The Marlins have installed the fish tanks in the new ballpark

It was in June of 2010 that we first heard that the Marlins were going to put fish tank behind home plate of the new ballpark. At the time, PETA got all mad, complaining in a letter to Marlins’ owner Jeff Loria about how “the loud crowds, bright lights, and reverberations of a baseball stadium would be stressful and maddening for any large animals held captive in tanks that, to them, are like bathtubs.”

I’m not a big fan of Jeff Loria, but I’m probably less of a fan of PETA -- it’s a methods thing more than a philosophy thing -- so it is with some amount of amusement that today the fish tanks were installed at the new ballpark.

Marlins President David Samson explained the decision to go with fish tanks:

“It really a natural progression from the original mandate from Jeffrey, which was to make this building completely Miami,” Samson said. “So that our fans, those in South Florida, and really baseball fans around the world, when they see a Marlins game on TV, they will know very quickly that it is in Miami. For all the millions of people who come to the games, they will know they’re in Miami as well.”

Gosh, I hope the people who actually go to the ballpark know they’re in Miami. If they don’t they’ll never know where to go out for drinks after the games.