Spring training has begun for Major League Baseball and Opening Day is just around the corner. I’m excited because I have loved baseball ever since I was a kid.
When I learned that Cleveland Heights native Peter Bendix was hired as the president of baseball operations for the Miami Marlins, of course I wanted to speak with him.
Just to let you in on a little secret: While I love Cleveland and love baseball, I am not a Guardians fan. I am a Miami Marlins fan. It's OK. I'm from there.
While I wanted to understand how growing up in Greater Cleveland influenced Bendix, I was also curious about the relationship between the two teams and cities.
More specifically, the 1997 World Series and its relevance to Bendix and me. It was that year that the then-Florida Marlins, just four years removed from being an expansion team, played the then-Cleveland Indians for the championship.
As you will be able to tell from my upcoming profile of Bendix on ideastream.org and 89.7 WKSU, being a teenage Cleveland Indians fan in the mid-1990s had a tremendous influence on him and his decision to pursue baseball as a career.
This includes a love of the sport he shared with his grandmother, Gloria Goldstein, one of the most important people in Bendix's life.
“She was a huge influence and supporter of, of really everything that I did,” he said.
This included his love of Cleveland baseball as they attended countless games together.
Baseball and family also played an important role in my youth.
I grew up a baseball fan in South Florida, where there was no team. I watched Yankees games on local television. They were the only team aired locally because of the large number of New York transplants in South Florida.
So I was thrilled when Miami was awarded an expansion baseball franchise in 1991, took the field in 1993 and, when they won that World Series in 1997, it was a magical moment.
This was especially true as I attended the deciding Game 7 with my late father, Edwin Langel, who, as with Bendix and his grandmother, is a tremendous influence on me.
In fact, when the Marlins moved from Joe Robbie Stadium in 2012 to their new ballpark, my family purchased a commemorative brick there honoring my father’s memory. My brother Nicolas and I actually traveled down to Miami for opening day that year to see where the team had placed it.
Like Bendix, I also shared a close bond with my nana, Toby Berger, who was so supportive of me.
Bendix noted this connection, telling me that his grandmother would quickly find a connection between the two women — a game we call “Jewish geography.”
“She would tell you first of all, that she was two degrees of separation from your grandmother, 100%,” he said. “If there is a, a person of her age who is Jewish in the world, she was two degrees of separation from them at most.”
All these connections were fascinating to me, as was the fact that Bendix is now running the franchise that defeated his favorite childhood team all those years ago.
And this connection continues to appear for both families.
A relative of mine who’s a Cleveland native jokes that “if I never see another Marlins fan again, it will be too soon.” And Bendix’s father Jeff told me, “Édgar Rentería is a dirty word in our house,” referring to the Marlins shortstop who had the decisive hit to win the series.
For Bendix, becoming a baseball professional made his childhood rooting interest far less important.
“It’s difficult to explain to people, but once I started working in the industry, my previous fandom, it's compartmentalized into a different portion of my life,” he said.
But Bendix said he does want to build the same sense of excitement, the same sense of community with the Marlins that he experienced as a young Indians fan.
“Regardless of whether you win or lose, at the end of the day, [baseball is] something that brings people together, gives them a common knowledge to talk about common experiences, positive or negative, to celebrate or commiserate,” he said. “Bonds between fathers and sons, all of that romantic stuff. It's true. I experienced it, I saw it firsthand.”
Me, too.
So, let’s “play ball!”
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