Oh No! Marlins Replace Billy the Marlin with Arnold, an Old Metallica Roadie Who Burns Bats in the 7th Inning Stretch

Oh No! Marlins Replace Billy the Marlin with Arnold, an Old Metallica Roadie Who Burns Bats in the 7th Inning Stretch

The Miami Marlins in an odd promotional stunt, had a man with a comically large name tag reading Arnold, and a marlin painted on his face come out onto center field between the top and bottom of the seventh inning in today’s game versus the Mets simply to set two worn ash bats on fire with a barbeque lighter.

Arnold, a tired looking man of about forty years, who The Plantain discovered was an old roadie for the band Metallica during the 90s, simply walked out onto the middle of the field at the half of the seventh inning and unceremoniously set two bats on fire and just as promptly walked off, looking down at his feet lethargically, leaving the visiting center fielder Juan Lagares to find a place for the charred pieces when play resumed.

After the game, team president Derek Jeter fielded questions over the odd display.

On the man being very clearly named Arnold: Well you want people to identify with a mascot, and we had a few meetings and we all agreed the name Arnold was a good name. Go Arnold!

An old roadie for the band Metallica during the 90's walked out onto the field in the seventh inning and unceremoniously set two bats on fire and then just walked off.

On the possible political implications of the promotion: Well you never want to send the wrong message, and we did put a lot of thought into whether it was the right thing to show during the seventh inning stretch when God Bless America could be playing, we asked several people what they thought and none of them could really make heads or tails of it so we decided it was probably alright.

On the nature of the promotion itself: Well, fire is exciting and sometimes in baseball, when the offense is doing well you say ‘Their bats are on fire’ so we decided that would be cool.

On Who Arnold is: Arnold has a mysterious past, we aren't really sure on the backstory yet, but I can tell you it is really really mysterious, and he has different powers we are working on. He is somehow related to fish. We all agree he should be from the ocean.

On Billy: Billy was great but the costume was very expensive, unfortunately, we had to repurpose the fabric to fix some of the paddings on the outfield wall.

By Michael de Armas