Team excited to face Marlins in exhibition game

Eduardo Almaguer/ Staff Writer 

eduardo.almaguer@fiusm.com

Major League Baseball’s slogan is “I live for this.”

For the Florida International University baseball team, it is probably, “Let’s get to March 7 already.”

News has spread around campus that the Panthers are going to face the Miami Marlins on March 7 at 7 p.m. in Miami’s new baseball stadium. On Jan. 27, tickets for the exhibition match went on sale for $10 each on marlins.com.

The stadium, temporarily named Marlins Park until a contract is worked out with a sponsor, will host two games before playing the Panthers.  On March 5, Christopher Columbus High School will play against Belen Jesuit Preparatory School followed by the Marlins and University of Miami game on March 6.

Even more pumped for the game than the fans that will get to preview the stadium before it opens for the regular season are the FIU baseball players who are thrilled to even be sitting in a major league dugout.

The exhibition match had been a work in progress for months and Henry “Turtle” Thomas, head coach of the baseball team, was finally able to break the good news to his team earlier last fall.

“They’re always excited about playing any game, much less the Marlins in the new stadium,” Thomas said. “It’s something we had talked to them in the past about doing and up until this year we haven’t.”

Though the players are undoubtedly thrilled to play against a professional team (it is the first time in FIU’s history that they play an MLB team), Thomas knows it is about the experience more than anything.

“When you’re playing an MLB team, you’re just hoping your players enjoy it, have fun and compete against them,” Thomas said. “We just want to have some fun.”

But do not mention that it is just about having fun to the players.

Senior outfielder and reigning Sun Belt Player of the Year Pablo Bermudez already knows who he’d love to rope a hit off of.

“It has to be Josh Johnson,” Bermudez said. “I want to hit his fastball. That’s his pitch.”

Bermudez, the team’s leadoff hitter, was recently named a National Collegiate Baseball Writers of America Third-Team Pre-season All-American.

Senior left-hander R.J. Fondon, the player expected to kick off the season for the Panthers on the mound, wants to strike out a particular Marlin on March 7.

“Before I would’ve said Hanley, but now I would say Jose Reyes because he’s a hard guy to strikeout.

If I can do that, I can say a lot of major league players don’t do that, so it’d be pretty cool. I’ll probably go changeup,” Fondon said with a laugh.

The question that remains is whether or not this exhibition match will become an annual tradition. UM plays the Marlins every year in spring training, having beaten them only twice.

None of the Marlins’ staff was available for comment at the time of print.

“I don’t know what the future holds on whether it’s a one year deal,” Thomas said. “But that would be a nice thing.”