Alex Pellerano and Timmy Jenkins invaded Coors Field this week. Pellerano came all the way from Australia. Jenkins came all the way from Virginia Village, southeast of downtown.
The two childhood friends from the Miami area lacked for reinforcements. Thatap life if you’re a Marlins diehard, especially when you live on another continent.
In his crisp teal cap with the original Florida Marlins logo and a custom-made black Jose Fernandez jersey, Pellerano was easy to spot Tuesday night sitting behind home plate — a Fish out of water among Rockies purple, cobalt blue and pink.
But taking in Coors Field for the first time after visiting some 20 other MLB stadiums, he said he felt right at home. If anyone can relate to downtrodden Colorado baseball fans, itap those from South Florida — the fraternal twins of Major League Baseball’s 1993 expansion.
“Brothers in arms, right?” Pellerano said, referencing a line from Walt Weiss, the former Rockies shortstop and manager who owns the distinction of playing for both expansion teams in that first season in 1993. “We don’t have a lot of hardcore fans, because of probably a lot of spurning. And Miami is kind of a winner’s hype town. A lot of people jump on the hype train. When your team’s consistently good, they support you in droves.
“But if you’re bad and the ownership is actively not trying to improve the team, over and over, there’s only a few baseball psychos in every city, you know what I mean? And I’m one of them.”
Denver certainly has more than Miami. The Marlins have consistently ranked near the bottom in , drawing an average per-game crowd ranging between 7,934 and 14,356 fans. Once one of MLB’s best draws, the Rockies rank 18th among MLB’s 30 teams in attendance this season while trying to avoid the stain of a fourth-straight 100-loss season.
But to look at the two franchises, itap a lot like looking in the mirror. The unconventional 90s colors were a shock to baseball’s traditional blues, reds, and grays upon arrival. The nearly identical all-time winning percentages (Marlins at .462, the Rockies at 455). The gruff Jim Leyland, one of baseball’s true gems, managing both during a Hall of Fame Career. And, of course, the stadium takeovers by visiting fan bases — Cubs, Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox — in two cities that attract many transplants.
The way Pellerano talks, he sounds a lot like loyal Rockies fans who can’t quit root, root, rooting for the home team, despite all the losing. The Marlins finished June with an MLB-best 20-6 record, and even after dropping the last two games of this week’s four-game series, they sit just a half-game back in the NL Wild-Card race.
Despite a payroll of just $80,392,535 — the second-lowest in baseball — they’re leading the Mets, who have baseball’s richest roster at $
But he’s seen enough teardowns, fire sales and beloved homegrown players traded or lost to free agency to get too hopeful about the future of Miami baseball.
“I don’t believe you should own a major league baseball team if you’re going to view it as strictly a baseball proposition, given how many people are emotionally affected by that team’s success or the way itap run,” he said.
So high, so low
Thatap not to say that there haven’t been some incredible highs. Despite neither team ever winning its division in 34 seasons, the Marlins have won two World Series, while Rockies fans still savor Rocktober in 2007 when the franchise won 21 of 22 to claim the NL pennant.
But the excitement generated from that inaugural 1993 season when the Rockies set MLB’s all-time attendance record with 4,483,350 fans and the Marlins drew a franchise-record 3,064,847? It feels like forever ago, said Debbie and Michael Kendrick of Basalt.
Both were at the Rockies’ electric home opener in 1993 when Eric Young led off with a home run. They were there in 2007 for Game 4 of the World Series when Boston completed the sweep. Michael loved the Rockies so much that he worked as an usher for three seasons.
But that love has been tested ever since the Rockies’ last postseason appearance in 2018. Three 100-loss seasons and the prospect of a fourth had kept them away from the ballpark until Thursday, when they arrived with grandsons in tow.
Bringing the two boys to their first big-league game outweighed their dissatisfaction with the franchise’s trajectory.
“They’ve got to not only get talent but keep talent, Michael said. “Itap a difficult business. I wouldn’t want to be in it.”
“Our family has not been coming to baseball,” Debbie said. “Literally, our son wouldn’t join us because we feel like the Monforts need to put some money into training and keeping pitchers once they get them.”
Itap not just the losing, Debbie said, but the lack of competitiveness in recent years. Especially last season’s debacle, when the Rockies lost 119 games and had a run differential of -424, the worst in modern Major League history.
