Baseball Road Trips are my thing. I love getting in my car and catching 7 games in a week, I’m actually about to leave for my 4th road trip later this week.
In April, I completed my most ambitious Road Trip where I went to Miami and back in 5 days. I generally do these trips solo, meeting old and new friends on the way and that road trip I spent an incredible amount of time behind the wheel (I should probably write about it later).
The goal of the trip was to get to Miami to see the Mets play. You probably remember the game. It went 16 innings, started with Gsellman allowing a Grand Slam, ended with a homer and a Mets win. Great night.
Marlins Park was a nice place to see a game. My main thoughts echo what you hear about it from announcers. The stadium is uniquely Miami with bright green walks, dark blue seats, aquariums behind home plate, huge/loud art in the outfield, a bobble head museum and a night club. The food was good and overall I had a great time. Plus, I sat midway back from the dugout for $28, the cheapest I’ve paid from the MLB website for seats that close.
I am also concerned about them pulling off the All-Star game. It was clear that the staff, who were very friendly, are not used to crowds of any size. I need to take my bias out of this. Living in NJ/NY for 6 years I’m used to everything being fast paced, but this was different. The staff was working fast but the lines were incredibly slow. My best guess is that they are severely understaffed. Hiring extra staff doesn’t necessarily solve the problem because the whole staff needs to work together to be efficient and they need to be stress tested.
I don’t want to make a claim without evidence. It took 15-20 to get food at the start of the game, I was the 8th person in line. By the 3rd inning, lines from the concession stands were approaching the seats. The best bar in my opinion in the ball park, the one sponsored by Miami Brewing in centerfield, was severely understaffed. I was 4th in line and took 10 minutes to get a drink. The bar had one bar tender pouring drinks, making mixed drinks and handling the register.
And of course, the upper deck wasn’t open. That’s going to be an unknown.
The only events I could think of that were full at Marlins Park recently would be the WBC. Does anyone know how they handled that? As always with posts like this, I hope I’m wrong.
