Former Miami Marlin Logan Morrison returned to his old stomping grounds to find the place completely redone. He returned as a member of the rival Philadelphia Phillies during a Players’ Weekend series.

“It looks great,” Morrison said of the new-look Marlins Park, “more uniform, classy. I like it.”

Morrison was the Austin Dean of a previous era, a fan favorite who played both left field and first base. He was on the 2012 Opening Day lineup when the Marlins open the new ballpark against the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.

“A coupleof things I remember fondly enough was the awesome energy, the electricity, sold-out crowd,” Morrison said, “being able to get a hit in that game was cool. It was fun, man.”

Morrison played on the Marlins during their first two seasons at Marlins Park (2012-13), a time when the record books were being established. At one time he hit the second furthest home run in Marlins Park, but he played with a certain slugger named Giancarlo Stanton, so it was only a matter of time before that changed.

“Now he has like 18 of the farthest 19 home runs and I’m like 19th or 20th,” Morrison said with a chuckle.

Logan Morrison and his Marlin moments

Logan Morrison was traded to the Seattle Mariners for Carter Capps in the offseason leading up to the 2014 season. He hit a career-high 38 home runs and 85 RBI for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2017 but a disappointing, injury-riddled 2018 season with the Minnesota Twins that ended with hip surgery in August found him out of the loop throughout the offseason.

“The thing was I was healthy and I was playing every day,” Morrison said. “I had the opportunity to do it and I was healthy. Last year I was hurt, probably shouldn’t have been playing, didn’t have the year I wanted to have.”

The New York Yankees signed Morrison to a minor league contract after spring training and his season didn’t begin until May in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He slashed .289/.341/.658 with 15 home runs in 43 games and was picked up by the Phillies after the Yankees granted his release on the fourth of July.

Morrison said he started to, “feel like himself” in Triple-A prior to making it back to the big leagues with the Phillies. The role he has there now is similar to what fellow former Marlins Justin Bour had a year ago, a first base bat off the bench. Even if Morrison was back to his 2017 form, we wouldn’t know with his current role.

“At the end of the day, you’re not going to be putting up those kind of numbers without 500 at-bats,” Morrison said.

Morrison has gone 3-for-12 since being called up to Philadelphia. His lone appearance in this series came as a pinch hitter and resulted in a strikeout.

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