A brief history of baseball in Miami - The Marlins



In 1993, 14 years after the Amigos folded and more than 80 years after minor league baseball came to South Florida, Miami finally fielded a major league team.

Two years earlier, Wayne Huizenga, then CEO of Blockbuster, was awarded a team after shelling out a mammoth $95 million expansion fee. Though originally named the Florida Flamingos, Huizenga and his team eventually settled on the Florida Marlins, harkening back to Miami’s historic minor league team.




In their first season, they finished just ahead of the last-place New York Mets, but in 1997, an underdog Marlins team earned a wildcard berth into the post-season. After an amazing run in which they swept the San Francisco Giants and beat the Atlanta Braves for the National League title, the Marlins found themselves in their first World Series. Facing a strong Cleveland Indians side, the Marlins shocked baseball fans and brought home their first World Series championship after seven games.

Following their incredible victory, Huizenga claimed a financial loss despite their success, and sold off nearly all of the team’s best players. The Marlins finished the 1998 season with the worst record in the major leagues that year and the most losses in the team’s history, a feat they repeated again in 1999.

By 2003, the team had rebuilt and won their second World Series, defeating the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

While they have not come close to another World Series run, today’s Marlins are a whole new team. In 2011 the team was renamed the Miami Marlins, following the demolition of the historic Orange Bowl and the construction of Marlins Park, which is air-conditioned and has a retractable roof -something which come in handy during those sudden rain showers Florida is famous for-. 



In 2017 the Marlins hosted the 2017 MLB All-Star Game. They finished the season in second place, 20 games behind the Washington Nationals, in the National League East Division. They failed to make the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season.

2017 was the last season under Jeffrey Loria's ownership as as Loria sold the team to Derek Jeter for $1.2 billion

Compiled by Rafael Perez Lequerica 2017

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