For the very last time this week, I will be attending a Florida Marlins baseball game. The Fish come to D.C. for the last time as a “Florida” team from Sun Life Stadium. The series will be played September 16-18 at Nationals Park.
Major League Baseball released its 2012 schedule today for all 30 clubs. The Marlins will open the year playing at home against the Cardinals on Wednesday, April 4th.
This one-game series will be similar to the opening of Nationals Park in 2008 when Washington hosted Atlanta the night before Opening Day. MLB encouraged the Marlins to make this a marquee, national televised event. And so it happened.
Best case scenario: I will be attending the first ever Miami Marlins game, and the first ever regular season game played at the new Marlins Ballpark. Single game tickets have not yet gone on sale, and will not until at least after the Marlins unveil their new logo and uniforms. The game times for the 2012 regular season are still TBD.
Last spring, I saw the Marlins play the Cardinals twice in Jupiter, FL. Both teams train in the Palm Beach suburb so it is not surprising they get together for this special event. Due to the space-themed name of their training town, I have given the series a self-proclaimed nickname: The Galactic Series. Nerdy?…quite.
If things don’t work out and I am not able to attend the Miami Marlins’ opener, I will first see the team in action when they come to Washington again the weekend of April 20-22.
Worth absolutely nothing: The last three of my posts have been about the 2012 Marlins, and had the year in the title. Hope is lost on the 2011 season.
The Top Step 
Miami Marlins? No so sure I like that. What was wrong with Florida and their decently cool looking “F” logo? I guess I am just generally not a fan of MLB teams changing their name…with the worst offender in my book being the Anaheim Angels of Not Los Angeles. Anyway, life will go on. In other news. I too will apparently be seeing my last “Florida” Marlins game this weekend in DC. Should be fun times.
The MLB didn’t want the Marlins to be the “Florida” Marlins now that Tampa Bay has established itself. I definitely agree with you on the Anaheim Angels though.