Jeter working with the mayor to evict the dinger machine

[soxhop411]

Derek Jeter may get an assist from Miami-Dade in ridding Marlins Park of its kitschy home run sculpture, which the new owner and the county’s mayor both want removed.

“I just don’t think they’re all that crazy about it,” Mayor Carlos Gimenez said after meeting with Jeter and other front-office executives at the county-owned ballpark on Tuesday afternoon. “I’m not a fan. We’re looking at it. …We’ll see if anything can be done.”

Gimenez won the mayor’s office in 2011 in part thanks to his opposition to the 2009 public-funding package for the $515 million ballpark championed by then-owner Jeffrey Loria, a New York art dealer. As mayor, he remained a top foe of the team, and his long-running criticism included the signature feature of the new ballpark: “Homer,” a $2.5 million sculpture commissioned for the stadium’s 2012 opening. The Marlins paid for the sculpture as part of the team’s roughly $155 million contribution to the stadium’s cost.

Festooned with a carnival’s color spectrum, the work by pop artist Red Grooms comes to life when the Marlins hit a home run, as marlins emerge from the sculpture’s base and fountains spray skyward. It’s become a lightning rod for fans — some see it screaming “Miami,” others a garish distraction. Its removal emerged on Jeter’s to-do list as he and majority owner Bruce Sherman prepared to purchase the team from Loria for $1.2 billion in September.

Until Tuesday, Miami-Dade was on record saying that the sculpture could not be removed. The stadium itself is county property, and so is the sculpture — purchased as part of an Art in Public Places program that requires builders of county-owned buildings to install art works for the public. When word of Jeter’s reported distaste for the 72-foot sculpture leaked in August, the county’s cultural chief, Michael Spring, said “Homer” was “not moveable” and was “permanently installed” after being designed “specifically” for Marlins Park.

Spring had a different message Tuesday when he accompanied Gimenez to Marlins Park with the mayor’s chief of staff, Alex Ferro.

“Anything is possible,” said Spring, one of Gimenez’s top deputies and an admirer of the sculpture. “But it is pretty complicated. And I wanted the mayor and the Marlins to understand how complicated it really was. We got a good look at it today, and they saw how big it was. There’s hydraulics, there’s plumbing, there’s electricity.

 

[soxhop411]

I wonder if it will be sold for scraps of be sold as one piece for someone to display

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

It makes sense: now that they've traded Stanton for a bag of magic beans, that sculpture will never get used any more.

 

[nattysez]

I know I'm in the minority, but I love that thing. It's quintessentially Miami and frankly is the only distinguishing element of that park when watching games on TV.

 

[Awesome Fossum]

It's definitely ugly, but the whole park is ugly. Might as well be all in.

I remember watching a Nats game where they set it off, and Bob Carpenter goes, "what are those, dolphins?" F.P. Santangelo responds, "I think they're marlins, Bob."

 

[djbayko]

I know I'm in the minority, but I love that thing. It's quintessentially Miami and frankly is the only distinguishing element of that park when watching games on TV.

I'm in that minority then. It's quirky and silly. Quirky and silly things add spice to life.

 

[SumnerH]

I know I'm in the minority, but I love that thing. It's quintessentially Miami

Totally. Half of Miami is an insane pastel child-wizard's impetuous, crazed conception of art deco, and this epitomizes that aesthetic. It's terrible, glorious, and fitting.

I love Camden Yard, but it shouldn't be everywhere.

 

[Murderer's Crow]

I'm in the majority. It looks like a cheap slot machine. I don't look at that thing and think "MIAMI!!!" It's a cheap attraction for fans who don't care about it without the history of the Shea Stadium apple.

 

[teddywingman]

I think it's beautiful, and Jeter should give it a gift basket.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

‘Let’s spend more money to remove a part of the park we got fleeced to pay for because it’s quirky!’

Just fucking unplug the thing.

