Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Not your usual Marlins opener
Marlins can remain the story of baseball for all the right reasons
A h, yes, Opening Day.
(We’re going to really try this, right?) The smell of the grass. The crack of the bat. The echo of socially distanced Marlins players introduced in a vacant stadium … (OK, wait, …) … five months after originally scheduled, nearly a month after Plan B came and went, and after the longest road trip in …
No, I can’t do this. I can’t do Opening Day in the usual dog days.
But I can get behind this persevering Marlins team. And I love actually attending a sports event — properly masked, socially distanced, even wearing dress shoes for the first time in five months — on Friday at Marlins Park.
But there’s no pretending this felt like a home opener, especially for these Marlins that just returned from 23 days on the baseball version of Odysseus’ road trip through the Sirens, the Cyclops and the Lotuseaters.
“We’re just glad to be home,’’ third baseman Brian Anderson said.
Home, properly distanced home.
“I know it’s the home opener, and I know [a Marlins official] might get upset for me saying it, but it just doesn’t feel like one,’’ Marlins manager Don Mattingly said.
The only thing odder than the Marlins’ start this season is, well, their start.
They entered Friday at 8-4 with a makeshift roster. They were tied with Atlanta for the National League East lead with a lineup no one could name. They used nine players making their major-league debuts in 12 games
too. And yet they have a winning record.
So Opening Day could have been named EyeOpening Day with these Marlins. Because if they’re the story of baseball for unfortunate reasons thus far, they have the chance to be the story of baseball for what they do now too.
They can make the enlarged playoffs. Really, they can. They won’t be favored with this roster, but 16 teams make it this year.
The cavalry might even be coming for the Marlins in the form of those players out with the virus. Mattingly said they’re advancing through the majorleague protocol for returning.
“We do feel like in the next few days we’ll have guys working out,’’ he said.
Positive news, right? Meaning they’re not positive. Meaning, well, you know.
Just getting home is a relief considering the Marlins were Gilligan on the S.S. Minnow, packing for a three-hour tour that turned into 23 days in which they lost more than half their roster to the virus. Now that’s done. Now this smallname roster has a chance to be a big story.
They even got through their belated, bedraggled home opener. Give the Marlins marketing crew credit. They tried. The Marlins players were introduced like in any a real Opening Day and lined up along the foul lines 6 feet apart.
Give yourself credit too if you hummed along about buying some peanuts and Cracker Jack not caring if you ever get back. But, well, there’s no one buying peanuts or Cracker Jack. Or selling it.
The weirdest thing of all to see was the game itself after watching on TV all these days. You can get used to watching a televised game without fans.
It’s more difficult, much more awkward, doing so in person with no fans, pipedin crowd noise and the game looking like some type of Hollywood set.
Fans are as much the fabric of a sports event as the players. They’re missed. You’re missed.
But at least baseball finally returned to Marlins Park on a Not-Opening Day after the longest time away.
“Just another game, honestly,’’ Mattingly said. “Usually on opening day there’s a whole lot of excitement. Flyovers. All the things you still try to do — it’s just not the same. It ends up being a regular game. And a game we need to win.”
No one expects them to win. But that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s how the team everyone was talking about in recent weeks can keep them talking.