HawkFan

Who cares if he left us out? He's nothing but a cheating Cancer anyway. Why is he a cancer? He is a great ball player, and one of the top 5 best MARLINS in club history! I mean he did help us win the series, and until Cabrera was the best hitter we had ever had in our system! I would have loved for Samson, and the front office to have signed him but they went for Practor instead, and Samson insulted the notion of bringing back Sheffield, and also insulted the idea of getting pedro the way he blew off the questions early this year on 790am. But he's a jack@ss anyway so it's normal. Samson can be a bit of a prick at times, and Sheffield said he wanted to come back home, and end his career here, and go into the hall as a Marlin. But our prick... um the step son of the owner Mr Oj Sampson said no thanks, and now Sheff is an F'IN MET, and hit his 500HR there instead of here! Sampson has no class... No offense, but when Sheff was talking about going back home, he was talking about the Rays. He's from the St. Petersburg area, not South FL. Besides, he still thought he could play every day, so he wanted a least a DH spot (which would have precluded him from resigning w/the Marlins even if there was mutual interest). I'm just curious what you think Sheff could provide to us? Late inning defensive replacement? Reliable pinch hitter? Veteran leadership? No, I don't think he would be able to do any of that. I saw him in ST; while his bat speed is still as thunderous as it ever was, he has nothing left in the tank; he was horribly out fron or behind every pitch and could barely run out a ground ball. He should have hung up the spikes 2 yrs ago. If we had signed him, it would have been as an overpriced benchwarmer.

It was definitely Rich Renteria.

What about Cody?

Taylor= 84 mph fastball and otherwise kindly stuff. It's a miracle that even a single batter can be retired. Badenhop= the most hittable stuff imaginable Penn= super straight fastball and typically hanging curve You just can't parade guys like these to the mound and have even a glimmer of hope. Incredible defensive plays can keep you hanging in there for a few innings, but ... There are a few guys in the minors with more promising stuff ... better K/BB ratios and such ... and I hope to see them soon. The aforementioned are just not big league pitchers. I was hoping that Sean West was going to get the call, but I suppose they're sill taking it easy w/ him because of his shoulder surgery 2 yrs ago.

Lemmy guess, you think we should sign that kid who's thrown 4 no-nos in HS right now and put him in the pen. Too late, he's committed to the Gators already.

Anyone else notice the main color elements on the stadium appear to be teal and like a lime green?

All of these might be true, but I think Phillies fans are worse.

Last year, the marlins and Walgreen's had a 2-For-1 Club B or C seat special if you purchased select items from Walgreen's. I do not see this special listed in the "Fan Value Initiative" section of the website, and this years' A to Z guide (Where I first learned about this special last year) is not up yet. Anyone know if they're doing this again this year?

I would not call the Padres camo uniforms cool, I think they're horrendous. I would like to see the throwbacks, but Loria apparantly hates teal.

Unless things have changed from last year, the Sat. players session is for kids 12 and under only. You can go through with your nephew, but not get an auto yourself. They usually have another session w/ whoever the music act is that night and/or notable Marlins alumni (The Hawk, Niner, etc.). Being a father, I think it's cool they have these sessions for just kids. However, back-in-the-day, I remember the Sunday pre-game session was for auto's or photos, not just photos. Luis Castillo was there on his first week w/ the club (still one of my favorites, on a Bowman 1st Year card). I'd like there to be more auto opporunities for everyone. Those are more reserved for season ticket holders and fan club members. Not everyone can afford season tickets, but the fan club only costs $20 to join. I was a card-carrying member the first couple years, but eventually when I got into college and started working, I found it kind of silly to pay money for benefits I wasn't going to use. While I've started making the trek down more frequently the past 3 seasons, it's still not easy considering my wife's a teacher, I'm the sole underwriter for my company's Seattle Sales office and have a 4 year old. Still makes paying $20 in order to make one specific game for an autograph session kind of pointless if I proably won't be able to make that game. Once again, I point out those autograph sessions were free to everyone w/ a ticket, not just season ticket holders and fan club members. I believe they limited them to first 250 or so in the gates, but that wasn't a problem in 1996...

This charade needs to stop. I doubt Miller is really that hurt but for some reason the team is reluctant to send his fragile psyche down to AAA to get some real work and actually learn how to pitch, just like last year when he was placed on the DL conveniently when we needed an opening in the rotation. I'm sure they'll give him a couple of rehab starts or something but I just can't understand why his His control problems aren't going to magically disappear and he needs to learn how to throw strikes in the minors and not in the show where its gonna cost the big league team. It's probably bc he's the team's PA rep. After the fiasco w/ Anibal, I'm sure they're cautious sending damaged (real or otherwise) goods down to the Minors.

Unless things have changed from last year, the Sat. players session is for kids 12 and under only. You can go through with your nephew, but not get an auto yourself. They usually have another session w/ whoever the music act is that night and/or notable Marlins alumni (The Hawk, Niner, etc.). Being a father, I think it's cool they have these sessions for just kids. However, back-in-the-day, I remember the Sunday pre-game session was for auto's or photos, not just photos. Luis Castillo was there on his first week w/ the club (still one of my favorites, on a Bowman 1st Year card). I'd like there to be more auto opporunities for everyone.

We are beastly. Wow bud, congrats on catching the GS ball! 2 yrs ago, my parents went to the Dodgers-Rays game (since my dad is as big a Dodgers fan as I am a Marlins fan) while my wife and I took our son to his first game against the Twins. they caught Aki Iwamura's 2nd HR of the year/MLB career, and I got him to sign it at Fan Fest. How did you get Hanley to sign it so nice, though? His normal autograph has devolved into H, squiggle, R, squiggle. That's his full signature that I haven't gotten since his rookie year. Did they make a special arrangement since yo ucaught a HR?

