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Scotland Took Over a Marlins Game and Made loanDepot Park the Loudest It’s Ever Been and Ever Will Be
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Scotland is in Miami for a World Cup match with Brazil on Wednesday, and while the Scottish fanbase is in town, the incredibly nicknamed Tartan Army took over a Marlins game on Tuesday, just like they took over Fenway in Boston:
This video rules. Look how locked in Tyler Phillips is as he listens to the Tartan Army going nuts. Look at his face. He looks like he’s about to walk into battle. He looks like he’s rapping Lose Yourself in his mind. It’s awesome.
On one hand, part of me wants to tell him, “Tyler, buddy, you realize none of these people cheering have any idea who you are, right? They’re not Marlins fans. They’re not even baseball fans. I’m gonna guess that a good 80% of the people in this ballpark right now don’t even understand how baseball works. They don’t know what you’re about to do. They don’t know what’s in your glove. Could be a hockey puck for all they know. Could be a bird. These fans might not even be cheering for you specifically. They very well may be going wild for an animated mascot race on the jumbotron. I’m sorry, Tyler, but someone had to tell you…”
But on the other hand, I don’t want to say that. It’d feel kind of messed up to rain on his parade. If Tyler Phillips is using the Tartan Army’s lunacy to get him jacked up for the game, who am I to interfere? I truly hope Tyler enjoyed playing in loanDepot Park with an actual loud crowd present, because that hasn’t happened any time recently, and may never happen again.
Also, I gotta tip my cap to the Marlins organization here. It looks like the team made Tuesday a Scottish heritage night, offering discounted ticket packages to Scottish fans in town and setting up Scottish-themed festivities before the game – including a performance by Nick Morgan, who sings this very good song I just heard for the first time:
And these bagpipe guys:
Which had the fans cheering through the whole game, even for incredibly normal, boring plays like this:
Great stuff. More MLB teams should do this while the World Cup is here. Let’s get some Croatia fans going nuts at Citizens Bank Park. We’ll do a Croatia night. Croatian Army. Maybe they’ll go even more nuts as the Scots. They can have bagpipes too. That sounds like some good content to me.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com