Baseball in Miami hasn't always looked like the big leagues, but it's never lacked for side acts. The biggest and best of these has been the greatest show by surf and turf specials: the Marlins Manatees.
The high praise isn't for lack of competition. After all, the tryout-approved tubby fans who started out in 2008 working only for the buffet, according to a profile in this week's New Times, share dressing space with a dwarf mascot named Lil' Billy and baseball cheerleaders. Miami's storied history of offbeat infield shenanigans go all the way back to the old minor league Marlins almost killing Satchel Paige in a helicopter stunt, so, you know: big shoes, meet big feet.
Critics of big-boned gentlemen dancing in formation have called the Manatees a "fatty minstrel show," failing to acknowledge that fatty minstrel shows are awesome, and can even change lives. Case in point: "Mr. Mantastic," who, since the Manatees were formed in 2008, has gone from being serially single man living with his dad to a serially single man living with his dad with a job that allows him to thrust his pelvis all over Land Shark Stadium to the roar of a crowd.
Fortunately, everyone else loves them some jiggly manflesh. That includes Derek Jeter, who summoned over Manatees splits specialist "Tiny" for some face time, and Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano, who spent half an hour with the troupe talking food.
The only catch? The team won't say whether or not it will take its Manatees along when it moves to its new digs in 2012, or if there's a place for exposed hairy bellies among the public art projects and scultural elements of the new spaceship-stadium.
"I don't know if they're going to want us," Mr. Mantastic told the New Times. "[But] it doesn't matter. Either way, we'll be there."
Sports
Let's hope so. Leaving them behind would be a blubberin' shame.
Janie Campbell would trade the Mermaids for the Manatees every day -- and twice for sundaes in their dressing room. Her work has appeared in irreverent sports sites around the Internet.