Not a big fan of what looks like rainbow light/color features around the scoreboard and on the supports, though now that I look at it, I think that mearly represents LED ribbon displays.... Overall, I like it, but I really liked the older inside rendering I posted previously better (with the steelwork being kind of wavy). It looks like we'll have an extended backstop ala Yankee Stadium, which I find interesting.

I feel bad for Tank, his career has just nosedived after looking so promising. As far as recovery and all, I've had this very same operation, though not for a stress fracture (it was a full-on fracture of both the medial and latteral epicondyles as well as a dislocation of my forearm). I have two screws in there holding everything back together. I was in a imbobilzer or sorts that allowed me to bend my elbow, but limited the plane of movement, for around 4 weeks and then was in physical therapy another 2 or 3 weeks. The optomistic recovery time in the article of six weeks sounds about right. I wil ltell you, though, I'm not so sure Tank wil lever bee the same. I lost about 5 degrees of movement from my injury and surgery, and to this day my elbow still "pops" and hurts if I put too much strain on it. I can't imagine what the rigors of professional pitchign would do.

I understand that Nolasco was a beast last year, but he has been our worst starer thus far. JJ has been ridiculous! I'm really confident in our starters... Small sample. Really, he's looked fine, but he's had 1 bad inning in each of his starts. He'll be fine. You don't do what he did last year for 4+ months by accident. He wasn't just good, but he was dominant. He has excellent control, and good stuff. I would agree. Ricky was generally lights out during Spring Training, so I don't believe these two games are an indicator of what we can expect from him. Last year, he won his first start, lost his next two, got a ND his fourth and then lost his fith. Ricky then went on to only lose 5 of his 27 starts. He'll get things straightened out then be his usual dominating self.

Had one since my first car in 96. Sigh, I miss that Camry. Stuck w/ piece of crap Malibu since that's all I could afford when my Camry finally gave up the goat a few years ago. Seriously it's only an additional $25 (which goes to charity), so I don't understand why more fans don't have 'em.

I like how we only have ONE hat. I dont like how other teams have a home hat and a road hat. I guess you've forgotten at one point we had three hats. The all-teal was the home hat, the black was the road and the teal w/ black brim was an alternate. I believe they stopped wearing the teal hats in 95, with the teal/black becomign the road hat and the black becoming the home. The black became the only hat in 97. Personally, I don't mind having an alternate hat (2 alternates is too much, though); I mean, if a team can have alternate jersey's, why not hats? I've always liked the teal/black brim hat the best out of all of them, but it wouldn't work with our current uniforms as there's so little teal left in the uniforms themselves, it wouldn't look right to suddenly have a bunch of teal on their heads.

This is the first article I've read in a long time that takes a fair position on our franchises' "dump and grow" mentality. Instead of criticizing our front office for not locking in young talent long-term or signing big free-agents, he recognizes it's a function of the revenue that determines the payroll. Heck, he doesn't even attack the fan-base for the low attendance like most writers are wanton to do. He just accepts it as a matter of fact the franchise has to operate with.

I looked in yesterday's game thread and didn't see this posted, so I apologize if this has been mentioned already.... This was only the second 3 game, opening-series sweep in franchise history. The last time they did this? 1997. Granted, it was against the Nationals and we'll see how they fare against a real team like the Mets this weekend. However, I'm one who believes in the devine design, the mathematical order behind the complex systems in our world. Perhaps here is something behind this 6 year deal. This year's team just seems...different. Confident, like they know they should be playing at a high level. Whatever happens, I think this year's definitely going to be fun.

Awesome. I love the teal at Space Coast Stadium (which they unfortunately switched out after the Marlins moved out) and at the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium, so I think that color scheme would look pretty cool. The Marlins equal teal, and teal equals the Marlins. It should be as natural as Dodger Blue or Cardinals Red. I agree with keeping the teal, and having teal seats. I tried to get one of the seats from Space Cost for my Marlins den, but they actually just painted over them.

Did it look anything like this? If so, then this is actually from the 2005 renderings when the plan was to have the Orange Bowl and the new Marlins stadium share a wall/superstructure. The below newer rendeirng is the best idea (as of right now) of what the interior will look like (in terms of the glasswork which will now wrap around the whole exterior plus the hanging scoreboard). It looks to me as if they're going away from the "Wavy" strucutral look from the earlier design, as well as the brick. The new renderings look to be very white/clean-looking. And of course, the centerfield feature, beach area and bermuda triangle are new additions. Another notable change in my book is that the new stadium looks to only have 1 club/suite level as opposed the previous 2. I'm willing to bet all of these changes were made in order to keep the cost down.

Boohoo. Isn't this the guy that was a "wrestler" on the side, or his son was? I disliked him just because of that... I believe that was Torborg, not Arnsberg. Correct, Dale Torborg was the former wrestler "The Demon." He was the strength and conditioning coach for the Fish the short time Jeff was there. He was actually a really cool guy, I remember having long conversations about the Marlins (and even a little wrestling) down by the bullpen in Viera. Actually, he's still in baseball and not really wrestling anymore. I see he is the S/C coach for the White Sox, and won the WS w/ the team in 05.

Not to mention the defense he brings to the table. I fthe mantra is better defense this year, there's no way you pick De Aza over Carroll.

I still bemoan the loss of Jesus Delgado. I know most on here had a "meh" attitude towards him, but I just don't think the Marlins ever gave him a chance. He had a great spring 2 yrs ago and should have earned a spot on the big club. Instead, they sent him down to AA and he's never been the same since. Remember, the Red Sox were grooming him to be their "closer of the Future" when we traded Josh and Mike. Oh well.