Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Cheers greet Stanton
Fans hail Giancarlo Stanton on his return to Marlins Park
Former Marlin gets a warm welcome.
A forgotten sound rose through the enclosed August air, rattling seats, raising hair and especially gaining the attention of Giancarlo Stanton as he came to bat in the first inning.
Turns out the sound of baseball didn’t disappear completely in South Florida. It returned early Tuesday evening as Stanton returned, pointing to the crowd on his first trip back to Marlins Park. He tapped his heart. The crowd cheered louder.
It was a good and genuine moment. Only if Stanton looked as well as listened, if he took inventory of the crowd that cheered anew as he singled to left field, he would have noticed its odd mix.
Some Marlins fans cheered from his time here.
More Yankee fans cheered for his season there. Lots more, in fact.
Yes, even this homecoming moment, the one where Stanton returned for the first time as a Yankee, demonstrated a big reason why he had to leave
and is better off gone. The Marlins were 28th in attendance with him hitting 59 home runs on a losing team last year.
They’re a dead-last 30th with a dreadful team this year.
“It’s weird in a way,” Stanton said, off to the side, to a small group of wellwishers Tuesday before the game about his return.
Maybe for him. But the truth is there was something strikingly familiar to the rest of us at having a former Marlin return. It’s the consistent story of this team’s exit strategies from 1997 to 2003 to Miguel Cabrera to the 2012 firedumpster sale.
Stanton wasn’t even the first former Marlin to recycle through this homecoming summer. Marcel Ozuna and Christian Yelich preceded him. Stanton is bigger, of course, winning last season’s National League MVP that he was awarded on his way out the door.
Stanton talked of missing Miami, of missing those teammates and not missing the home-run sculpture in center field.
“I still don’t like it,” he said. “But it won’t be going off if I hit one here.”
He’s the visitor now, and doing in New York what he’s paid to do. Thirty-two home runs. Eighty runsbatted-in heading into Tuesday’s game. That’s the short story to his first year with the Yankees.
And any hard feelings with the Marlins are gone?
“Absolutely,” he said. “We know what the situation is over there now, and how it was, and we understand what they’ve been through. I’m just happy to be here.”
The truth of Stanton’s departure hasn’t changed, either. It didn’t matter who bought the Marlins, as Derek Jeter did. The first order of business was to rid the team of the $295 million owed Stanton.
Every prospective owner knew it. The only question was if Stanton could be traded.
“I didn’t know if anyone would take him, but figured it would cost five years and $150 million above the [sales] price to build a winner,’’ said one prospective buyer.
He now says: “Sometimes the deals you don’t get are your best deals.”
Jeter’s Marlins, believe it or not, are doing some right things. They’re positioning to sign international players. That’s something Jeffrey Loria rarely did. They’ve re-done their personnel side. That needed doing. They’re drafting athletes with a high ceiling rather than safe picks that go nowhere.
The problem remains they’re two or three years out from proving their decisions work. Or don’t work. Until then, they’ll sit last in the league in attendance except on nights that Yankee fans come to the park.
Everyone saw the full Stanton on his night back. They saw the batting practice where he launched shot after shot far over the fences. They saw a hard single to right field. They saw a laser shot that didn’t rise higher than five feet and hit the left-field wall for a double.
There, too, was Stanton saying what they all say, all the former Marlins on their trip back to town.
“I hope they figure it out,” he said of the Marlins. “I hope it gets turned around and it’ll take a little bit, a couple of years, but if the pieces are put together right I think it’ll be good.”