Marlins Man still hasn’t found identity after “divorce” from team

We haven’t mentioned Marlins Man once on Fish Stripes during the 2018 regular season.

I should know—I have personally edited the vast majority of our 406 published articles over that span, and made sure to skim the rest of them. If a writer even tried to submit Laurence Leavy content (none of them have), I would’ve rejected it on the grounds that he is irrelevant to the present and future of the Marlins.

Leavy blocked the Fish Stripes Twitter account on the morning of Opening Day, presumably for this tweet:

Where’s the lie?

An original Marlins season ticket holder, Leavy couldn’t reach an agreement with the team on a 2018 deal. Instead, he’s been traveling out of state to get his “look at me behind home plate!” exposure at MLB games, most frequently to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The workers’ compensation attorney always appears publicly in bright orange attire that the Fish no longer wear on the field aside from spring training. He has not stepped inside Marlins Park since the contentious Derek Jeter town hall last December.

However, Leavy has made arrangements to return. He announced them Friday afternoon during his regular weekly appearance with radio host Andy Slater on 940 WINZ. On Saturday, Slater recapped the “epic” news on his Slater Scoops website:

Laurence Leavy, a lawyer-turned-superfan, plans to be at the game on Monday Sept. 17 against the Washington Nationals.

The attorney bought every available pair of seats in the left field stands.

He plans to bring 300 fans who can win their tickets on my radio show on 940 WINZ and iHeartRadio, where he appears weekly. As an added bonus, those fans who wear orange will be receiving free food, soda, and beer on Leavy.

If there are more than 300 winners, they will be able to attend a game the following day.

(At some point Saturday evening, Slater deleted the blog post and the tweet promoting it. But you can listen to the podcast of Friday’s episode for all the details.)

There are Marlins fans who may not have the disposable income to attend games throughout the season. And some of them would be especially excited to use mid-September tickets, when many of the organization’s young players could seize expanded roles.

This article is intended for those people—I am amplifying Leavy’s message only because the 2018 Marlins have been surprisingly fun, and I want you to be aware of any opportunities to see them up close.

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Leavy has adopted “pay it forward” as a motto. He refuses to accept reimbursement whenever distributing tickets to sporting events, insisting that recipients express their gratitude by assisting others whenever possible. That’s fine.

But I caution you not to view Leavy as any sort of role model. He has an unhealthy obsession with his own celebrity, dressing in orange simply to maintain his own brand continuity. This giveaway literally incentivizes fans to emulate him. That’s not fine.

For all his wealth and professional success, Leavy is just a wannabe Marlins mascot. It’s fair game to criticize the new ownership group on various fronts, but they are wise to ignore him. I’ll try my best to do the same moving forward.