Marlins CEO Derek Jeter and his lamentable inclinations have reportedly won a grim victory. According to Douglas Hanks of the Miami Herald, Jeter and the club have received permission to relocate the beloved and culturally necessary home run sculpture from inside Marlins Park, where it self-evidently belongs, to outside the park, where it does not.
According to Hanks, the artist who sculpted "Homer" is opposed to relocation, and he has grounds to be since the contract he signed calls for his work to be located inside the ballpark. Here's the rather expensive workaround, per Hanks:
To get around the artist's opposition, the Marlins promised to pay Miami-Dade up to $2.5 million if Grooms opts to take his name off the work and render it worthless on the art market. The Marlins were required to pay for county-owned public art under its contract to build the county-owned stadium, which opened in 2012.
So -- just to be sure this is sinking in -- the Marlins are reportedly agreeing to pay $2.5 million to move a home run statue if the artist opts to remove his name from it, and this presumably does not account for costs of, you know, physically moving a seven-story work of art.
According to Hanks, the artist who sculpted "Homer" is opposed to relocation, and he has grounds to be since the contract he signed calls for his work to be located inside the ballpark. Here's the rather expensive workaround, per Hanks:
To get around the artist's opposition, the Marlins promised to pay Miami-Dade up to $2.5 million if Grooms opts to take his name off the work and render it worthless on the art market. The Marlins were required to pay for county-owned public art under its contract to build the county-owned stadium, which opened in 2012.
So -- just to be sure this is sinking in -- the Marlins are reportedly agreeing to pay $2.5 million to move a home run statue if the artist opts to remove his name from it, and this presumably does not account for costs of, you know, physically moving a seven-story work of art.
