Team's a hot ticket for crowd of 30,634

BY KEVIN BAXTER

kbaxter@herald.com

 

 

JOE RIMKUS JR. / HERALD STAFF

 

ALL-OUT EFFORT: One fan in the crowd of 30,634 is briefly out of the stands as he tumbles onto the field while trying to grab a foul ball hit by Luis Castillo in the third inning at Pro Player Stadium.

 

 

Dontrelle Willis was on the mound, fireworks were in the sky and hope was in the sticky, humid air Wednesday night at Pro Player Stadium.

 

Which is why 30,634 people -- the second-largest crowd of the year -- were in the stands.

 

Despite a 2-1 loss in 13 innings, Willis and the Marlins gave the fans an intriguing game and a fun time. The rookie left-hander held the National League's second-best hitting team to one run in eight innings before the Braves won on a Rafael Furcal home run that handed the Marlins their first loss at home in seven games.

 

''They're hot right now,'' said Miami's Marc Gutierrez, who bought his box-seat tickets shortly before the first pitch. ``The way they're playing right now, I'll come back.''

 

Dennis Ledesma and Grace Neville of Miami, who were attending their first game of the season, also were among the 9,023 fans who bought their tickets Wednesday, the second-largest walk-up sale in franchise history. By the seventh inning, they were lined up outside an advance ticket window buying tickets for the Marlins' next home game on July 18.

 

''It was a good experience,'' Ledesma said, displaying a freshly autographed baseball and a teal Marlins cap with a bill filled with signatures.

 

Whether Wednesday's Marlins Fever will have subsided by the time Ledesma comes back to see them play is anyone's guess, although the suite-level ticket agent who sold Ledesma his advance tickets said she was selling three times as many as she usually does.

 

The Marlins play their next nine games on the road and Major League Baseball pauses for the four-day All-Star break before the team returns to Pro Player Stadium more than two weeks from today. And in often-fickle South Florida, that's an eternity.

 

Keep winning and the fans should keep showing up. Lose, and they might disappear.

 

AN 8-1 RECORD

 

Either way, Willis, the irrepressible 21-year-old who has rapidly become the most exciting story in baseball with an 8-1 record, is keeping things interesting -- even with his non-decision Wednesday night. And the magic of manager Jack McKeon, who has guided the team to 27 wins in 48 games, is making the race in the standings more and more interesting. And there has been plenty of fan-pleasing offense, such as Tuesday's 20-1 victory over the Braves.

 

For now, even non-Marlins fans are enjoying the moment.

 

''Around the water cooler, everyone's talking about them,'' said Mike McCoy of Fort Lauderdale. ``It's a hot topic right now. People who normally aren't sports fans are talking about them.''

 

In the upper deck, which is normally closed for Marlins games, lines at the concession stands were more than 20 deep.

 

''I'm a fanatic and I follow my home team,'' said Gilbert Velilla of Miami, as he waited in line with his son, grandson and brother-in-law. But Velilla, a Dolphins season-ticket holder, admitted he was attending his first Marlins game of the year, drawn by Willis.

 

`A GOOD SEASON'

 

''That's part of it,'' he said. ``He's having a good season.''

 

Nearby, Bud Carr of Pembroke Pines, dressed in a Marlins polo shirt and cap, needled his 10-year-old son Billy, a Braves fan. They also were attending their first game of the season with tickets Carr won at a local blood bank.

 

''We're having a good time. It's a great crowd and a good ballgame,'' he said.

 

McCoy, who sat rooted in his right-field seat eating an ice cream as the crowd around him joined The Wave, wonders how deep this new-found fandom goes. When former owner H. Wayne Huizenga, citing mounting financial losses, sold off the core of the Marlins' world championship team just weeks after the 1997 World Series many blamed Huizenga. Not McCoy.

 

''I have a different view,'' he said. ``We had a chance to support the team in '97 before the playoffs and we didn't. If we had, it might not have ended that way.''

Good article, too...