Conventional wisdom for years held that the first major league outpost in the Sunshine State would be the Tampa/St. Pete area - MLB had toyed with it for years, as one club after another threatened to relocate there.  However, in the end Miami came out ahead when an expansion franchise was awarded to Wayne Huizenga, owner of the then-ubiquitous Blockbuster video chain in 1991 (it probably didn't hurt his case that his company handled MLB's video production and served as the sole retail and rental outlet for the sport's official line of videos).   Contradicting earlier indications, Huizenga gave the club the designation "Florida" instead of "Miami", which irritated those in the Miami area, and infuriated many in Tampa, still hoping for their own club in the future.  

 

In 1997, after just 4 full seasons, the Marlins grabbed he National League's Wild Card berth and parlayed it into a thrilling, 7-game World Series victory over the Indians - the fastest of any previous expansion team to win their first title by far.   Afterwards, in what would become a familiar ritual for the club, they shed payroll and stars leading to a 108-loss season in 1998, and several more losing turns before grabbing the Wild Card again in 2003, and again staging an upset in the Series, taking the Yankees down in just 6 games. 

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In 2012, the team abandoned Sun Life Stadium for brand new Marlins Park and restyled themselves the Miami Marlins, but it didn't translate into success as the club endured one sub-.500 season after another.  Hope became high again when, toward the end of the 2017 season, former Yankee superstar and current Hall of Famer Derek Jeter took the reigns as team CEO.  Jeter was also a member of a new ownership group which freed the team from the clutches of prior owner Jeffrey Loria, widely considered one of the worst owners in American team sports.  Hope was high, but Jeter quickly earned the ire of fans by allowing stars Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton (the reigning NL MVP) to depart.  The team endured a couple of losing seasons, including a 105 loss campaign in 2019, but another Wild Card berth in 2020 may portend success in the future.          

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The main purpose of this page is to illustrate those players, managers and coaches who have been the most prominent in the franchise's history.  Links below will take you to galleries highlighting each, by position.  Generally, an individual is included if he spent at least 2 full seasons (consecutive or cumulative) as a starter, relief pitcher, closer or manager. For coaches, I've generally used 5 years of service as the bar.  None of this is scientific, though, so there are exceptions.  Where possible and practical, I used pictures of actual baseball cards because that it is the medium through which I, and I suppose many others, first discovered the game. Where necessary, I designed my own images.  Images of actual baseball cards were obtained at the Card Cyber Museum, and for my own designs I used photos found at host of different sites, but none moreso than the wonderful forum at Out of the Park Developments.  

 

I claim no rights to, or ownership of, any of the photographic images I've used on these pages.   You are welcome to use them yourself.  All I ask is that that if you use any of my personal creations, you give credit to this site.