Random thoughts in the wake of the approvals to build a $515 million ballpark for the Marlins and a $94 million parking garage at the site of the Orange Bowl:

+ Yes, there are still lots of questions to be answered. Among them: How much will the infrastructure – road improvements, utility costs, etc… -- cost and how will it be paid for? Which police force – city of Miami or Miami-Dade County – will patrol the county-owned venue? How much will it cost to make the building environmentally friendly? Why is the team only securing a $20 million line of credit for cost overruns? Will Norman Braman’s lawsuit derail or significantly delay the project?

+ Will a group of people that spent more than seven hours debating the binding agreement really be able to approve future agreements that spell out how the ballpark will be financed, who will oversee the construction and a host of other issues?

+ Miami Commissioners made the process look easy – spending fewer than three hours on the topic. Was it really necessary for Miami-Dade Commissioners to spend more than seven hours on this? I know it’s politics and everyone wants his say, but even if each of the dozen commissioners in attendance has 15 minutes each on the topic, that’s still only three hours of debate. Maybe I’ve just been to too many of these meetings.

+ Major League Baseball won’t contribute to the building of a ballpark for the Marlins, but it should be considered significant that the industry has made a commitment – which could be the first of many -- to helping offset the cost of making the venue environmentally friendly.

MLB President Bob DuPuy told city and county commissioners the Marlins ballpark would be the sport’s first “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” project, and that it would match up to $1 million during the next two years to help achieve that goal.

DuPuy also promised to continue discussions to create a youth baseball academy in Hialeah, which you may recall was one of the locations considered for a ballpark in the past, and to discuss options for the underused Homestead baseball complex.

+ And speaking of DuPuy, when it looked like the stadium agreement might be held up when county commissioners fretted over the issue of patrols for the venue and considered making changes to the document, which would have required it be sent back to the city for another vote, DuPuy went to the podium and forcefully urged a decision: “From Major League Baseball’s standpoint, the failure to move forward today is a death knell for baseball in South Florida.”

+ And finally, for now, there’s still more work to be done, but politicians, Marlins and MLB officials were all smiles after the agreement was approved late Thursday.

Marlins President David Samson called it: "The first day of the rest of our franchise history."

And DuPuy told commissioners they wouldn’t be sorry when the ballpark opens and team changes its name to Miami Marlins: “I can promise you as difficult as these processes are, on Opening Day, when you see the looks on the kids faces as they come through the turnstiles to see the very first Miami Marlins game in the new ballpark, I guarantee you for everybody in this room, it’ll be all worth it.