The Miami Marlins are a professional American baseball team based out of Miami, Florida. They play in the MLB as a member club of the National League East division. And currently they play at LoanDepot Park (formerly Marlins Ballpark).
The franchise first entered play as an expansion team in the 1993 season as the Florida Marlins. At the time they played their home games at Joe Robbie Stadium, which they shared with the Miami Dolphins of the NFL. But in 2012, the team moved to Marlins Park, which was their first exclusive home and the first to be designed as a baseball park. As part of the agreement needed to use the stadium, park owner Miami-Dade County required that the franchise be renamed to the Miami Marlins prior to the 2012 season.
Since their first season, the Marlins have qualified for the postseason only three times. But they won the World Series during their first two postseason runs in 1997 and 2003. All three of their playoff appearances came as wild cards, making them one of only two MLB franchises to have never won a division title. And they are also the first team to win the World Series as a wild card.
1st World series Title
Following an 80-82 record in 1996, former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Jim Leyland was hired to lead the club into the 1997 season. During that season, the Marlins finished nine games back of the Division Champion Atlanta Braves. But they had managed to earn the wild card berth. This may have been spurred on by the additions of veterans including LF Moisés Alou, 3B Bobby Bonilla, and trade-deadline additions Darren Daulton and Jim Eisenreich. These veterans added experience to the team that managed to get them clutch hits that sports commentators didn’t expect.
During the National League Division Series, the Marlins swept the San Francisco Giants 3-0 and then went on to beat the Atlanta Braves 4-2 in the National League Championship Series. What surprised fans was that they managed to do this, despite losing Alex Fernandez to a torn rotator cup and Kevin Brown to a virus.
In fact, Brown’s place was taken in Game 5 by rookie pitcher Liván Hernández, who shocked the world by striking out 15 Braves and outdueled multiple Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux to a 2-1 victory. The Marlins then went on to face the Cleveland Indians in the 1997 World Series. And they won in seven games in Game 7, landing the Marlins their first World Series victory.
About Marlins Park
Marlins Park, now known as LoanDepot Park, is a retractable roof stadium located in Miami, Florida. It serves as the home for the MLB’s Miami Marlins professional baseball franchise. It is located on 17 acres of the former Miami Orange Bowl site in Little Havana, a short 2 miles west of Downtown. Construction was completed in March 2012 for the 2012 season.
The stadium is marked as the sixth MLB stadium to have a retractable roof and has a seating capacity of 37,442 fans. It is the third-smallest stadium in MLB by official capacity and the smallest by actual capacity. And it stands with a neomodern form of baseball architecture.
Contemporary architecture
LoanDepot Park was the first MLB park designed in what was called “contemporary architecture style”. The idea was to make a statement about the culture of Miami in the present-day. To do this, it rejected the nostalgia that inspired retro designs 20 consecutive new ballparks (and three renovated) ballparks. The designers wanted LoanDepot Park to be different and experimental, because they felt it baseball needed to innovate.
This comes out in the park being an abstract building that combines baseball, art, and the feel of Miami city.
And it’s that last requirement that so defines the stadium today.
For example, the stadium uses pastel, Miami-Deco-influenced wall tiles in 4 main parking garages. The exterior also consists of gleaming white stucco, steel, aluminum, and glass while avoiding rigid right angles. The ballpark closely matches a lot of the design of buildings in Miami so that it looks like it belongs in the city rather than standing apart from it.
In addition, visitors walking in from the outside travel across metaphors for Miami’s topography. This includes concrete pavers that are green or blue to represent grass or sea. Visitors also walk past landscaping that inspires beach imagery with sand even showing up in places. And there’s cobalt-blue glass at eye level to give the feeling of traveling by the ocean.
The designers took pains to make sure that LoanDepot Park resembles MIami in all the best ways.
Achievements
It might be a surprise given how young the franchise is, but the Miami Marlins have a history of award winning players and seasons. Several players have made their mark and impact on professional baseball and have been formally recognized with awards. Here is a short list of some of those achievements.
Most Valuable Player (NL)
- Giancarlo Stanton (2017)
Rookie of the Year
- Dontrelle Willis (2003)
- Hanley Ramírez (2006)
- Chris Coghlan (2009)
- José Fernández (2013)
Manager of the Year
- Jack McKeon (2003)
- Joe Girardi (2006)
- Don Mattingly (2020)
Gold Glove
- Charles Johnson, C (1995, 1996, 1997)
- Luis Castillo, 2B (2003, 2004, 2005)
- Derrek Lee, 1B (2003)
- Mike Lowell, 3B (2005)
- Mark Buehrle, P (2012)
- Christian Yelich, LF (2014)
- Dee Gordon, 2B (2015)
- Marcell Ozuna, LF (2017)