UNDERGOING A TRANSFORMATION
Back to Little Havana: Marlins Park is being made over into a football stadium where Orange Bowl once stood for the Miami-FIU game
MIAMI — Roaming the 110,000 square feet of grass at Marlins Park, the grounds crew is scanning for the right place to dig. ♦ Similar to a treasure map, they have the location marked. But unlike adventure-filled quests, there’s no buried gold or ancient artifacts awaiting them. Instead, underneath a thick, removable portion of grass along the third-base wall, there’s a small metal plate surrounded by concrete. ♦ A strange sight in a baseball stadium, it serves as a key base for the 20-foot-tall goal posts being erected on along the third-base line and right field. The installation is one of the many tasks underway at Marlins Park as the grounds crew transforms the ballpark into a football stadium. ♦ On Nov. 23, the University of Miami and FIU football teams will descend upon Little Havana for their Week 13 matchup. The second game in a home-and-home series between the teams, FIU elected to move the contest from Riccardo Silva Stadium to Marlins Park — the longtime site of the Orange Bowl.
Fortunately, this isn’t the first rodeo for Marlins vice president of operations and events Claude Delorme and director of grounds Chad Mulholland, the two men overseeing the field makeover.
Next weekend’s Miami-FIU matchup will be the fourth football game played at Marlins Park since it opened its doors in 2012. The Miami Beach Bowl — best known for a wild postgame brawl between BYU and Memphis — had a brief three-year run from 2014-16 before renaming and relocating to Texas.
The bowl game was played in the latter part of December, which gave the grounds crew greater flexibility in preparing the field. This time around, the team had to spring into action earlier than usual because the contest is being played a month earlier than the bowl game was played.
“This one’s a little bit different because it’s at the end of our baseball season,” Delorme said. “Normal transition, you could do this in less than two days. The fact that our season was ending, we wanted to make sure we got as much sun on the grass as possible and be able to transition to new grass.”
As part of the process, the Marlins imported 30,000 square feet of Platinum TE paspalum grass, using a tractor and roller to smooth the seams over. After removing the pitcher’s mound, the main target areas were the infield dirt and right field, where grass has a tougher time growing due to the sun’s positioning this time of year.
With the football field running north and south, one of the end zones will be situated in right field, pressing up against the outfield wall. To help stimulate grass growth in area, the Marlins will utilize three portable lighting panels on 12- to 16-hour clocks.
For Mulholland and his six-person crew, one of the many tasks includes the goal-post installation. After attaching the swivel plate slightly below the surface of the field, the four separate pieces off each goal post are assembled and pushed upright.
“In Year 3, we got pretty used to it,” Mulholland said. “Matter of fact, putting these up now we’re starting to remember things we forgot from three years ago.
“Not that it’s hard, but there’s some shims we have to add because maybe some things weren’t perfectly level. It’s all coming back.”
In addition to the field crew, the Marlins will bring in day-staff members and FIU personnel to help paint the lines throughout the field.
Additionally, protective netting along the firstand third-base lines will be removed to give fans a better view. The Marlins will also eschew netting behind the goalposts, giving fans the opportunity to catch field goals and extra points.
With upward of 80 to 90 players on each team, the Marlins will add auxiliary locker room space. The home and visiting clubhouses each hold approximately 40 lockers, so the overhaul from the teams will be stationed by the indoor batting cages next to each clubhouse.
Slated for a 7 p.m. kickoff, the Marlins plan to leave the retractable roof open, weather permitting.
Aside from football and baseball, Marlins Park has also hosted the 10X Growth Conference, two Jehovah’s Witness conventions and Monster Jam this year.