As Miami-Dade’s mayor, Carlos Gimenez boycotted Marlins Park for almost the entire time Jeffrey Loria owned the team. He publicly bashed the front office’s missteps.
On Tuesday, Gimenez emerged from a ballpark tour by new owner Derek Jeter with a customized Marlins birthday cake. “Happy Birthday Mayor Giménez” read the blue icing framing the Marlins team logo on the white cake, which Jeter presented to the mayor one day before Gimenez’s 64th birthday.
Even with Jeter presiding over a Loria-level payroll purge, Gimenez suggested fans give the new front office a chance to succeed.
“He wants to build a team the right way, from the ground up,” Gimenez said in a brief interview outside the county-owned ballpark after a tour by Jeter and other Marlins executives.