The Marlins had over 35,000 people in their ballpark on Opening Day. And some of those 35,000 apparently faced traffic issues getting to the park and long lines at concession stands and poor service. As this has turned into talk radio fodder in Miami, Marlins president David Samson has decided that the best response to all of this is defensiveness.
He disputes the wait times people claim to have faced at concessions. He criticizes the routes they took to get to the stadium. He equates long lines at the ballpark with long lines at Disney World and tells fans, well, that’s what you signed up for. He then plugs MLB’s At Bat app and tells people to download it and order food with it. He also notes that even though he has amazing parking and amazing seats and Miami Heat games that he has to get to the arena early because of crowds, so Marlins fans should too.
I am 100% certain, given how people love to complain, that the worst horror stories about what happened at the ballpark called in to talk radio the other day were extreme examples and/or embellished to maximize suffering. People are just jerks like that. At the same time, I am pretty certain that a business owner who does not at least pretend to acknowledge that there were some problems and pretend to have some empathy for the customers is kind of a jerk.