Shortly after being interviewed by reporters at the Miami home opener last night, Dan Barton (above) — who’d bragged within earshot of Miami-Dade police officers of buying tickets in the parking lot to avoid lining Jeffrey Loria’s pockets —- found himself and pals persona non grata at Marlins Park. From the Palm Beach Post’s Joe Capozzi :
“They kicked us out. We didn’t even make it to our seats,’’ Barton said in a phone interview as they drove back to Fort Lauderdale.
He claimed that one officer told them their sign was blocking the view of other fans. “My friend offered to turn his shirt inside out and they said no,’’ Barton said.
He also said an officer asked them to wait for a Marlins representative, but no representative showed up.
“We asked police what we were doing wrong. And he said, ‘They want you to leave.’’
By ‘they,’ Barton assumed the officer was referring to the Marlins.
After the game, team president David Samson addressed the incident.
“We got information from the police that they’d run into a couple of fans who were walking around holding signs that were fine. That was not the issue. They were drawing some attention to themselves. Making some noise later in the game, which is not uncommon,’’ Samson said.
“As per standard operating procedure, the police go up, try to tell them to calm down and they did not. Then the police said, ‘Show me ID’ and they did not. And that was it. You have to show ID when asked. So they were ejected.“