Marlins and Mets to Play in Puerto Rico

Major League Baseball announced Thursday the Florida Marlins and New York Mets are switching their three-game set on June 28-30 from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The games were originally slated to be played at Sun Life Stadium, the Marlins home stadium. Now, Florida will be the home team in San Juan. The games will be played at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, a 19,000-seat artificial-turf facility that has attracted big league games in the past. From a league standpoint, the Marlins-Mets series will be the first MLB regular-season games played internationally since the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A's opened their 2008 campaigns in Japan. It won't be the first time the Marlins and Mets play regular-season games in San Juan, either. When the Montreal Expos played home games in Hiram Bithorn Stadium in 2003-04, both teams made one trip to Puerto Rico in each season. The Marlins have been open about wanting to expand their marketing efforts into Latin America. Playing meaningful games in Puerto Rico is a start. This is a great decision for the Marlins, the Marlins don't have the largest fan-base and have always been looking for ways to expand it; this will bring attention to South Florida baseball in Puerto Rico and hopefully the Marlins will gain a few fans after playing in San Juan. This is a Monday through Wednesday series so it wasn't probably going to draw huge crowds in the Marlins home Stadium so moving it to San Juan is a great way to expand their fan-base and get a larger audience for the game.

Miami Dolphins Sign Richie Incognito to a 1-year Deal

The Dolphins added their second roster addition Wednesday since the start of free agency began March 5, at first signing linebacker Karlos Dansby. Guard Richie Incognito, who arrived for his visit in South Florida on Monday, agreed to a one-year deal worth just over $1 million. It is considered a bargain rate for a player with a controversial past that led to his departure from St. Louis last year. " I had a great visit,'' Incognito said shortly before his agent reached the deal with his new team. Now, it's up to Incognito to prove he still belongs in the NFL while also attempting to prove worthy of a starting job with the Dolphins. Before he can earn any type of long-term deal, he will need to show accountability. Miami, which has been looking to improve the level of competition at guard, was one of only a few teams to take a risk on Incognito's volatile on-field personality. He is expected to compete with Donald Thomas for the starting job at right guard. Either way, his arrival provides some much-needed depth at an injury-prone position. During the process, he needs to show the coaching staff that he will be more of an asset than a liability. In my opinion this is a very smart investment for the Miami Dolphins, It's a relatively cheap contract for a player that can really help them next year . It adds depth to their offensive line, he can either play great in the off-season and start, do a great job off the bench, or substitute a player in the starting line up after injury or bad play. Yes he does have a angry personality, but hopefully he can take out that anger on the opposing team rather than on his own coaches.

Miami Dolphins Announce Ticket-price Raise for Next Season

The Miami Dolphins announced Thursday they are raising the price of more than half of their tickets, The other half they will either lower or keep the same. It marks the Dolphins' first ticket price increase in three years. This ticket-price includes the decision that fans sitting on the shady side of Sun Life Stadium, which is behind the Dolphins bench, will pay about $5 more per game than fans on the opposite side. Last season, there was no difference in cost. The Dolphins decided to overhaul their pricing structure , and added six new categories. The team raised prices for 56 percent of the seats, primarily in the lower bowl. Prices stayed the same for 31 percent and decreased for 13 percent. The overall weighted average increase for season-ticket buyers is 5.8 percent. The Dolphins sold 49,415 season tickets in 2009, ranking in the bottom third of the league, after selling 46,131 in 2008. The team's numbers are way down from 2006, when Miami sold 61,121. I think the ticket-price increase is unnecessary especially because of all the revenue brought in from the Superbowl about a month ago. Going to a football game is very expensive, if your a family of four going to a game on Sunday afternoon; at the very minimum it's going to cost you $200 dollars. In my opinion ticket prices are already high enough, and if anything they should be lowered. I think the ticket raises are absurd and unfair to loyal Dolphins fans who already pay enough to watch their team play.