“They don’t have to win,” Debbie said. “But you have to go there with the idea that they might.”
Rockies fans talk about losing homegrown stars like Nolan Arenado, Troy Tulowitzki, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Troy Tulowitzki the same way that Marlins fans talk about losing Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett, Christian Yelich, and Giancarlo Stanton.
Debbie said she was devastated when the at the trade deadline for prospects.
She couldn’t fathom how the franchise was so quick to part ways with a talent that it had discovered at 15 in the Dominican Republic and had developed into an ace pitcher.
“I was like,’ Why would you get rid of Ubaldo?’” she said. “I forget that itap ‘Moneyball.’”
The ones that got away
As Brad Pitt, playing Billy Beane, said in the film version, both franchises have been .
“Every time they have a good team, every time the’ve won the World Series, they’ve always dismantled the team,” said Andy Armas, who was born in Miami but now lives in Denver.
“Itap just like the Rockies, right?” said Jose Miranda, another South Florida transplant. “We bring them up, and they sell them. Same old (expletive) next season. And next season.”
Miranda was at Tuesday’s game with his friend from back home, Ernie Diaz. Diaz said there are always a few Marlins fans who show up at Rockies games when Miami is in town.
“There’s a handful. We’re two of those five,” he joked.
Like Armas and Pellerano, Diaz said his fandom stuck with him as a boy growing up in South Florida. He’s been stuck with it ever since.
“I became a Marlins fan in 97,” he said. “I remember my family would make a big deal about the postseason. I remember doing Angels in the Outfield as a kid. And when we won the championship in 2003, that cemented my fandom.”
“The biggest thing for me is the atmosphere at the ballpark. If you’re not winning games, itap a really tough atmosphere to watch a baseball game. Over the years, we have had a lot of talent. The closest we ever got was that Jose Fernandez death. We had a really stacked lineup, and him being our ace, we had a really good chance of competing, but ever since then itap been tough to put a really good team on the field.”
Nick Klein, who grew up in Miami and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, moved to Denver in 2019. He said he became hooked as a fan in 2003, at 7, during the Marlins’ World Series run.
“The experience is really summed up by the old ball park, which is Pro Player Stadium, where the Dolphins play,” he said. “You’d just go to one of those games on a summer day and it’d be a hellscape. And you’d be sweating. Itap a 70,000-seat stadium with 10,000 people in it. Even with winning the World Series, you kinda got how depressing Marlin fandom is.”
‘Not optional’
Despite it all, Pellerano said he’s grateful for every chance he gets to take in a baseball game. He returns to the United States during the winter holidays and in the summer. He always plans his summer trips around seeing his beloved Fish.
Aside from his daughter’s birth, his two greatest memories are of being at clinching World Series games. He was at Pro Player Stadium in 1997 when Édgar Rentería hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 7 to clinch the Marlins’ first title. And he was at Yankee Stadium in 2003 with his father when Josh Beckett shut down the Bronx Bombers with a five-hit, complete-game shutout, stunning the Yankees faithful.
“I lived in New York and I have my feelings about Yankees fans that aren’t super positive,” he said. “So, them being silenced in the biggest moment. Because they try and intimidate you with all their World Series championship videos before the game. And that team was undaunted. Josh Beckett was fierce. It was a crazy move by Jack McKeon to pitch him on four days’ rest. Because he knew if it went to seven, they’d probably lose. That was awesome.”
Klein said he didn’t empathize with Rockies fans, now that he’s in Denver, because the experience of being a Marlins fan is more brutal.
“At least they get people to show up to their games,” he said. “They still put out a good gameday product, and I think going to the games is actually what matters.”
Pellerano said he admired Rockies fans for sticking with their team, despite all the losing. It’s the same way he feels about his fandom, psycho or not.
“Itap not optional,” he said. “If you’re a true baseball fan, you know itap not optional. Your connection with the sport and the game is something beautiful. And baseball is a beautiful game that can sometimes transcend the day-to-day. For me, I feel the same feeling that I feel about a baseball game as I do by the ocean. If you live in a city and were born in that city, you have to love that team. I’m sorry, if you change teams, except for a few extenuating circumstances, you’re a poser baseball fan.”
