This is where the Jets won Super Bowl III

The Jets may be run by a bunch of clowns today, but there wouldn't have been a Super Bowl IV if the Jets had lost Super Bowl III.

It's also where Notre Dame won the 1975 and 1990 Orange Bowls.

Yes, Marlins Park was built on the site of the old Orange Bowl.  I'm sure Marlins Park is about a million times better than playing in the Dolphins' stadium, but I wasn't overly impressed.  First, baseball is meant to be played outdoors.  This was my first ever indoor baseball game.  I know it starts raining all the time in Miami, but I think they could have had the roof open last night.  Also, we had the air conditioning blowing on our backs the whole game.  It was cold at our seats.  Having the roof closed also meant no flags blowing in the wind.  When it was time for the national anthem, I didn't know where to look and it took me a while to find the American flag.  The flag was kind of hidden near that ridiculous homerun thing in left center.  It should be easier to find the flag.  This really bothered me.  The flag should be much bigger and it should be on a much bigger flagpole.  Also, they have a pool in left field, but it's very hidden.  We walked around the whole stadium and I couldn't see the pool from anywhere in the stadium.  It's in like a cave out there in left.  And as a Boston Beer Company stockholder, the other thing I didn't like was the beer selection.  It was pretty much Bud Light, Heineken, and Corona everywhere.  Can we get some Sam Adams Summer Ale in there?

The one thing that I haven't noticed at other stadiums (maybe some have this, but I never noticed it before) that I liked was that besides labeling the distances to the outfield wall, they had distances labelled beyond the outfield wall.  I thought that was cool.  The food selection seemed pretty good.  I had grilled mahi mahi tacos.  They were expensive, but very good.  On the other hand, the tickets were not expensive.  We were in section 8 row 13.  The seats were $31 each.  When I bought the tickets on stubhub, I looked up equivalent seats at Yankee Stadium on the same day and they were going for for $225.

You're not going to find seats like this in New York for $31, unless the Mets are really, really bad.

As for the game, it was a good one.  Both pitchers got off to a shaky start in the first inning, but it turned out to be quite a pitching matchup.  It was Anibal Sanchez for the Marlins and Ian Kennedy for the Diamondbacks.  (By the way, one of my friends has a great Ian Kennedy story.  Let's just say that names were changed to protect the not so innocent.  I won't incriminate him by telling it, but I encourage him to comment on this post and tell the story.)  Sanchez gave up two runs and left the bases loaded in the first inning.  He was over 50 pitches after two innings.  Then he settled down.  He only gave up the two runs, went seven innings, and struck out 14.  Kennedy went six and a third and only allowed one run (driven in by every Mets fan's favorite player, Jose Reyes).  Logan Morrison hit a homerun in the eighth to tie it so we got to see the ridiculous homerun thing in action.  And then Hanley Ramirez had an RBI single with two outs in the ninth to win the game for the Marlins.

I like the Citi Field homerun apple better.

So that was my first game of the season.  Interestingly, it was played by two teams that didn't exist when I started watching baseball and the last two teams to beat the Yankees in the World Series.  This was my first trip since I came up with the Year of Jim idea, but I think the Year of Jim really started last year (it's going to be like Major League Baseball's Opening Day being four different days, more on this in my next post).  In less than a year, I've added New Hampshire, California, Nevada, and North Carolina to the list of states I've visited.  I've added three baseball stadiums (Citizens Bank Park, Dodger Stadium, and Marlins Park).  And I've been as far west as I've ever been (Los Angeles), as far south as I've ever been (Miami), and as far north and east as I've ever been (New Hapshire).

My next trip is less than two weeks away.  I'll be seeing the Orioles take on the Rays on May 12.  I'll have at least one more post before that trip.