May 2012 - First Baseball Game

Even though I was born and raised in New York City, my first baseball game was in Miami and didn't involve the Yankees.  No Derek Jeter or Robinson Cano.  Instead, I got Jose Reyes and Mark Burhle (both of whom are no longer with the Miami Marlins anymore).

But this trip wasn't about me (and my disdain for the National League style of baseball), but it was for my father to move one step closer to accomplishing one of his life long goals - to go to a game in every MLB stadium, so on May 26th, we headed to Marlins Park in the Little Havana part of the city.

The upside was that the Marlins Park was brand new and had a retractable rooftop (as it rains frequently during the muggy summers here).  It was also very futuristic looking (like a spaceship) and tried to put a lot of colorful decor around to trick reflect their hispanic-Caribbean community.  And also, they were playing the San Francisco Giants (who would later go on to win the World Series that year) even though their starting catcher looks younger than I do.

My father got us tickets online back in February (3 months before) from a site called FanSnap (like Expedia but for sports tickets).  Our seats were decent (Section 21 Row 15 along the 3rd base side).  Since this was Miami and not New York, we were able to get the tickets for $32 each.  But with fees/taxes, it came out to $83 total for 2 adult tickets.  Still, not bad for a family of 3.  Note: babies get in free.

Inside the ballpark, the temperature was a nice cool 70 degrees since the dome was closed and the air conditioning was on.  I can't imagine how much it costs to cool that massive space, but I guess the Marlins were flush with cash that year.  That and from what I could understand being 7 months old, white people Marlins fans hate to sweat while watching hispanics and blacks baseball players run around.

Also, given I'm a young infant with the attention span of a goldfish, I was drawn to some colorful structure in left center field.  I have no clue what that was supposed to be, but I asked my father to zoom in for a better photo. Looks the architect was doing too many bath salts.

Baseball is a long game that many people equate to chess more than an athletic competition.  I tried to keep a box score, until I realized that I don't have the motor skills to hold a pencil, so $3 program wasted.

I was told that the game was pretty good.  Miami won 5-3 behind a good pitching performance from newly acquired Mark Burhle.  My father got to see Buster Posey & Mike Stanton live, but no exciting home-runs or dramatic 9th inning comebacks.

Meanwhile, I tried the best I could to follow along, but by the 6th inning, I was done.

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