Remember When The Florida Marlins Hired High Schoolers As Groundskeepers And It Failed Horribly?
Only my OG Marlins fans will remember this one. Back when the Miami Marlins were still known as the Florida Marlins, management may have made a mistake with staffing. The Marlins were a brand new team as part of the 1993 expansion and they played their home games at Joe Robbie Stadium. User @NelsonRodriguez-cq4xx tells the story.
“It was the inaugural season, we were hired to be on the groundskeeper get/tarp crew. It was fun. They basically went to our High School and hired us. I was in 11th grade.” The perks for the high schoolers meant this job was too good to pass up. Field access, free food, hang with friends, be around Major League Baseball players. Sounds like a dream. Until it wasn’t.
The grounds crew practiced the tarp maneuver often. It’s South Florida, there’s no way you’re gonna get through a season without a rain delay. Unfortunately, they practiced when the weather was nice, not during an actual storm. You’ll see in the video, their tarp rolling form was not good. And then the combination of the heavy rain and the suction they heavy tarp caused, you’ll see. Watch it with the sound up, if possible. The announcers covering this did so beautifully. Tim McCarver was gold.
If for some reason MLB blocks the video, you can find it here.
I love it that the Florida Marlins manager even tried to come out and help.
To no avail. Even John Franco from the Mets jumped in. And when they finally got the tarp over, the rain had stopped. According to the poster, all of the high schoolers were fired after that night and replaced. But the memory of that night will live on forever.
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