 

[EvilEmpire]

Second best idea Jeter has had with the Marlins.

 

[Marciano490]

Totally. Half of Miami is an insane pastel child-wizard's impetuous, crazed conception of art deco, and this epitomizes that aesthetic. It's terrible, glorious, and fitting.

I love Camden Yard, but it shouldn't be everywhere.

Cocaine's a helluva drug.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I know I'm in the minority, but I love that thing. It's quintessentially Miami and frankly is the only distinguishing element of that park when watching games on TV.

I love it. One of the cool things about baseball parks is their uniqueness and I feel that we're slowly starting to lose that. All parks want to be Camden Yards II, they took the hill out of centerfield in Houston, now the Marlins are trying to remove this thing. Every football stadium looks the same, every basketball court and hockey rink looks exactly like every other court and rink in the league. It's boring.

Keep baseball weird.

 

[moly99]

I'm in that minority then. It's quirky and silly. Quirky and silly things add spice to life.

I agree. I live in Seattle now, and Safeco is one of the most elegant and understated (apart from the moving roof) stadiums in MLB. But that also makes it very, very generic.

I'm in the majority. It looks like a cheap slot machine. I don't look at that thing and think "MIAMI!!!" It's a cheap attraction for fans who don't care about it without the history of the Shea Stadium apple.

The big apple didn't start out with any history, and in fifty years the Marlins statue will have history too.

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Where will Rally Cat hide???

 

[timlinin8th]

The statue is ugly, but whats about a thousand times worse is the blinding neon green someone decided to use on all the walls. If there was a more muted color for the rest of the stadium I don’t think the one flashy weird statue element would have quite the derision it has. Added to that color it is doubling down on the garishness of the stadium as a whole.

 

[brs3]

I think it should be bigger, and they should add more goofy moving objects that spring to life when there is a home run. Since the few fans that go won't see many home team home runs, might as well give them something to see.

 

[MuzzyField]

The statue is ugly, but whats about a thousand times worse is the blinding neon green someone decided to use on all the walls. If there was a more muted color for the rest of the stadium I don’t think the one flashy weird statue element would have quite the derision it has. Added to that color it is doubling down on the garishness of the stadium as a whole.

Amen on the green walls. It looks like chromakey green.

The Weather Channel could hold open auditions on the warming track between innings.

 

[8slim]

I love it. One of the cool things about baseball parks is their uniqueness and I feel that we're slowly starting to lose that. All parks want to be Camden Yards II, they took the hill out of centerfield in Houston, now the Marlins are trying to remove this thing. Every football stadium looks the same, every basketball court and hockey rink looks exactly like every other court and rink in the league. It's boring.

Keep baseball weird.

Agreed. I always felt the hill in Houston was trying to hard to be unique (the outfield train is enough there) but that monstrosity in Miami is awesome. Jeter sucks.

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

I think Jeter really just wants it moved to his bedroom.

 

[OCD SS]

I think the Marlins should have to keep it until they have a winning season.

If they want to get rid of it, I think they should replace it with Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" (which wouldn't actually be the same artwork via the tenets of site-specificity, but I'd love to have a section of the OF wall be the same configuration of Cor-ten steel just set a boundary to the playing field).

 

[Doug Beerabelli]

I think they should replace it with a copy of Cloud Gate from Millenium Park in Chicago. But change it's nickname to the "Has-Bean"

Jeter would look at himself in the reflection for hours...

 

[nvalvo]

I'm in the majority. It looks like a cheap slot machine. I don't look at that thing and think "MIAMI!!!" It's a cheap attraction for fans who don't care about it without the history of the Shea Stadium apple.

I don’t think you are in the minority. I think people think it’s weird, but then the Marlins are pretty weird.

It’s not, you know... dignified. But it’s pretty fun.

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

I'm in the majority. It looks like a cheap slot machine.

Indeed. They should rename it after Jeff Loria.