Stanton return ‘weird’ for him, fans of Marlins
“It’s going to be weird for me,” Giancarlo Stanton said.
It’s going to be weird for us, too. And wonderful and bittersweet and sad. It’s going to be a reason to get out to Marlins Park. To feel the power of the emotional tug of sports.
It’s going to be South Florida’s first chance to say thank you.
Last Oct. 1, the Marlins’ season ended for Stanton with a strikeout, and 59 home runs for the year. It ended with an “M-V-P!” chant, an ovation and curtain call.
“It was something special for me,” he said then, of that season and that night.
We hoped it wasn’t goodbye. It was.
The trade to the
New York Yankees came nine weeks later — the gut-punch that let us know new boss Derek Jeter wasn’t joking when he warned, “There’s going to be times there are unpopular decisions we make.”
Now, on Tuesday and Wednesday, what’s going to be “weird” for Stanton is not automatically walking to the home clubhouse as he returns in pinstripes for his first appearance at Marlins Park since being traded for second baseman Starlin Castro and two prospects now in Class A.
Jeter hosting the team he starred for 20 seasons will be weird, too. For him. But it’s Stanton back in the ballpark that’ll be weird for us.
We had Stanton for eight seasons. We remember him coming up at age 20. We remember when he was called Mike. We remember the face-shattering pitch that could have ended his career. We remember 59 home runs — perhaps the greatest individual season by one of our pro athletes since Dan Marino’s 1984.
He left us with a Marlins-record 267 home runs, in a half-career that has him pointed to Cooperstown.
“It’s been a big part of my life, my time down there,” Stanton said Sunday in New York. “It’ll be a cool experience going back.”
Stanton has been fighting a tight left hamstring that has had him limited to designated-hitter duties the past 12 games, but, with no DH in National League-hosted games, Stanton is expected to be in right field spot for this two-game series.
Stanton waived his no-trade clause to agree to the trade, but can you blame him? After eight straight Marlins seasons of no playoffs despite him and now the prospect of yet another payroll-slashing do-over?
Now Stanton appears headed for his first postseason, and, after a slow start, he has brushed off the pressure of the biggest team and toughest fans in baseball to live up to expectations. His 32 homers rank fourth in the American League, his 80 RBIS rank fifth, and he is batting .285.
Said Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto: “It’s just nice to see the success he’s having with the Yankees. He deserves everything he’s getting. It’ll be interesting to see him come back.”
Stanton’s 267 homers for Miami and 32 for the Yanks puts him on the doorstep of a major career milestone.
“We’re not going to let him get a homer,” Realmuto said. “We’re going to try especially hard, because we know him, to not let him get a homer.”
No. 300 could come Tuesday or Wednesday in front of the fans who raised Stanton.
“That would be really cool if I did that,” he said.
And if he does, could you blame a Marlins fan for standing to cheer? That might be out of habit or it might be thanks for the memories. Either way, it wouldn’t feel weird. It’d feel right.