It’s become the norm in South Florida: May arrives, with its heat and humidity, and one’s thoughts turn to playoff hockey.
Tuesday night I went with my friend Joe, a high school English teacher, to watch the Panthers at The Federal, the restaurant inside the team’s practice facility in Holiday Park. One rink was hosting public skating – the game showing on two big screens – while the other hosted a men’s league game.
The restaurant – here in Florida’s hockey heartland – was full. We sat outside, at a table overlooking the pickleball courts, with a choice of numerous screens.
The sound was turned up, and punctuated from time to time by the loud roar of cat that was provided by the restaurant.
“I could use that in class,” Joe said, impressed. “Whenever a student falls asleep.”
Yesterday was Japanese Heritage Night at loanDepot Park – the Dodgers were in town – and I figured it would also be the Last Game of the 2025 Season With an Open Roof.
I headed down around 5 and found the roof closed. I hesitated before entering the parking garage. I hesitated again when the man behind the ticket window told me the cheapest ticket was $40. Because of the Dodgers, he told me. It costs a lot to see the rich. I complained to him about the price as well as the closed roof.
Inside, I found a sympathetic staffer standing at the top of the escalator.
“I agree with you,” he said. “I would love to see the roof open.”
“It’s because of the weather,” the young woman at the information desk told me.
“But it’s a beautiful evening,” I said. (There was a dark cloud hovering to the north.)
I wandered the concourse, which was unusually lively. Behind the left field stands a group banged on Japanese drums, supervised by a woman in a kimono.
After the third inning I walked outside to call Hania. No rain had fallen; there was a light breeze; it was a gorgeous South Florida evening.
Back inside, I walked with authority past the usher of Section 19 – it pays to wear a dress shirt to games – and found an empty aisle seat a few rows back from the premium section. Almost immediately, Shohei Ohtani came up to bat, and I enjoyed a straight view of his towering fly ball as it headed toward the right field stands.
Instead of a soft breeze, I felt cold blasts from air-conditioners on my back. I left after the seventh inning, the game tied at 4. I used to insist on staying till the final out, but not in a stadium with a closed roof.
Outside the parking garage, a young Black man played “What a Wonderful World” on his trumpet.
“In the old stadium,” I told him, as I placed a few dollars in his instrument case, “they used to play that song at the end of every game.”
"Really?” he said. “I didn’t know that.”
I shared the elevator with two young men who, naturally, heard my complaint about the closed roof.
“Was it closed?” the one man asked. “I didn’t even notice. I was so focused on the game.”
I found his obliviousness to his surroundings so astonishing that I didn’t ask him why, after being so absorbed in the game, he was leaving in the eighth inning.
Since I can’t watch them on TV, I drove down yesterday to see the Marlins play the Mets. I had vowed to never again go to a Mets game at loanDepot Park – their fans outnumber the home team’s by about 10-1 – but I knew that early April was my only chance to see the stadium with the roof open.
And it was, giving fans that disconcerting thrill of seeing the outdoors indoors. I first experienced it as a child, at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia: I’d enter the gate with my family, walk through dark, concrete concourses, and then pass through an opening to see a sunlit field. It never failed to amaze me: this pastoral expanse in the middle of a building in the middle of a city.
As always, I bought the cheapest seat – yesterday’s was in Section 136, upper deck in right-centerfield – and spent most of the game roaming. People in Mets jerseys prowled the concourses and munched at the tables on the promenade level. Their greatest concentration was behind the visiting team’s dugout, but they dominated every section. In extra innings, they grew very loud – even with an open roof – and I felt sorry for the Marlins players, hearing roars for their opponents while wearing their home whites. I suspect those roars contributed to the error that brought in the winning run.
This phantom home field advantage seems to be unique to baseball in South Florida. Rangers fans attend Panthers games, just as Knicks fans go to see the Heat, and Jets fans the Dolphins, but they never outnumber the home team’s supporters. Our other sports teams are strong enough to have attracted a large and vocal fan base. Only the Marlins suffer the hurt of feeling like visitors in their own stadium. It’s why I love them.
The Marlins beat the visiting Mets the other night but I didn’t see the game; I watched the Tampa Bay Rays play the Pittsburgh Pirates. I am still a Marlins fan, but I have to pay to watch them – on a subscription service on Prime – while the Rays games I get for free. I have not seen any stories about this illogical situation, making me wonder if local interest in the Marlins has reached a new low. Are we the only fans in the country who have to pay to watch their hometown team? And how does this affect the franchise, which, I always heard, didn’t worry about poor attendance at games because its main revenue came from television?
Unless things change, I’ll get to know the Rays better than the Marlins. They’re playing this season in the Yankees spring training stadium in Tampa (due to hurricane damage to Tropicana Field), so at least I’ll see the game played as it should be – under a summer sky.
One of the shocks of this year’s Miami Open came yesterday afternoon when Magda Linette of Poland knocked off hometown favorite Coco Gauff in straight sets. I was sad to see Gauff wipe away tears as she exited the court, but I was happy for Linette, who is twelve years older than the American and entering the winter of her career.
She is the quiet, thoughtful, empathetic Polish woman on the tour. Last year she posted a long message on social media about the plight of Ukraine, and the players from that country who can’t go home. (Her missive was prompted by people asking her if she got tired of constantly traveling.) I had rooted for her before, but after that display of sympathy and understanding, she became my favorite player.
The Miami Open begins this week:
“They come every spring. In a city that values appearance, they are taller, leaner, fitter than the rest of us. They spend their days outdoors. They don’t (for the most part) waste their night clubbing. They show up on time.
“They make a mockery of our much-vaunted diversity.”
- from "The Subtropical Open," from the June 2024 issue of The Miami Native: https://www.miaminativemag.com/articles/the-subtropical-open