That was between 4 p.m. and 4:20, roughly. Our halcyon minutes for 2006.
The crowd of 31,308 was kinetic, seemed bigger. The visiting Padres had gone down in order, and now bright, young Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez had banged a leadoff triple, and the people stood and roared, and the day was sun-kissed perfect.
It would never be that good again.
Not the rest of this first home game.
Perhaps not the rest of this bizarre season.
And, given the state of this franchise - who knows? - maybe not ever.
Reality can sound like an alarm clock sometimes, all shrill, piercing the reverie like shrapnel.
Florida would lose its home opener 9-3 and see its record fall to 1-5 and affirm dark speculation that these rookie-laden, cut-rate Marlins could be the 1962 Mets with peach fuzz, prolific losers.
``There will be days like this,'' new manager Joe Girardi said.
About 110 of them, alas. You'd have a legitimate bet right now if you wagered whether the Marlins would win more games this season than the Heat, currently at 51 with four to go.
Criticizing the team itself would feel like clubbing baby seals, so don't. This is what a $15 million payroll buys you. This is what no new stadium gets you. Fans who can't bring themselves to cheer for this team might consider at least turning out to sympathize.
By the end Tuesday, the robust crowd had been replaced by a riot of empty orange seats, which figures to be the scene for most ensuing home games beginning this afternoon now that the curiosity and custom that assure an Opening Day throng have vanished.
Did I say ``robust crowd?'' That's called grading on the curve.
Thirty thousand for starters is so-so at best by most big-league standards, and a steep fall-off from last year's opening 57,405, but nothing is the same now.
The Marlins have become a glorified Double A roster, save for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, and the specter of the team being moved to San Antonio for the lack of a new stadium here will shadow this season like vultures over carrion.
Given all that, the shock wasn't that so many fans stayed away. The shock was that so many showed up.
It was a rather stirring indication that, despite it all, we haven't flat-lined yet as a baseball town. There is a stubborn pulse, even in the worst of times, which would be this season.
Nothing is the same now - the young kids we are bravely cheering are orphans ready for adoption - but on this Opening Day, we acted like none of that was real.
Billy the Marlin, in a skit, beat up a ``padre'' in a monk's robe.
The Mermaids danced on dugouts.
On cue, we sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame as one.
A valiant try at The Wave sprang from the right-field stands.
An Opening Day logo sprayed behind home plate, and red, white and blue bunting fibbed that everything was normal.
For an afternoon, it was almost as if the franchise were not dying all around us - slipping from us, by degrees - because no local city or county government has the ingenuity or will they seem to be showing in abundance in San Antonio right now.
Tuesday, Marlins fans rose to the occasion. It was a sweet illusion.
Now: reality.
Tuesday's crowd will look like an aerial photograph of China compared to the intimate gatherings that will materialize for most games now, on days when baseball's greenest team labors under a gray sky both literal and figurative.
Mark your calendars. It will be late May, with a string of home games against the Mets and Giants, when anything approaching buzz or ambience is likely to next be felt at Dolphin Stadium. Mets fans turn out, and Barry Bonds' drop-in assures a temporary circus. Later, the Red Sox visit, and the park will be alive again.
Otherwise, you might want to make a memory of how Opening Day began, the sound of a big crowd, the roar when Hanley Ramirez stood on third. The feeling that we were a major-league town and always would be.
In the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday - it is the bottom of the ninth for this franchise now - a small band of very young voices chanted ``Let's go Mar-lins!'' even with the game hopelessly lost.
It almost made you cry.
How do you explain to a 6-year-old under a too-big ballcap about the economics and politics that are strangling the team he loves?
How do you tell the smallest fans that their Marlins might disappear and become the faint childhood memory they'll try to recall?
