Finding Mudville: It’s About Time | Sports | Our Gazette

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Finding Mudville: It’s About Time

Published Tuesday, February 21, 2012 10:01 AM

By By Dan Brown
The Gazette

Pitchers and catchers reported this week. Finally.

Spring training is here, a time of unbridled optimism when even teams like the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros can enjoy delusions that they too may have half a chance to win a pennant.

When teams like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a team with a serious identity crisis, and the newly named Miami Marlins, who spent the farm in hopes of making it to the postseason, can still feel confident about their gargantuan investment and pay no attention to the fact that the two teams last year with the largest payrolls did not make the playoffs, and the two teams with the best records in baseball were eliminated in the first round.

Albert Pujols will fill seats in Anaheim, and Jose Reyes and manager Ozzie Guillen will bring a decidedly Latino flavor to the Marlins who have relocated to the heart of Little Havana.

I’m not sure I like the whole rainbow effect built into the Marlins new uniform (too South Beach), and it befuddles me why a team playing in the tropics would include black in the color schemes of their uniforms.

Other changes to look forward to this year: there is no more Joe Robbie Stadium for the Marlins, who move into their new digs on the site of the old Orange Bowl.

That’s a rough neighborhood, which the Miami is trying to reclaim by locating the new ballpark there.

I used to play in the old Miami Stadium located in Overtown on the other side of the freeway. Overtown, remember, is where all those tourists were either mugged, robbed, carjacked or killed after taking wrong turns out of Miami International Airport just up the road.

On our way to and from the stadium, we ran every red light and did not stop until we pulled abreast of the stadium locker room entrance and could depart the bus and step directly inside the locker room. This place wasn’t even deemed safe enough to allow a casual stroll across the parking lot.

The outfield wall was 20 feet high and constructed of cinderblock. Home runs were lost to the night. We didn’t go after them.

Sometimes a ball would get returned a couple pitches later in a lazy arc thrown somewhere beyond the wall. Other times it would be accompanied by a glass bottle, sometimes on fire, sometimes not.

I think they called those Molotov Cocktails.

And this is where the Marlins will play. I think I’ll just stay home and enjoy the game on TV.

The whole departure of Albert Pujols from St. Louis has confused me. Why did the Cardinals decide to let him go? It reminds of the infamous Frank Robinson trade of 1966 when Robinson was unceremoniously dealt to Baltimore in exchange for a handful of journeyman ball players after management deemed Frank was over the hill at age 30.

Robinson only went on to win the Triple Crown that year and win the first of two World Championships for the Orioles, and play in three more World Series’ before Cincinnati would win its first in 1975.

Yeah, that was the worst management move of all time in my opinion. Until now. You just don’t let a guy the caliber of Albert Pujols leave. No matter how much he costs.

Opening Day is just six weeks away and spring officially began this weekend.

I can live with that.

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