It looks like this issue isn't going away any time soon...

 

http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/070524/story7.shtml

 

Commissioners OK plan to have Marlins change name, spring-training site

 

By Wayne Tompkins

 

The Florida Marlins would conduct spring training in Homestead and change their name to the Miami Marlins as part of a deal for a new stadium under a county commission committee's resolution passed last week.

 

The resolution sponsored by Commissioner Dennis Moss, whose district includes parts of South Miami-Dade, sailed through an enthusiastic Miami-Dade Airport and Tourism Committee.

 

Mr. Moss said spring-training games at Homestead Baseball Complex would reinvigorate the stadium and create an opportunity for fans in the southern part of the county and the Florida Keys to see the Marlins play.

 

It also would bring in tourist-tax revenue to help fund the county's share of a new stadium, he said.

 

Marlins officials are poker-faced about Mr. Moss' proposal. Team spokesman P.J. Loyello would say only that the team's lease at its current spring-training complex, Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, runs through 2022.

 

Homestead city officials have said the baseball complex built in 1991 for the Cleveland Indians, who never went there and moved their spring base to Winter Haven after Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, would need some upgrading but could accommodate spring training.

 

College baseball teams have been the primary users of the 6,500-seat baseball stadium at 1601 SE 28th Ave.

 

County commissioners at the committee meeting vented their frustrations over plans to build a stadium for the two-time world champions.

 

"If there has been a pregnancy longer than this one, I don't know of any other," Commissioner Rebeca Sosa said of often-blocked efforts to have a retractable-roof ballpark built in the county. The estimated cost of building a stadium in downtown Miami has reached $490 million.

 

A bill for a $60 million, 30-year sales-tax rebate to help fund a stadium failed to come up for a vote in the Florida Senate before the end of the legislative session. Under the proposal, the county would own and finance a stadium but the Marlins would build it and absorb cost overruns.

 

The Marlins currently play in Dolphin Stadium, where their lease is set to expire in 2010.

 

"The state didn't give you a penny. That means you don't belong to Florida," Ms. Sosa said in discussing the team's name. "We are going to build a stadium, so you belong to Miami, to Dade County."

 

Commissioner Carlos Gimenez expressed frustration with the Legislature, which also failed to complete a vote on stadium funding last year.

 

"Waiting for this state money has probably cost us a couple of hundred million dollars," Mr. Gimenez said. "If we'd just gone ahead and built it, it would have cost us a lot less. Forget the state. It's not going to happen. Sixty million (dollars) can be value-engineered. It's not the end-all."

Just build the damn thing! Also, it would be nice to see spring training games in

homestead, but I doubt other teams will like having to travel all the way down

there.

Screw the other teams. Didnt they get money for their spring training sites?

Damn if they get ST Games in Homestead that sucks for me.

Screw the other teams. Didnt they get money for their spring training sites?

 

Screw them, and yes they did. Anyway, the marlins themselves probably

won't like traveling from there to central, and upper florida but it's whats

best for ME so it's all good. :cool

I like both ideas, personally.

 

I have been to baseball games at Homestead Stadium down there before, and it's a perfect ST facility. It's just too bad that it has gone to waste.

Don't move spring training down here ... I've been trying to move up towards Jupiter for spring training, I'm finally getting ready to move from Homestead and now they want to move down here. I'll say a big BLEH to that, however .. get 'er done no matter what.

Please no Spring Training in Homestead... I wait ALL YEAR to ride up to Jupiter to watch the games.

I'd settle for somewhere in the middle, but now you know our pain trying to get to spring training.

I really think this is a big mistake in the making.

I don't think that they can force the Marlins to train in Homestead, plus the Marlins have a lease in Jupiter that runs through 2022. Maybe they can work out an arrangement where they can play a few games there each spring though.

I really think this is a big mistake in the making.

 

And?

Terrible mistake. Roger Dean is one of the better stadiums around, and I know from talking with players this past ST that they like traveling to Jupiter.

 

Mistake will come from this.

Forget about this, not to mention this was already posted days ago.

 

This is the dissident commissioners posturing. There is zero chance of it happening and they know it. You really think any team in the grapefruit league is going to spend ten hours on a bus to playe the Marlins in Homestead? Pure horeshit and was dead on arrival.

 

The headline is wildly inaccurate and misleading. Reread, this was committee vote not a commission vote.

I really think this is a big mistake in the making.

 

And?

 

And...?

 

I think that there's too much wrong with the name change and ST relocation for it to ever come to fruition.

is there any real movement to resolving the stadium issue or are we back to the beginning waiting for the state senate to approve the subsidy ...NEXT YEAR???

Forget about this, not to mention this was already posted days ago.

 

This is the dissident commissioners posturing. There is zero chance of it happening and they know it. You really think any team in the grapefruit league is going to spend ten hours on a bus to playe the Marlins in Homestead? Pure horeshit and was dead on arrival.

 

The headline is wildly inaccurate and misleading. Reread, this was committee vote not a commission vote.

Exactly. As I opined when this was posted days ago this is much ado about NOTHING. Purely political posturing. I'd say it's political posturing at it's best, but it's more accurately described as incompetent nonsense statements. What a Banana Repuplic.

I'd settle for somewhere in the middle, but now you know our pain trying to get to spring training.

 

 

It's a pain trying to get to ST games for you? Hope you aren't looking for any sympathy from us PBC fans.

This will never happen. Marlins are in one of the finest ST facilities until at least 2022. It's just a couple of commissioners trying to get their names in the news and swing some votes in the future. Supposedly the team dosen't like that "long" bus trip tp Ft Meyers for ST games. Think they will like a long bus trip for almost every away ST game?

I think the bigger issue here is about the commission trying to go solo on building the stadium. The spring training issue is a non-issue seeing as the lease doesnt expire in another 15 years.

 

The name change is a Great idea, and the team should have been named Miami Marlins in the first place. If the county can get this done, I'm all for it. But what does this mean in terms of getting it done, it seems as if the state subsidy isn't going to be necessary.

 

What are the chances the stadium gets done w/o the state?

Talk about much ado about nothing...

I like the idea

Don't move spring training down here ... I've been trying to move up towards Jupiter for spring training, I'm finally getting ready to move from Homestead and now they want to move down here. I'll say a big BLEH to that, however .. get 'er done no matter what.

 

Please tell me you are kidding. I hope you are joking when you say that where the marlins play their spring training games influences where you live.

I like the name change since Florida is a big state with more than one team. If having the spring training games in Homestead helps get the county to fund the stadium, then I guess I'm for it, but it'd be incovient for other teams to travel to Homestead since it's so damn far from any other Spring Training Facilities, especially if the Orioles leave Ft. Lauderdale.

Don't move spring training down here ... I've been trying to move up towards Jupiter for spring training, I'm finally getting ready to move from Homestead and now they want to move down here. I'll say a big BLEH to that, however .. get 'er done no matter what.

 

Please tell me you are kidding. I hope you are joking when you say that where the marlins play their spring training games influences where you live.

 

 

Not even close, or I'd be moving closer to Dolphin Stadium instead. I'm just moving in that direction and wanted to move closer to the stadium, rather than closer to Orlando so I can get to the games easier. Jobs, Real Life >>>> Baseball since Real Life is 12 months instead of half a year.

I can't wait until the jerseys say 'MIAMI' for so many reasons.