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Miami's Pro Player Stadium is home to the Miami Dolphins and one step inside won't let you forget it.
Although it's the home of the Florida Marlins for 81 regular season games a year, the stadium is unquestionably a football stadium first, and baseball second. Located at 2269 Dan Marino Boulevard, Pro Player was set up as a football only stadium in 1988. Even the Marlins' team Web site describes the stadium as an "open-air football facility." When you step inside the rectangular-shaped Pro Player Park you'll notice a few things unique to the venue that also hosts baseball games. First, there is the sea of Miami Dolphin orange seats that take a bit getting used to. Obviously they're all packed for football, but when the stadium's seating is reconfigured for baseball, only 36,331 of the 65,000 seats are available and the empty seats can best be described as vast. Second, the scoreboards for Pro Player are located in the end zones. For a baseball game they are located above where the third base and right field stands are, which means no scoreboard in center field. Finally, the sense of history in the stadium is associated with the Miami Dolphins, almost ignoring the fact that the Marlins are the only team to have won a world championship while playing at Pro Player. The facades of the upper deck are lined with retired numbers and names of those associated with the Dolphins, including the retirement of the entire 1972 undefeated team. Aside from a flag in center field, there's only one small sign next to the left field foul pole that mentions the Marlins won the World Series in 1997. When I first saw the view from the inside, I was amazed at how ill suited the stadium seemed to be when fitted for baseball, but I must say that the sightlines were excellent and watching a game there was better than I might have guessed. It is clear from my experience at a game that the Marlins heavily go after the Spanish-speaking market in Miami. The pre-recorded announcements outside of Pro Player Park are read in English and Spanish. Many of the employees are of Latin descent. Most of the fans, at least where I sat in right field, spoke Spanish. Although crowds at Marlins games are small, I was very impressed at how vocal and passionate about the team they were. When the Marlins scored a run or made a play in the field, the fans roared their approval. Chants of "Let's Go Marlins" would start unprovoked. The fans knew about the players and were constantly shouting out encouragement. Although lots of the talking around me was in Spanish, I would hear the name "Marlins" or players like "Luis Castillo" and "Kevin Millar" mixed in the sentences. When there was a rain delay in the fourth inning that lasted an hour and a half, all of the fans remained to watch the rest of the game. It even seemed like there were more people there after the rain delay than before. With the level of enthusiasm of the fans in the stands, the Sunday afternoon crowd of 17,000 sounded louder than the crowd of 27,000 I was a part of the day before when the Yankees played the Devil Rays. Unlike the fans in Tampa Bay, Marlins fans were into the game, like what I've experienced in Boston, only the fans in Miami are smaller in number. Another odd thing about Pro Player Park is how the parking is run. Located directly off of the Florida turnpike, it's the only stadium I've ever had to pay a toll just to get into it. That's 50 cents on the way in, and 50 cents on the way out. Since the stadium is in isolation by itself, the Marlins have a monopoly on parking. There are no "gypsy" lots around as the team controls all of the parking lots. In other words, there are no parking bargains to be found, so you have to pay the $9 the team charges. And I hear it is much, much higher for Dolphin games. Inside the stadium programs weren't easy to find, but were only $4 once I did get one. There were a couple banks of TV sets sponsored by Direct TV that came in very handy during the rain delay, enabling fans in the concourse to watch up to 9 baseball games or sports news. Speaking of the rain, it is a frequent occurrence in Miami in the summer, hence the push for a new stadium with a retractable roof. Pro Player is an open-air facility in the truest sense, since it doesn't have any grandstand roofs or overhangs like every other ballpark I've ever seen. If you want to stay dry during the rain delays you have to go to the concourses. As for the game, I saw the first-place Phillies avoid being swept in the three game series by beating Florida 9-3, with a lot of action coming in the ninth inning. With Philadelphia leading 8-2, Marlins manager Tony Perez sent in relief pitcher Dan Miceli to pitch the ninth. It was Miceli's tirade that got former manager John Boles fired, and the knowledgeable Marlins fans showered Miceli with boos as he warmed up. Then with two outs and nobody on, Philadelphia's Bobby Abreu hit a deep drive to left field that Cliff Floyd couldn't hang onto as he crashed in the wall. With Floyd temporarily knocked out, Abreu easily raced around the bases for an inside the ballpark home run, the first I can ever remember seeing in person. As it turned out, the next day the Marlins would release the controversial Miceli. In the bottom of the ninth, Charles Johnson homered off of Ricky Bottalico as it began to rain again. Bottalico then hit the next batter, which cleared both benches, although no punches were thrown and order was quickly restored. As it began to rain harder, the Phillies turned a double play to end the game. Although I wasn't very impressed with Pro Player Park as a baseball stadium, I came away very impressed with the passion of the crowd. The Dolphins may get most of the admiration from the community at large, but the Marlins have gone after a fan-base that the football team probably ignores. I'll bet if you compare the diehard Dolphins fan to the diehard Marlins fan you'd get two entirely different people. But when you compare the success of the Dolphins at Pro Player to that of the Marlins since their inception in 1993, only one has won a championship, and while the Dolphins, Panthers and Heat all have new venues, it's the Marlins that have been forced to play in a football stadium that, like the sign out front says, is the home of the Miami Dolphins....and the Florida Marlins.
Update
Dolphin Stadium Footnotes - Facts & Figures
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