Now, the game was great, with the Marlins winning 9-4 behind 3 homers, while Pat Burrell of the Phillies, and formerly of the "U", hitting two of his own. Kevin Gregg entered in the 9th in a non-save situation and needed a close play at second by Hanley Ramirez with the bases loaded to end the game, cutting the Phillies lead over the Marlins to 1 1/2 games (it is now only 1/2 game). Our seats were upper level but right behind home plate, with the sun on our backs. Believe me, you want the sun at your back and not in your face for a July afternoon home game at Dolphin Stadium, otherwise you just absolutely melt.
Plus, just going to a game is very relaxing. You have the sun, the game, keeping score, peanuts, hot dogs and of course, beer.
But besides the game, I wanted to enlighten all of you about the Florida Marlin experience that is Dolphin Stadium, that was Pro Player Stadium, that was Joe Robbie Stadium. I will do this while simultaneously answering the question, "Why doesn't anyone go to the Marlins games, they are a good team?".
Under absolutely no worries whatsoever about finding tickets for the game, we stroll up to the ticket window and notice that the ticket prices are astronomical for a team that is having problems drawing fans. At the lower level behind home plate the tickets are $58 and $48 for each baseline to the bases. That in and of itself isn't awful for tickets, but they are when you can't fill the seats. At the back of the lower level, the "club" sections, the prices are $71 for right behind home plate and $66 for the baselines, again ending at the bases. As the base lines extend the prices are $39. If you prefer to sit in the outfield, the left field seats are $46 while right field is a bargain at $15 and $26. Although these prices aren't awful for some seats, the sight lines are ridiculously bad as the stadium is constructed for football, and thus all the baseline seats face the "football field", not angled toward the pitcher and/or batter's box. This is why we chose the upper deck with its view of the entire field. In addition, there are no kids prices for tickets whatsoever. Not that I had any kids with me, but just an observation that the Marlins might want to rectify in an attempt to win younger fans and fill the seats. Problem #1 - Ticket Prices.
Now the attendance for this game was 25,650, which is way above the Marlins' 15,493 average, but a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the fans were visibly cheering for the Phillies. Problem #2 - No Home Field Advantage (or too many visiting team fans).
As I make the ride up the escalator to the 400 level of seats, we notice that almost all of the concessions stands are closed/not open/dark. The team and/or stadium, knowing their likely attendance, just closes portions of the concession stands. Concessions did not turn out to be a problem for us whatsoever, as the concession stands right outside of the entrance to our seats was open, and nobody seemed to have a problem with lines. However, this is a symptom of a big problem. The team cannot even draw enough fans to keep the concessionaires working. Because of this, those fans in the sections with the closed concessions had to walk a ways to simply get food and drink, thus missing more of the game. Problem #3 - Inconveniencing Fans.
When we did make our way to the concessions stands, we noticed that some of the bars on the exterior of the concourse were open in addition to the main stands built into the interior of the concourse. While at the main concessions you could order anything, at the exterior bars you could only order beer, a few liquor drinks and peanuts. Think of them as an express lane, but with tip jars. Now, since we made several trips to the concession stands we noticed something peculiar. All of the ladies working the windows at the main concession were black, while those that worked the stand-alone bar were not. I am not drawing any definitive conclusions here since this observation was based upon a very limited sample size (the one primary concession stand and one stand-alone bar that I visited), but after discussing the observation with a couple of people, I determined that I was not the only person who noticed this peculiarity. It turns out the situation was very noticeable.
Now, I have not seen or reviewed the concessions contract, nor do I know whether the concessionaires that I saw worked for a different company from those manning the bar, so this may just be a coincidence. Nevertheless, it was very noticeable. If this situation is pervasive, then it could be a big problem for a team, and a sport, that seems to be losing black fans, be they African-American or Latin-American blacks. Problem #4 - Subconscious Racism?
Add these 4 problems to the list of the general problems which include the fact that the stadium is in the middle of absolute nowhere, with nothing bordering the stadium to accentuate the game day experience (i.e. bars, restaurants, stores), the temperature, the fact that you can never tell what the weather at the stadium is going to be and generally unrecognizable players from year-to-year (hopefully changing with the Hanley Ramirez contract extension), and you can understand why nobody at all attends the Marlins games. And yes, these pictures were taken from Saturday's game.
Nevertheless, a day at the park is still a great experience, and I might even watch another game this year.
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