I think my favorite opening day memory would be in 1997 when Moises Alou hit a hr and the Fish won 4-2 over the Cubs. My mom checked me out of school early for that game. Now, I always take off work for opening day.

 

 

2009 Emilio Bonafacio inside the park HR against the Nationals

 

 

2009 Emilio Bonafacio inside the park HR against the Nationals

 

Yeah this and I was at that game so makes it even better.

 

 

Mine is watching Charlie Hough throw the first pitch in '93 on TV. Real major league baseball being played in South Florida.

 

 

The first two games of Bonifacio's career with the fish were insane. I remember he almost had another inside-the-park job the following day too. I thought he was going to be something special after that first week.  His bat ended up sucking but he was a treat to watch doing those delayed steals and seemingly succeeding almost every time.  Damn he was fast.

 

 

Either Bonifacio's opening day/week or Hee Seop Choi's opening day that clearly showed he was on his way to becoming a future superstar.

 

 

Even though it wasn't a win, the only opening day I've been in attendance for was in 2008, the introductions, the crowd it was amazing! Though I don't recall ever being more excited for an opener more than 93 and Hough's first pitch

 

 

Jose Fernandez starting and Stanton, Yelich and Ozuna playing in the outfield.

 

 

Urena's first pitch in 2018 opening season.

 

 

when Stanton hit a home run in his first AB as a Yankee

 

 

Good for him and them. His 59 home runs last year meant jack shit anyway. 

 

yeah, a guy who's going to go down as one of the greatest power hitters in baseball history having a career year means jack shit

 

 

yeah, a guy who's going to go down as one of the greatest power hitters in baseball history having a career year means jack shit

 

having one of the greatest power hitters in baseball history for 8 years led to us having a total of 0 winning seasons.

 

 

having one of the greatest power hitters in baseball history for 8 years led to us having a total of 0 winning seasons.

 

This.

 

 

Yea, Yea, Yea. It's Stanton's fault that this team never won. Its because of Stanton, Yelich and Ozuna that this team got as close to 500 as they did with horrendous pitching. So what does this team do. It trades away its best players for scant returns and still has the worst starting pitching in baseball. Yep, the great Alcantara is going to change everything. Don't think so. Maybe that's the hope that will spring eternal this year.

 

Not a good look opening day. Our boys came out of the gate and about suffered a self inflicted first round TKO  today (Schwarber helped the comeback), while Stanton hit two monster dingers and a laser double . The theme will, I'm afraid, for the forseeable future repeat itself quite often.

 

Jeter has built himself a Mt Everest to climb.

 

 

Yea, Yea, Yea. It's Stanton's fault that this team never won. Its because of Stanton, Yelich and Ozuna that this team got as close to 500 as they did with horrendous pitching. So what does this team do. It trades away its best players for scant returns and still has the worst starting pitching in baseball. Yep, the great Alcantara is going to change everything. Don't think so. Maybe that's the hope that will spring eternal this year.

 

Not a good look opening day. Our boys came out of the gate and about suffered a self inflicted first round TKO  today (Schwarber helped the comeback), while Stanton hit two monster dingers and a laser double . The theme will, I'm afraid, for the forseeable future repeat itself quite often.

 

Jeter has built himself a Mt Everest to climb.

 

The scant returns thing is straight up stupid in both that we dont know how the guys will turn out and that we got 6-7 different guys who have appeared on the various top 100 lists to start year 1 of a rebuild, which is more than other teams like the Astros or Cubs could say when they began their rebuild.  That's not to say we're anywhere near a great farm system as of right now, but trading those guys and literally building a sustainable organization both on the field and on the balance sheet from scratch was completely necessary even if it will be hard to watch the next 2 years, and we have a leg up on other teams who started their rebuild with absolutely no assets in the farm system and no assets to trade to get more pieces in the farm system.  Also, we're not done with our ability to continue to stockpile prospects through previous pieces because while we wont get Yelich value obviously, we'll should be able to get some prospects for guys like Bour, Castro, JT  if we trade him, Straily, Ziegler, Barraclough, maybe Prado next year if he can get healthy, etc. 

