Domesticating the Marlins Home Run Sculpture
By Justin Klugh
MLB.com’s front page is the face of baseball. And unlike Derek Jeter or any other entity with a non-metaphorical face, no one is really offended if we say how much it pisses us off. I mean, you could say Derek Jeter’s face pisses you off, but then everybody’s like “That’s a personal attack based on your own opinion and doesn’t have much to do with baseball,” and you have to be like, “Your face is even worse!” because it’s the only thing you can think of, and then they’re like, “Damn it Justin, this is why you weren’t on the e-vite to the block party. Also this cooler full of hot dogs floating in tepid water isn’t a good contribution. And this is my cooler.” But by that point you’re already shoving beers in your pockets and running away.
The point is, the front page of MLB’s endless, bubbling news cycle is home to all the latest breaking headlines and awful, confusing puns. Several days ago, the media couldn’t get enough of Ozzie Guillen. The vocal Marlins manager helped bring everyone together by offering himself as a target for hate. He had to fly from Philly to Miami to receive a five game suspension and tell the media how his comments praising Fidel Castro were foolish and misinterpreted. Even Dan Le Batard got to try and be taken seriously as a person. It was insane.
And now, with his five game suspension ending, Ozzie returns to his Marlins, with an equal volume of coverage.
Don’t forget to visit the 2012 MLB Fancave, you guys. They do some fun shit over there. This one time a guy went down a slide! I know, right? The stairs were right there. Unbelievable.
Anyways, yeah. Right next to the big honking Yankees logo and being smothered to death by every other available news story is ‘Ozzie’s return.’ So let that be the indication that the media has caught up with the rest of us and is ready to move onto the next big Miami Marlins story, which is, of course:
Whoa! That thing doesn’t have a name yet? If a huge, multi-colored growth appeared on your back, how long would you wait to find out what it is? And then would you turn to the internet for a collective diagnosis?
So let’s bang our cyber heads together and help this Marlins Home Run Sculpture bear the name it will have for several legendary weeks before a mid-June Hanley Ramirez bomb knocks some frayed wiring loose and a stray spark sends the whole thing to robot hell.
Red’s Herring
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the work of Red Grooms. What am I saying, if you aren’t, you’re probably red with embarassment! Ah-ha! Ah-ha-ha.
**Plucks cube of fancy cheese off tray carried by passing waiter**
Red Grooms is the contemporary artist behind the Marlins’ home run sculpture, and by that I mean he is the guy who designed it, not that he is one of the penniless starving artists living behind it. His life started in the Great Depression, continued through several experimental phases, and even had a part in the eighties in which a sculpture of his on display in Denver was deemed offensive to Native Americans and removed, causing him to refer to the city as “Grumpsville.”
His career led him to Miami, Florida, where Jeffrey Loria commissioned him to piece together a monstrosity in center field of his new baseball facility; an offer which Red jumped on and completed just in time for all the controlled climate fun of Marlins baseball to begin in 2012.
And ‘Red Herring‘ is a term used in movies in distract people from actual issues at hand. So. This is sort of perfect.
Maldicion del Zurdo
This may shock some of you, but I don’t speak Spanish. I’m a bit “iffy” with English, as well. This is all being typed by a computer as I dictate via shouting from across the room while playing a video game.
But according to Google Translate, that above phrase means “Curse of the Left Handed.” The world is full of bias against left-handed people, I’ve only recently learned. As a right-handed person–and therefore right-minded; ah-ha-ha (**Grabs drink from passing waiter, chokes on it from chortling while trying to drink, begins undignified series of coughs for 20 minutes**)–I’ve never been forced to see what life is like from the other side.
Well, apparently, it’s terrible. Not only are southpaws skewered linguistically, but they have to go out of their to find tools and appliances that fit into their natural backwardsness. And that’s after they learn how to read books in the right direction. Which is of course, to the right. (**Waves off waiter with tray of creme brulee, citing a ‘new diet.’**)
Well, left handers really got the royal screwjob once again, as the Marlins’ home run sculpture may be a distraction to hitters. That is, the left handed ones. It’s wildly colorful nature has a way of snaring one’s focus, namely when they are facing it.
"“If it is an issue, it can no longer be there.”—Greg Dobbs"
And I think we all know how powerful and influential Greg Dobbs is.
Surplus Production
According to a list of fish-related terms I found on ArkansasStripers.com, ‘Surplus Production’ refers to when the reproduction of a fishable stock outnumbers the death rate. Which is a fancy fish way of saying that there are more fish than before.
Which is appropriate for a number of ways. There has already been far more exposure of the Marlins than the few years combined. The amount of money that stadium cost was certainly more than enough ($514 million). Have you heard about this home run sculpture? Cost two and a half million all on its own. Sounds like a surplus to me.
Of course, the sculpture itself. It’s a bit much, honestly. The colors. The leaping fish. The sounds. Almost as if they expect the Marlins to hit a bunch of home runs this year. Then there’s the ‘surpluses’ of Jeffrey Loria, who found enough of them that it attracted the attention of the SEC. It all seems rather fishy to me.
Ah-ha! Oh, me.
**Valet drives up on vespa, hands me the keys, I motor away quite fashionably into the night**
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