Opening Week: Stadium Series Part 1

Opening Day 2024 of the Major League Baseball season saw the Pirates in Miami, Florida to take on the Miami Marlins at LoanDepot Park. The outcome of the 2024 game was a Pirates win. As the Pirates play away series this season, I wanted to share memories and photos from the ballparks we visited from our time together as baseball fans. Since we went to all 30 stadiums, this should be a fun project. This is part one: the Miami Marlins and the Washington Nationals.

In 2013, my dad and I were at Marlins Park in Florida to see the San Diego Padres visit the Miami Marlins. The date of the game was June 29, 2013. The Marlins featured some of the best players in the game in 2013 but they could not figure out how to have a winning team. The lineup we saw from the Marlins that evening was: 1. LF: Justin Ruggiano, 2. 1B: Ed Lucas, 3. RF: Giancarlo Stanton, 4. CF: Marcell Ozuna, 5. 3B: Placido Polanco, 6. 2B: Derek Dietrich, 7. SS: Adeiny Hechavarria, 8. C: Jeff Mathis, 9. P: Jacob Turner. Also on this team was CF Christian Yelich who had the night off and P Jose Fernandez. The Marlins beat the Padres 7-1. Giancarlo Stanton homered this night as well.

Starting for the Padres: 1. 2B Logan Forsyth, 2. CF Alexi Amarista, 3. LF Carlos Quentin, 4. 3B Chase Headley, 5. 1b Kyle Blanks, 6. RF Will Venable, 7. C. Nick Hundley, 8. SS Pedro Ciriaco, 9. P Eric Stults. The game also featured Padres relievers Tim Stauffer, and Dale Thaver, and a pinch hitter Mark Kotsay.

These were the days when the AL was the only league using the DH spot for the pitcher. The NL continued to have pitchers come up to bat. Pitchers normally were called upon to sacrifice bunt runners from first to second base to get them into scoring position. It was almost out of the ordinary if a pitcher was a good hitter, but there have been two over my time following baseball that have stuck out to me: Madison Bumgarner and Steven Brault. The Pirates used to use Brault to pinch hit late in games because they knew there was a decent chance he would get on base, and they wouldn't have to use someone from their bench to pinch hit. Those days are over since the league introduced the DH in the NL as well.

Miami Marlins stadium was incredible, I thought. I didn't realize until just recently when reading an article about top stadiums in the league, that the Marlins no longer have the fish tanks behind home plate. That was such a cool feature when we were there. They had two dual sided bulletproof glass aquariums behind home plate. When the marlins changed over to Loan Depot Park, their president of baseball operations (Yankees legend) Derek Jeter, removed the aquariums and the statue that was in the outfield from the stadium. Marlins stadium today is just a massive warehouse where teams play baseball. It does not have anything that really stands out at this time. Jeter really ruined the interior of the stadium while he was in charge of the team's operations, thankfully, he is no longer the leader of the organization.

As typical as my dad did in other stadiums, he really took in the full experience by saying "hey i’m going to get something to eat" and then disappearing for 30-45 minutes while he walked around the whole stadium and took pictures from the farthest points.

Going to a stadium to see a game for me was an enjoyable experience just watching the game, but for my dad, he loved going to games to take in the whole stadium experience. We almost didn't get to do that with Miami due to a technical error on my dad's part.

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In my dad's true fashion of being systematically unorganized in every aspect of his life except for his work, had tickets for the game the next day instead of the game we were attending. Thankfully, we were able to exchange for tickets the day of. Don't ask us how this managed to be a recurring theme for my dad anywhere we went, but it is a something I will always remember about him. Here are some other times when my dad's disorganization led to some memorable experiences:

1. On a beach vacation one year, my dad had three rental cars in his name at the exact same time due to a myriad of issues.

2. On a golf trip once, he lost his phone and had to get a new one, just to later during the next golf season find his phone in his golf shoes when he went to put them on. He was golfing with Tommy and let out his usual "huh, well that's odd" and discovered his phone in one shoe he was trying to put on.

