The Creature from the Tacky Lagoon

Ever since the Miami Marlins opened Marlins Park (1390 NW Sixth St., Miami), their brand-new stadium in Little Havana, everyone has been clamoring to gawk at its butt-ugly main attraction. No, we’re not talking about Ozzie Guillen. We’re talking about the ostentatious grotesqueness that is the home-run sculpture. The 70-foot...

By Chris Joseph

April 26, 2012

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Ever since the Miami Marlins opened Marlins Park (1390 NW Sixth St., Miami), their brand-new stadium in Little Havana, everyone has been clamoring to gawk at its butt-ugly main attraction. No, we’re not talking about Ozzie Guillen. We’re talking about the ostentatious grotesqueness that is the home-run sculpture. The 70-foot moving contraption has become something of a laughingstock around the baseball-watching world. But we love it. It’s glitzy, fabulous, tacky, unsightly, gaudy, and loud. In other words, it’s totally Miami. The Marlins commissioned artist Red Grooms to design it, and the result is a beastly machine that features spinning marlins, dancing flamingos, spouting water, and flashing lights every time a Marlins batter hits a home run. It took awhile for the team to set that thing off. But finally, in the second inning of the third game of the season, Omar Infante hit a dinger that got the sculpture moving, the fans grooving, and the rest of America wondering what in hell is wrong with our city. See the sculpture yourself when the Fish host the Arizona Diamondbacks Monday afternoon.
Mon., April 30, 12:40 p.m., 2012

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