Sun Life Stadium

Built for a Different Game

When the Florida Marlins arrived in 1993, the stadium they moved into had been built for football. To accommodate baseball, the building added retractable seating, a baseball press box, dugouts, and a hydraulic pitcher's mound that disappeared into the ground when the field needed to change back. The Marlins played their first game there on April 5, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-3.

The adaptation showed at the seams. The left field wall stood 33 feet high — fans called it the "teal monster," assembled from retracted football seats stacked behind the fence. Many seats were not angled for baseball, and fans trying to reach the dugouts walked through football tunnels. The upper deck sat so far from the action that the club closed the majority of it, cutting capacity to just over 36,000. The place was widely considered one of the worst in baseball — poor sight lines, a cavernous feel, and disruptive rain delays owing to the football-first design.

What the Field Saw

The Marlins drew over three million fans in that inaugural season and won the World Series in 1997 and again in 2003, though attendance fell in years when the team was not contending. The field also saw Mark McGwire's NL-record 57th home run in 1998, breaking a mark Hack Wilson had held for 68 years; Ken Griffey Jr.'s 600th career home run in 2008, off Marlins pitcher Mark Hendrickson; and Roy Halladay's perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies against the Marlins in 2010 — the 20th in major league history.

The End

The Marlins played their last game at the stadium on September 28, 2011, against the Washington Nationals, before moving to Marlins Park.

Reporting: ballparksofbaseball.com, en.wikipedia.org. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.