April 01, 2007
By Hal Habib

College kid who thought he knew it all. DJ and club promoter. Salsa instructor specializing in the rhythmically challenged.

Juan Martinez has managed to cram those seemingly unrelated roles into his 30 years, never realizing all that diversity and occasional frivolity would somehow lead to becoming the man charged with making the Florida Marlins relevant in South Florida's Hispanic community.

Not long ago, as a sports management student at Barry University, Martinez didn't think the Marlins connected with Hispanics, so he did something about it.

"Hispanic sports-marketing a baseball team in South Florida: What I would do differently," he said, recalling the theme of a paper he wrote at the Miami Shores university. "Because, at the time, it really wasn't existing."

Turned out the college kid knew what he was talking about.

He got a B-plus. And a job.

Martinez was bold enough to bring the paper when he interviewed for a job with the Marlins.

"When you come in, they give you the whole speech of, 'We want you to be part of this exciting new opportunity. You have some great ideas, go ahead and share them with us,' " Martinez said. "I just went in and handed in my paper."

He drew largely upon his background as the son of Cuban parents, born and raised in Miami. For Martinez, the bottom line was and is surprisingly simple.

"With the Hispanic market," he said, "you can go after the heartstrings, the gut a little more, calling out that passion for the game. Maybe the general market, you can do it as well, but it may come off as forced ... It sounds like a car dealer."

Martinez is blunt in his assessment of the Marlins' roots in the Hispanic community.

"There was zero connection up until 1997 when they created a Hispanic marketing department," he said. "There really wasn't a concerted effort to reach out. I don't think there was any Spanish-language advertising, anything."

He said the Marlins might have assumed "that just opening up the doors and throwing out some bats and balls, that Hispanics were going to come."

Maybe the Marlins weren't alone in that assumption. When the team debuted on a sunny afternoon before a sold-out stadium in 1993, many looked at South Florida's makeup and reasoned that since Hispanics love beisbol so much, this was a match that couldn't miss.

"It's extremely important," said Sean Flynn, Marlins vice president of marketing. "You need to have a connection."

Much like the franchise's fortunes as a whole, the years have brought a series of highs and lows in the relationship with the Hispanic community. Regularly scheduled parties in Little Havana, called parrandas, came and went. So did a weekly Marlins show on Spanish TV and a young Cuban pitching phenom, Livan Hernandez.

The December 1996 signing of pitcher Alex Fernandez, a Cuban-American who grew up in Miami, shot hopes skyward. But injuries prevented him from fulfilling a five-year, $35 million contract.

Meanwhile, the Marlins en Miami shop, selling merchandise and tickets in Little Havana, has been a hit. Games are readily available in Spanish on radio and TV, and the language barrier at the Dolphin Stadium ticket window disappeared with the introduction of designated bilingual lines.

"I think they do a good job," said Fort Pierce's Javy Cisneros, 30, an engineer of Mexican descent, as he found his seat at a recent Marlins exhibition game. "I don't know if they could do any more. I think they need to continue to market to the fan base regardless of the background, because we do have spotty attendance and that's a shame, because they are a really good team."

Cisneros said he and his friends gather weekly to talk Marlins baseball, so "I do see connections with the team."

Meanwhile, Ernesto Corvo pondered the issue amid the clank-clank-clank of dominoes in Little Havana's Domino Park. Corvo, 68, said he was a pretty decent center fielder in his day in Cuba, pre-Castro, pre-arm injury.

"There are a lot of Cubans here. And Cuba likes baseball forever," Corvo said.

Corvo didn't hesitate when asked if the Marlins reach out to the community.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Now they have a Cuban manager and a lot of Latin players."

So why aren't more Cubans showing up at games?

"The stadium is far away from here," he said, adding that a stadium in downtown Miami would greatly help.

The latest Miami-Dade County census figures list the Hispanic population at 60.6 percent. But routine surveys conducted by the Marlins' marketing department show attendance holding steady at about 40 to 45 percent Hispanic over the past several seasons, Flynn said.

In December 2002, when Flynn joined the team's front office, the Marlins devoted about 30 percent of their resources toward marketing to Hispanics, with the percentage inching upward since.

For the Hispanic fan, that translates in ways large and small. When Fredi Gonzalez was named manager, the club immediately ushered him to Marlins en Miami, where he mingled with those who watched him grow up. Starting this week, they'll no longer have to get Marlins news from the club's English Web site. Marlinsbeisbol.com, a site featuring unique material, not mere translations, is preparing to launch.

Likewise, the Marlins realize they cannot afford to run an ad campaign that simply translates English ads.

"¡Ven y vívelo!" ("Come and live it!") say their Spanish ads, a contrast to satirical English ads in which players "accost" fans to ask why they aren't at the ballpark. The Marlins ranked last in the majors last year with an average home attendance of 14,384.

Promotions scheduled thus far include Cuban Heritage Night (May 25), a post-game concert by El Gran Combo (May 26), Venezuelan Heritage Night and a Miguel Cabrera figurine giveaway (June 29) and Hispanic Heritage Weekend Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

Those are obvious promotions. Not so obvious are the ones that will take place from 5-7 p.m. before Friday home games, when a handful of instructors from the Salsa-Casino Dance Studios will give lessons outside the stadium.

Credit that idea to Martinez's distant past. During the salsa craze in the '90s, Martinez and a small group of friends gathered in a back yard with a boombox. When the group swelled to more than 30, a dance studio was born. So was a part-time job.

"The things you do to pay your way through school," Martinez said. "Since I was the most patient guy of the group, I used to teach the basic beginners. Guys off the street would be like, 'I want to learn how to meet Latin women.' Some guys, you're like, 'All right, bro. I'll try my best here,' but some people just aren't born with it."

Source: Palm Beach Post