 

Also, those 3 guys absolutely helped on the field, but theres no denying that prior to last year Stanton had both failed to stay consistently healthy almost ever as well as had a contract that would have made ever successfully building around him in this market incredibly hard on top of the potential of being "Pujols-ed" except for the fact that the Angels can actually afford that ridiculous albatross of a contract and we would have been absolutely fucked for nearly a decade if Stanton were to decline in a similar fashion or continue to get hurt. 

 

Also, Ozuna was unbelievable last year, but he's also 2 years away from free agency with no chance of us re-signing him past that point when we needed to rebuild and for the first time in a long time we sold high on a guy.  You can bet on him being the guy long term that he was last year rather than the high .700's OPS he's been every other year of his career if you want, but moving on from him after last year was 100% the right move given our organizational direction.  Id bet he's somewhere in the middle of those 2 types of players, but them trading him at his highest value was a smart move and we can talk about the return in a couple years.

 

After trading those 2, it made little sense to keep Yelich when he was pissed as hell, his value was sky high due to his contract status, and one of our biggest issues was prospect/farm system depth.

 

You can blame Jeter and company if you want, but you should be directing your anger at Jeffrey Loria who clearly knew exactly when he was going to sell the team for years and made his front office make irrational and terrible win now baseball moves on a team that had no chance to compete for years, and especially after Jose died.  If Loria didnt completely say screw the farm and screw smartly investing in IFA and the draft then we could have already kept all of those guys because of the way the contracts work when teams have team control on guys.  This wasnt a Jeter burning it down for the sake of burning it down and just wanting to make money thing, this was a Jeter burning it down because 5-10 years of horrendous ownership and front office moves left him with no other choice if the goal is to build a sustainable contender and not a team that consistently hovers around .500.

 

 

Oh my God enough with the Stanton shit. Yesterday was Marlins opening day and on this forum and with all the text messages from friends and family I got yesterday was all about what Stanton did. I love him and wish him the best but we've already beaten that story to death and I no longer care about Stanton. I wanna talk about our team the Marlins even if they lost. Stanton is old news let's move on already fuck get over it. And be realistic too he's not gonna hit 300 homers just because of what he did yesterday. He keeps coming up and I don't care anymore. Yeah he hit 2 homers great he's done that multiple times over the years, seen it, been there done that and got no winning seasons out of it. Enough already. 

 

 

Back to this thread surprised no one mentioned it but I loved Opening Day 2005 when we routed the Braves and Smoltz 9-0 with Carlos Delgado and I think there was an Encarnacion grand slam. I had never been so sure we were gonna make the playoffs lol. Of course I was wrong but that game was amazing. One of the last real high points of this team from a public perspective. We looked amazing that day. 

 

 

2009 Bonifacio HR or 2013 Fernandez start are the first that come to mind for me.

 

 

1997 Opening Day. I remember Kevin Brown just straight up dominating and the Moises Alou home run. Another great one was 2014 Opening Day. Jose Fernandez's catch off Tulowitski liner.

 

 

1997 Opening Day. I remember Kevin Brown just straight up dominating and the Moises Alou home run. Another great one was 2014 Opening Day. Jose Fernandez's catch off Tulowitski liner.

 

That was on Opening Day?

 

 

Back to this thread surprised no one mentioned it but I loved Opening Day 2005 when we routed the Braves and Smoltz 9-0 with Carlos Delgado and I think there was an Encarnacion grand slam. I had never been so sure we were gonna make the playoffs lol. Of course I was wrong but that game was amazing. One of the last real high points of this team from a public perspective. We looked amazing that day. 

 

Yeah, I was going to mention that one. I was at the ballpark that day. 

 

We had a good team, had high hopes that year. 

 

 

That was on Opening Day?

 

Yup sure was.