Derek Jeter’s group might get rid of the Marlins’ home run sculpture

On Friday, it was reported that Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria agreed to sell the team to Derek Jeter’s group for $1.2 billion, with Jeter expected to run baseball operations. With new ownership, some changes are expected, including one that might sadden fans of sculptures that light up, spray water, and make fish paintings fly. According to Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports, the home run sculpture that lives in Marlins Park might be going away:

One thing someone connected to the Jeter group has suggested will likely go: the home run sculpture in left-center field that was designed by artist Red Grooms and has been the subject of controversy.

The controversy being that there exists a thing that looks like this:

Our own Grant Brisbee was not a fan of the home run sculpture when it was first announced six years ago, saying that if “Carnival and Las Vegas had a baby, this would be the placenta.” It surely looks like that, as well as someone’s rejected idea for a state fair ride.

When Grant went to this year’s All-Star Game, he spent some time with the sculpture and retracted his previous disgust:

And now I’m here to express regret. I’m here to offer my sincerest apologies, an earnest mea culpa. As 500-foot home runs whizzed by the sculpture in the 2017 Home Run Derby, some of them clonking off the face, which made fans cheer wildly, as if the batter had just won some sort of special carnival prize, I was in. As I stood underneath, with the rivets and girders, with mecha-flamingos eyeing me hungrily, I was in awe.

This thing is incredible. It’s perfect.

So just when Grant was in love with the Home Run Sculpture, there’s now word that it’ll be removed in the Derek Jeter era. Life can be cruel.

Maybe the Jeter group will change its mind, and the Marlins get to show off their colorful, metallic, tropical island. But if we’re nearing the end of the sculpture, all I ask is that it get auctioned off in hopes that someone will give it a loving home.