About Joe Robbie Stadium / Pro Player Park
The stadium known over the years as Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Park, Dolphin Stadium, Landshark Stadium, and Sun Life Stadium hosted the Florida Marlins for their first 19 MLB seasons while primarily serving the NFL's Miami Dolphins. The sunken baseball configuration within the football oval was never ideal — tarps covered much of the upper deck for Marlins games, and the tropical heat made afternoon games genuinely difficult — but the stadium witnessed two of the most improbable World Series championships in baseball history.
In 1997, the Marlins — just five years old as a franchise and entering the season as a wild-card team — defeated the Cleveland Indians in seven games to win the World Series under manager Jim Leyland. The celebration was electric and unprecedented: a team that young, that new to a city, winning it all. Six years later, in 2003, a Marlins team led by Josh Beckett defeated the New York Yankees in six games, with Beckett pitching a complete-game shutout in Game 6 to clinch the title.
The Marlins are the only team to win multiple World Series championships without ever winning a division title in those same seasons — both were wild-card teams. This record of improbable excellence made the franchise's two championships among the most surprising in baseball history. When Marlins Park opened in 2012 in a dramatically different location in Little Havana, the era of baseball at this stadium came to a close.
Fun facts
- The Marlins won two World Series (1997, 2003) without ever winning a division title in those seasons — both were wild-card teams.
- They won two championships in their first 11 years — faster than any expansion team in baseball history.
- The stadium had so many naming sponsors that locals simply called it "the stadium" or "Joe Robbie."
- Upper-deck tarps covered most of the seating for Marlins games, concentrating fans in the lower bowl.
- The 1997 championship is still celebrated as one of the great upsets in World Series history.
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