The Cuban baseball team played in Little Havana on Sunday and, after its loss to the U.S., one player from the team defected. I suppose the others looked around and said, "Nah, they play baseball indoors here."
There was a moment yesterday evening when I found myself switching back and forth amongst tennis (the Indian Wells men’s final), basketball (March Madness), and baseball (the World Baseball Classic). Two local teams – University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University – advanced in the NCAAs, and the baseball game – between the U.S.A. and Cuba – took place in Miami. There were protests, predictably, against the Cuban team’s presence in Little Havana, while no one seemed annoyed that the roof remained steadfastly closed.
A slightly edited version of yesterday's blog post appears today in the Miami Herald. So now perhaps Marlins executives will read it.
In 2019 I wrote here about my belief that the baseball stadium in Miami is cursed. The financial scam that contributed to its construction doomed the stadium from the start. Opening Day in 2012 - when Tropicana dancers accompanied players onto the field for their introductions, and then-owner Jeffrey Loria appeared in a golf cart with an ailing Mohammad Ali - didn't help the art-filled ballpark in Little Havana. Within weeks, the manager, Ozzie Guillen, was quoted in a magazine speaking highly of Fidel Castro.
The team's most promising and charismatic player, pitcher Jose Fernandez, was killed in a boating accident at the end of the 2016 season. Other top players were lost in trades, even - especially - after Derek Jeter became co-owner. Jeter messed not only with the roster but with the art, moving Homer, Red Grooms' whimsical centerfield sculpture, outside the stadium, despite a letter of protest from the artist. (Granted, Jeter had already traded the team's biggest home run hitters.)
The curse extends to former Marlins. In 2019, Christian Yelich returned with his new team, the Milwaukee Brewers. Standing in the batter's box, he fouled a ball off his leg that fractured his kneecap, ending his season and his MVP chances.
Last night, the curse went even wider. The players of Puerto Rico, celebrating their advance in the World Baseball Classic, mobbed their pitcher, Edwin Diaz, who went down with a knee injury and had to be carried off the field.
There is only one solution for getting rid of the curse: Open the damn roof and let it out.
I was delighted to hear that the World Baseball Classic was coming back to Miami because, I thought, I’ll get to see a game with the roof open. This has been my biggest complaint about the Marlins: that from opening day to the last game of the season, they invariably play with the roof closed. The city, or Loria, or whoever robbed Miami’s taxpayers to build the stadium should have saved a bundle and just built an indoor stadium. A retractable roof that’s never opened makes no sense.
The traffic to the stadium yesterday evening was much worse than for a Marlins game; the cost of parking in the garage – I discovered only after it was too late – was twice as much. But there was a buzz, a rare sense of excitement as fans – most of them in Puerto Rico jerseys – headed to the stadium.
Where the roof was closed. I moaned to anyone hanging around who looked is if they might speak English: two cops standing outside the stadium, a man checking tickets in the outfield, anyone wearing a lanyard. One statuesque woman who worked for the Marlins took me to Guest Services, where the young woman there said nonchalantly, “They never open the roof.” No one shared my outrage. “People like to be comfortable,” someone told me. Someone else said they make the decision about the roof two days before the game, based on a number of factors. I thought: Yea, it probably has to be 76 degrees, with zero humidity, zero chance of precipitation, and wind speeds of less than 5 miles an hour. I said I'd heard it was the players who demanded a cool, climate-controlled environment, but that I thought that worked for spoiled professionals, not teams in an international competition (though most of Puerto Rico’s starting lineup plays in the majors). I asked one young man in a lanyard whom I can write to, and he said he would take my concerns to the top himself. Still, I am going to write to Ng, explaining that, after sitting indoors all day, most people like to be in the fresh air. This is why restaurants have outdoor tables – even in summer. Not to mention the environmental cost of air-conditioning a huge stadium. Of course, climate change, and rising seas, are not things Miami has to worry about.
I eventually settled down, and briefly got into the noise and excitement. I stood out behind the left field stands, where I bought an arepa from the nearby cart, the only decent foodstuff in the stadium.
By the third inning I had a headache. And I’d lost my voice by complaining over the din. At the start of the fourth I took the escalator down and exited the stadium. It was a beautiful evening in Miami.
I’ve been a little under the weather this week – tentative cough, occasionally runny nose – but it’s been enough to put me in bed most afternoons, where I’ve been systematically going through the pile of old New Yorkers and watching telecasts of spring training games. By the way, I’m not sure all the new rules to speed up the game are beneficial for people who like to read while watching. The mics on players while they’re in the field are another distraction; I had to look up from a paragraph the other afternoon to hear Aaron Judge speak with affection about his two dachshunds.
Despite all this, I was making progress through the pile – and enjoying a great sense of accomplishment – when yesterday I picked up the anniversary issue (a dog replacing Eustace Tilly on the cover) and found a long piece by Lawrence Wright on his hometown of Austin and an almost equally long piece by David Remnick on Salman Rushdie. I finished them both, making occasional jumps in the latter, and look forward to dispatching the remaining issues this afternoon. I don’t get the MLB Network and there are no games on ESPN.