Looking At The Florida Marlins

Looking At The Florida Marlins

Looking At The Florida Marlins

In Major League Baseball, teams can qualify for playoff play even if they do not win their division. When a team does this, they are called a wildcard team. They have a disadvantage in that they are never given home field advantage during any of the playoff series. The Florida Marlins have been wildcards on two separate occasions and both times walked away with championships. This is not an easy thing to do and therefore the Marlins are a team worth talking about. Here we will talk about their history.

In 1993 Florida was awarded an expansion team. They play in Miami. Since the beginning, they have played their home games at Sun Life Stadium (a stadium that has had several name changes, including Dolphin Stadium.) Beginning in 2012, the club will have a new home: a new park where the Orange Bowl used to be.

The 1993-1996 seasons were not exactly kind to "the Fish". Starting in 1993 the team finished last in the division, dropping 98 games. Interestingly though, over the course of the next three seasons the team progressively climbed the standings. They went from sixth to fifth to fourth to third. 1996 saw the team fall just two games below . 500. So it was no surprise that Marlin fans became enthusiastic about the team's steady improvement and future prospects.

From 1993 to 1996 things were bleak for the franchise. They finished their debut season in last place, losing 98 games. It is worth noting, though, that over the next few years, they got progressively better. They crept to 5th, then 4th, then 3rd. By 1996 they ended up only two games below . 500. This gave fans good reason to be hopeful about their team.

The Marlin team came into the series as the underdog. The Indians were coming off an impressive playoff win against the Yankees. Incredibly, after six games the Series was tied three games all. In the decisive seventh game, the Marlins completed their miracle season by edging out Cleveland 3-2 in eleven innings. That seventh game was high drama. It looked like it was going the Indians' way, but the Marlins tied the game in the bottom of the ninth and won it in the eleventh.

Looking ahead to 2003, we see them again coming in second to Atlanta. Again they were the wildcard. Now we can look ahead to 2003. Again, they finished second to Atlanta and again were a playoff team. Again they beat the Giants in the first round. This time, the second round opponent would be the Chicago Cubs. It was a series for the ages. Just as it seemed Florida would lose the sixth game, and the series, a Cub fan got in the way of a Cub defender from making the third out of the 8th inning. With hope renewed, they went on to overtake Chicago and head to the whole thing.

Now, we said that Florida was an underdog in 1997. To say they were underdogs in 2003 would be an understatement. Up against the New York Yankees, nobody gave them the slightest chance of winning. The Yanks had just had an amazing and tiring series against the Boston Red Sox. Maybe that is what caused them to come out a bit flat. Whatever the reason, the Marlin pitching was right on target and the Fish took another championship.

Recently, the team has been coming in around the middle of the standings. This is in no small part due to the fact that they consistently have one of the lowest payrolls in the league.

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