A winning team was always Marlins’ solution for bad attendance. But even that isn’t working | Opinion
The Miami Marlins on Sunday complete the first half of maybe the most unusual surprise season we’ve seen from any South Florida team.
The team was supposed to be dreadful, predicted to finish fourth of five in the NL East and no expert’s pick to make the playoffs or even be in the rough vicinity of them. Yet here they are, winning, legit in the postseason chase at 51-39 even with Friday night’s 4-3 home loss to rival Philadelphia on Cristian Pache’s ninth-inning pinch home run.
For context on how good that record is, the .567 winning percentage is up there with what the Marlins had in winning the 1997 World Series (at .568) and the 2003 championship (.562).
That’s right. Miami is having perhaps its best season in 31 franchise years ... despite the team’s two biggest stars — Cy Young-winning ace Sandy Alcantara and flashy “MLB The Show 23” video-game cover model Jazz Chisholm — both struggling. And despite being outscored overall. And ranking only 20th in runs produced.
“Crazy story so far,” as rookie manager Skip Schumaker calls this season.
Alcantara, hurt by his participation in the preseason World Baseball Classic according to Schumaker, had the seventh-worst ERA of 63 qualifying starters at 4.93 to go with a 3-7 record entering Friday but showed last year’s Cy Young form in a walk-free performance before the bullpen robbed his win. Chisholm has missed half of the season injured and hitting only .246. But Chisholm could return soon after the All-Star Break, and Schumaker predicts Alcantara will rebound and “carry us in the second half through a rough schedule” — Friday perhaps a harbinger.
The manager heaps credit on general manager Kim Ng, baseball’s first female GM who in her third season is earning some of the buzz that arrived with her as a trailblazer both for her gender and Chinese-Thai heritage.
“A GM is the most important part of any organization,” Schumaker said. “She indicated holes we needed to fill and did. She put a .400 hitter on top of the lineup!”
Ng traded starting pitcher Pablo Lopez to Minnesota in the offseason for All-Star Luis Arraez, whose. 387 average entering Friday night led the majors by 50 points. (He’s at .386 now.)
Arraez has made a habit of exuberantly hard-slapping first-base coach Jon Jay on the chest with every single.
How does Schumaker feel about that?
“Glad I’m not the first-base coach,” he said, smiling.
The season has been a thoroughly unexpected, funball delight
But the Marlins not only are the feelgood story of this baseball season, they have done it in relative obscurity, still an off-radar blip nationally but overshadowed to an historic degree this season even in their own market.
The Miami Heat and Florida Panthers concurrently reached the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final for the first time together, extending each of their seasons by two months and dominating South Florida’s media and fan attention (and casual eye, too) well into baseball season. The Marlins were diamond darlings in the dark as our minds were all about basketball and hockey.
And then Inter Miami landed Lionel Messi.
Now, instantly, an international spotlight of attention is on Major League Soccer and on Miami, whose season runs concurrent with the Marlins. MLB takes its midsummer break just as the soccer team is set to introduce the global megastar Messi and other new stars for their South Florida debut on July 19.
The Marlins’ fight for attention — and for attendance — in its own market goes on, a problem disturbingly unsolved, as reflected by another weak gate with Friday’s crowd of 13,850 audibly festooned by lots of Phillies fans.
The ominous cloud over this unexpectedly upbeat baseball season is that the winning has done next to nothing to improve the club’s woeful support.
The answer had always been “we just need to win.”
That was the holy grail and panacea, the easy fix floating out there ready to solve everything.
Now, finally, the Marlins are winning.
And the crowds still stink.
Now the mantra is “keep winning ... and hope.” Because what’s the alternative?
Miami averaged a measly 12,349 fans entering Friday, one-third of capacity and 29th of 30 teams in MLB. The winning and playoff-chasing has generated a modest uptick from last year’s 11,203.
The only club drawing fewer fans than Miami is a 25-64 Oakland A’s team plotting a move to Las Vegas.
Finding a way to win has been easier for the Marlins than finding a way to at least double attendance. The truth is that sports franchise values increase and owners make profits due to revenue sharing, corporate sponsors, broadcast rights and other built-in revenue streams — no matter how good or bad attendance is.
The frustration is that we have seen Miami’s potential as a baseball town — saw it just this past March in the WBC, when 15 games in the Marlins’ stadium drew 475,269 fans or 31,685 per game, feeding off national pride and led by huge support for the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico teams. This ballpark was full nightly and coursing with excitement.
Where have all those baseball fans gone? And how do the Marlins get them in their park if even playoff contention with the fifth-best record in the majors isn’t enough?
The home market for pro sports has only gotten tougher for the Marlins, with the Heat relentless winners, the Panthers better than ever, Inter Miami now boasting the global grand prize Messi and, of course, the flagship and ascending Dolphins a constant reminder we’re still a football town first.
If the Marlins are good and exciting and winning and still not drawing ... then what?
If Miami truly is a major-league market, literally and figuratively, now would be a fine time to show it with a rally of support for a baseball team that has done its part by giving us something worth cheering.
This story was originally published July 7, 2023 at 9:07 PM.
