The Florida Marlins will have a new name next season and a new controversial way to celebrate home runs that has upset its small but loyal minions.
The Miami Marlins will open their brand new ballpark at the historic old Orange Bowl site in the Little Havana section of Miami, and their planned celebration sculpture has the Internet buzzing.
Bernie Brewer does his thing in Milwaukee, they've got the rocks and fountain in Anaheim and the Mets go with their levitating apple, but the Marlins have come up with a home run celebration that has them all beat. The Miami Herald reports the mechanical sculpture "looks like a psychedelic roulette wheel of jumping marlins, diving seagulls and ... wild colors". Or put another way, the sculpture would be what would happen "if Carnival and Las Vegas had a baby."
The early returns aren't favorable, based on a poll run by a local TV station. WPLG is asking fans if the sculpture, which also features water and waving palms trees, is tasteful or tacky, and as of late Friday night, tacky had 95 percent of the vote.
Red Grooms, arguably America's most famous pop artist, has designed the mammoth 74-foot sculpture that will cost $2.5 million to build. This piece of art will light up anytime a Marlin hits a homer. Believe it or not, the Marlins will have the largest public sculpture in Dade County.
Grooms, 74, started out washing dishes at a restaurant in Provincetown, Mass., before becoming a respected pop-culture artist.
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria made his riches as an art dealer and has promised to make the new ballpark's art better than any other in baseball.
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