The Marlins' Home Run Sculpture Is Alive

When I was young, the Mets tricked me into rooting for them solely by that giant fiberglass apple. I couldn't wait for Howard Johnson or Kevin McReynolds to hit a home run, just so I could see the apple rise out of the similarly comically oversized top hat. So maybe, at 28, I'm no longer in the demographic for the Marlins Park home run "sculpture."

Still, look at it. That's gross.

It's actually a "sculpto-pictorama," to use the technical term, and it's all neon and dancing flamingos and ocean sounds and marlins jumping 73 feet in the air, coming back to earth with a splash of water. It is eerie to watch it run in silence, unaccompanied by the cheers following a Marlins home run. But give it three years, time enough for the novelty of a new ballpark to wear off, and every home run will look and sound like this test run. No fans. Just splash. Splash.

Splash.