‘Dreaming with eyes wide open’: Tears, joy for Messi’s storybook Miami debut
Schumaker facing first tough test as Marlins’ manager: ‘We’ll be OK,’ he says
As the Miami Marlins returned from the All-Star Break with the secondbest record in the National League and in an unexpected position to be playoff contenders, Skip Schumaker deflected the chance to heap praise on himself for how he has fared in his first season as an MLB manager.
That’s not his style. Never has been. Not during his 11-year MLB career as a player or his seven years after that in front office and coaching roles before landing in Miami.
Instead, Schumaker chose to praise his coaching staff covering his blind spots, his players for buying into the system he’s been implementing since spring training, the front office for having confidence in him as he guides the team.
“I’m just happy with where we are,” Schumaker said.
In the week-anda-half since then, Schumaker and the Marlins have faced their toughest patch of the season.
The Marlins have lost eight consecutive games coming out of the All-Star Break, the latest a 4-3 defeat to the Colorado Rockies on Saturday at loanDepot park.
So while the start to the season has been gratifying, how Schumaker navigates the team out of this tough stretch at a pivotal point of the season will be his first true test of the
Skip Schumaker
It wasn’t just the winning goal that came at the very end as if scripted by divine intervention. It happened before. It was that moment early in the second half Friday night when the man was introduced and trotted onto the field. Ear-numbing cheers laid an aural red carpet for his entrance. Countless thousands of his jerseys were being worn in the stands. Now one was actually on the pitch for
Inter Miami.
Messi. 10.
“Dreaming with eyes wide open,” the team’s central defender Kamal
Miller would later describe the feeling. “We all are.”
Inter Miami is. Major League Soccer is. South Florida is. The sport in
America, is, too, its stature in the world instantly lifted and its future fortified.
All are dreaming with eyes wide open at the impossible sight of Lionel Messi in the pink kit of
Inter Miami.
The stars were out to be a part of it. LeBron James was hugging Messi before the game. Serena Williams was there, and Kim Kardashian. Somebody said Tom Brady was, too.
But the dreaming starts most viscerally with the fans, as it always does in sports. I was among them Friday night at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale as Messi made his debut here as the biggest star ever to grace MLS. Eschewing a spot in the press box, I sat