http://www.palmbeachpost.com/m.../18/0718stadium.html

Marlins break ground on new ballpark

By CARLOS FRIAS
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 18, 2009

MIAMI — It was like most any other afternoon Marlins home game, watching the action at home plate under a sweltering late July sun.

But on a day like Saturday's, when the midday temperature bubbled into the high 90s and the estimated 5,000 on hand fanned themselves with their hands to stir the warm air, someone will be able to flip a switch and close the roof over this very spot.

What started two weeks ago when the Florida Marlins, the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County put on paper their commitment to build the team a $515 million retractable-roof stadium was played out on the actual field Saturday when the parties ceremonially broke ground on the former site of the Orange Bowl.

Metal stadium-style bleachers packed shoulder-to-shoulder with fans dressed in teal flanked the first- and third-base lines outlined in chalk, and the bases and home plate highlighted an infield grass rolled carefully over a sandy earth to mark the very spot where the Miami Marlins will play ball in April of 2012.

Live organ music played Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and joined fans in cheers - most of them, started by those in attendance - to celebrate what city, county and team officials dubbed a historic day, as they sat under a pavilion behind home plate.

A portable matrix board in what will be left field played a continual loop of the new ballpark's view, highlighting the park's crisp, white clean lines and stunning views of downtown Miami, which will be visible through towering sliding glass doors along left field.

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, who made his money in dealing art, praised the stadium's cool, modern design.

"Oh, and let's not forget the best part: the roof!" Loria said, and cheers when up from those who sat through two-and-a-half hours of dignitaries praising a project that has been a dream for Marlins fans since the franchise was awarded in 1991.

Team announcers Dave Van Horne and Spanish broadcaster Felo Ramirez emceed the event, introducing speaker after speak, which Commissioner Bud Selig, who drew peppered boos before the cheers outpaced those. But no one drew applause like manager Fredi Gonzalez and a dozen Marlins players - the crescendo when they named All-Star shortstop Hanley Ramirez - in attendance after a 12-inning home game Friday night.

"The fans deserve this," Ramirez said later. "It's an important moment for the franchise and the city." After Selig spoke and said that the stadium "will become the anchor of this city and Miami will become a greater city because of it," the fans raised chants of "All-Star Game!" "I heard the chants," Selig said later. "Miami will have prime consideration." The 37,000-seat stadium comes at a heavy cost. It and two nearby parking garages will end up costing the city as much as $2.4 billion in bed tax revenues during the life of the many loans and bonds, according to estimates in The Miami Herald. But Selig promised the project will infuse life into the surrounding blighted Little Havana neighborhood.

"The idea that there is no economic return is sheer nonsense," he said. "It will make the community a better place to live." Video highlights of the Marlins' 16-year history played on the matrix board, from Al Leiter's no-hitter to Anibal Sanchez's, from Edgar Renteria's World Series-winning hit in 1997 to Miguel Cabrera's game-winning home run in his rookie debut. But when pitcher Charlie Hough, a 1966 graduate of nearby Hialeah High, and catcher Benito Santiago, the first player to hit a homer as a Marlin, took the field to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, the cheers reached their peak.

Just as he did on the evening of April 5, 1993, Hough threw an inside strike - though this time it might have been a more looping ball than his wicked knuckleball.

Clearly, it was a day to look forward, but also to the past, Loria said, noting the teams that made the Orange Bowl "sacred ground." He praised the Miami Hurricanes, who won their first of five national championships on the site in 1983. He recalled the Dolphins, who completed the NFL's only perfect season in 1972 on these grounds. And he promised that there would be reminders in the new ballpark of those landmark teams.

"We vow that ghosts of glorious past victories," he said, "will be with us when we take the field every single night."