3. The losing of the phones prompted my mom to get him a welcome mat in the baseball that read "wallet, glasses, keys and phone, keys and phone", just so he could see that before leaving and not leave something important behind. My dad always carried cash on him in the event he ran into an issue like that, but sometimes even that didn't help.

4. One time at a baseball game for the Pirates, long before my dad had worked for his last employer, we got to the game and all he had was about $20 of cash in his pocket. It was enough to buy two drinks. He forgot his ATM card and his wallet in his car at his office. To retrieve the wallet would have been impossible, because once we left the stadium, we couldn't re-enter. Luckily that night he had the tickets to the game.

5. I once got a call from a rental car company in Jacksonville, Florida reporting to me that they found my dad's phone in one of their cars, and since I was his most recent call, they tried me. They did end up mailing it to us. When my dad got home I asked, "are you missing something" and he said "no" initially. Until I said "well why did a car rental company call me and tell me they found your phone". He basically said "oh yeah, whoops".

There are so many examples of these moments in our life with my dad. He just couldn't seem to ever keep his phone near him or any important things. I had no idea how he was able to be such a successful business man while also not being a successful rememberer of important items while traveling. I often wondered how he succeeded in the world.

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Series two: Pittsburgh Pirates at Washington Nationals.

Washington D.C. had been a baseball town once before prior to the Nationals when they were the home of the Washington Senators. That team then became the Montreal Expos and then when the Expos essentially left Montreal, they became the Washington Nationals. Setting up to go to a national's game was a spur of the moment decision. I remember it being a sunny day in Pittsburgh, on a Saturday afternoon in September when just randomly my dad had asked "hey do you want to go to the Nationals game tonight in D.C., we can go once you finish cutting the grass". I had been taking my time on the lawn for him and said "well I can just finish it tomorrow". He halted that idea immediately and I think I ran to cut the grass to finish all of it in time. We left the house and drove three hours to Washington D.C. hitting D.C. traffic before arriving at the game.

The game date was September 17, 2011. Washington Nationals versus Florida Marlins. Same team as the Miami Marlins, just before they switched over to Miami. This game was cool. My dad and I were able to see a decent game featuring Stephen Strasburg for the Nationals, who was a highly coveted pitching prospect at the time, but through injuries in much of his career, he just recently decided to retire from baseball. The Nationals lined up as follows: 1. SS Ian Desmond, 2. RF Roger Bernadina, 3. 3B Ryan Zimmerman (longtime Nationals great), 4. LF Michael Morse, 5. CF Jayson Werth, 6. 2B Danny Espinosa, 7. 1B Chris Marrero, 8. C Wilson Ramos, 9. P Stephen Strasburg. Relievers and pinch hitters as follows: P Henry Rodriguez, PH Laynce Nix, P Todd Coffey, P Drew Storen, P Sean Burnett (played for the Pirates), PH Rich Ankiel, P Collin Balester, and PH Alex Cora (later became the manager of the Red Sox.)

These games were so much longer than they are today because there were so many substitutions. They really have tried to stop that lately. The rules have changed to make games quicker. For instance, there is now a three batter minimum that a reliever must face. Sometimes in the past, and definitely in this game, a reliever could come in situationally and face one batter, get him out, and then be replaced.

For the Marlins lineup: 1. SS-LF Emilio Bonafacio, 2. 2B Omar Infante, 3. RF Giancarlo Stanton, 4. LF Logan Morrison, 5. 1B Gaby Sanchez, 6. CF Bryan Petersen, 7. C John Buck, 8. 3B Jason Dominguez, and 9 P Chris Volstad. I am not going to name all of the changes for the Marlins because there were a lot of them.

Ultimately the Marlins won 4-1. We got to see Stephen Strasburg pitch, I got the grass cut before we left for the game, and my dad and I drove a total of six hours in one afternoon for a three hour baseball game.