The Marlins and Rays are each celebrating milestone seasons this year.
The Marlins are hitting their 30th anniversary this year.
We’ll do a Florida Franchise Series where I’ll compare them in different categories in a best-of-7 competition.
I know some people would go with Giancarlo Stanton but I’m going to go in a different direction.
I’m choosing Evan Longoria.
Longoria was there ten full seasons and had 500 more hits than Stanton and only 6 less home runs.
He won a Cy Young in 2012 and even finished second in 2010.
He’s another player like Cabrera or Stanton that should have had his whole career play out in Florida.
It was painfully hot and there was no shade.
Nothing in the stadium concourse told you the Marlins played there.
It was just some gross and anonymous stadium.
Having said all of that, Marlins Park is awesome.
When the roof is open, it’s one of the best ballparks in all of baseball.
Even though it happened in 1999, it’s still 2nd for either franchise.
The best regular season moment is Game 162 for the Rays in 2011.
Even in that Game 162, the Rays were losing 7-0 in the 8th inning.
They tied the game thanks to clutch home runs by Dan Johnson and Evan Longoria.
They won the game in the 12th inning thanks to another home run by Longoria.
The Rays have even named that part of the park where the ball went as 162 Landing.
I’m going with Renteria.
The 97 World Series was not great until that 7th game which was legendary.
The Marlins trailed 2-1 in the 9th inning but tied it up thanks to a Jose Mesa blown save.
But in that moment, Florida baseball seemed like it would really work.
This isn’t even close and that’s not even a slight to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays uniforms.
I LOVED the early look that Tampa had (check out that Boggs pic from earlier).
Luckily, the Marlins seems to at least making Fridays look good again.
Winner: Marlins (Tied at 3)
Category Seven: Titles
This obviously goes to the Marlins.
It’s so easy to look past the Marlins success because it wasn’t sustained.
There is only one player (Jeff Conine) that was on both World Series rosters.
The fire sales, the stretch of losing since 2003.
It’s been a rocky road.
The Marlins have to be considered a successful franchise when you are using that measuring stick.
The Florida/Miami Marlins have been the greater franchise than the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays.
