux in the playoffs, striking out 15, pitching a complete game with the aid of a generous umpire, well, that’s as emotional as I’ve ever been covering a sporting event. Aspiring to objectivity, with tears stinging in my eyes. My parents are Cuban exiles, stronger than I’ll ever be, sacrificing so much so I never would. Hernández told their story that day, sports as metaphor, overcoming all obstacles with will and passion and fight and courage and spirit and hope and help. He stood triumphant at the center of my first sports home, blocks away from my childhood, and he pounded on his heart. His moment. Our moment. I don’t remember the score or any of the other details, but I remember exactly how he looked and exactly the feeling that brought. All these years later, I still can’t keep it down. It wells up in my eyes as I type these words.
Alas, it is time to take all those pictures off the wall now. Pack them up today. The trucks have arrived. Look back and say goodbye one final time.
Time to move.
A moving time.
By Dan Le Batard
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
Funny, the things you remember, faded but alive, like paging through photographs in an old scrapbook:
Center fielder Chuck Carr, always wearing a leather jacket with his face painted on the back. Second baseman Bret Barberie, talking about why he was still a virgin. Shortstop Walt Weiss, teaching me about Warren Zevon. Manager Rene Lachemann, storming across the clubhouse in his underwear to yell at me. Catcher Benito Santiago, looking through a rich man’s catalog, trying to buy a dog that was blue.
Leathery ol’ Charlie Hough, surrounded by so much young and serious ambition, emerging from the trainer’s room with an ever-present cigarette tucked inside his smile. Backup catcher Bob Natal, introducing me to the writing of Michael Crichton. Big, burly pitcher Jack Armstrong, showing off his lovely singing voice with the aid of the echoing acoustics in the bathroom. Trevor Hoffman, so young then, 601 saves ago, coming out of the bullpen with his cap pulled super low on his head to face Barry Bonds because he was scared and trying to hide. Orestes Destrade and Jeff Conine and Rich Renteria and Dave Magadan, genuinely trying to help me be better at my job.
What I’ll remember most, though, is that I grew up there. It was my first sports home.
I wasn’t ready, of course. I was a kid, a rookie being asked to be Major League. I had one thing in common with the 1993 Marlins: We were both new to the game. They lost a lot, and I was lost a lot, but you always remember the place you did your growing, right? I was raised a few blocks from the ballpark, in Miramar, a kid with a paper route who wanted to become those guys whose work I kept tossing on neighborhood lawns. And now I was in the big leagues a few blocks from my childhood, talking to a last-place team’s second baseman about his virginity, but in the big leagues nonetheless. I didn’t much care that it was actually a football stadium. You don’t notice the furniture in your best dreams.
Years later, my mother would struggle to leave that old house on Granada Boulevard. But, Mom, I said, it is just drywall and a ceiling. The best stuff, you always take with you, and it stays with you forever. And isn’t that where we are today, as the Marlins have outgrown the rundown home of their birth? They play their final home game there Wednesday, but nobody is going to get unnecessarily romantic. Only the box and wrapping and ribbons are left behind. The gifts, we take with us.
It is kind of a sad dump for baseball now, truth be told, too empty too often and too wet, too. Nobody will much miss it, even though a lot of good stuff happened in that place. Everything ages, and what once was modern is now merely spent, and not in the valuable way of antiques or heirlooms, either. But there are two precious jewels in that dumpster, forever. That has to make Cubs fans insane, that you can go to Wrigley Field and find no such jewels in that treasure chest.
I’ve been covering football and baseball games for almost two decades in that stadium near my childhood — wow, that’s a lot of bad football and baseball — but there are two that stay with me more than the others. The Super Bowls? No. The World Series? No.
One was going to the park on a whim with my father, for his birthday, a last-minute decision, just he and I. I almost always went to the stadium to work, not to have fun, though I suppose my livelihood makes those two things synonymous. And, if we did go as fans, it was with family and friends in tow. But on this night Dad wanted to go with just me, so we bought two tickets, sat in some seats behind home plate, ate peanuts, laughed and started punching each other in the arm and elbowing each other as the outs accumulated at the end. There were plenty of seats available. It was a meaningless regular-season game. But the birthday gift turned out more priceless and memorable than any other. It was the only Marlins game my father and I have attended alone, just the two of us. And we couldn’t quite believe that Anibal Sanchez chose that night to throw his no-hitter.
I can’t imagine how many of the fathers and sons know how good that kind of sharing feels, sports as a glue that bonds generations, and I can’t imagine how many times two of the seats in that building held that feeling.
The other game was even more personal, believe it or not. Most people around here will remember 1997 for the Game 7 triumph in the World Series, Craig Counsell hitting home plate and lifting all of South Florida off the ground, but that was just the punctuation for me, not statement. Liván Hernández, a Cuban symbol, let me into his life during that playoff run, allowing me to trail him in the streets and at home as Miami fell in love with him and his tale. This was before he fell to his knees in the outfield grass shouting, "I love you, Miami!" in an accented English familiar to all of South Florida. His was a uniquely Cuban and uniquely Miami story. He came over alone, defecting in search of a better life, and his mother couldn’t sleep at night back in Cuba, having actual nightmares about her little boy scared in the United States streets, carrying his luggage and lost. But he built a world for himself here, and Fidel let his mother come over to enjoy it, something that would have never happened had the Marlins not kept winning. To me, the national anthem echoed a little louder on those nights he pitched, especially the World Series evening when his mother was in the skybox and Liván whispered to me through a smile that she’d never be going back to Cuba, the American dream and his dream coming together on a diamond, baseball the bridge to freedom.
The day he beat magician Greg Maddux in the playoffs, striking out 15, pitching a complete game with the aid of a generous umpire, well, that’s as emotional as I’ve ever been covering a sporting event. Aspiring to objectivity, with tears stinging in my eyes. My parents are Cuban exiles, stronger than I’ll ever be, sacrificing so much so I never would. Hernández told their story that day, sports as metaphor, overcoming all obstacles with will and passion and fight and courage and spirit and hope and help. He stood triumphant at the center of my first sports home, blocks away from my childhood, and he pounded on his heart. His moment. Our moment. I don’t remember the score or any of the other details, but I remember exactly how he looked and exactly the feeling that brought. All these years later, I still can’t keep it down. It wells up in my eyes as I type these words.
Alas, it is time to take all those pictures off the wall now. Pack them up today. The trucks have arrived. Look back and say goodbye one final time.
Time to move.
A moving time.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/2...#ixzz1ZDfzsJsL
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The greatest JRS memory I will always remember was being 13 and jumping up and down with the grandfather and mom after Game 4 of the NLDS in the 400. I knew then as a baseball fan that few things would be able to top that feeling.
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