This morning, the Marlins will make history, holding the official ceremonial ground-breaking for their loooong awaited ballpark.

The ceremony is expected to be full of optimism and forward-looking, but it will also include a tinge of history: the Marlins’ first-ever pitcher-catcher battery of Charlie Hough and Benito Santiago will perform a ceremonial first pitch at the former Orange Bowl site.

With that in mind, when the Marlins take their new field, expected in 2012, they’ll be making another nod to the past -- changing their name to Miami Marlins. It’s a requirement of the ballpark deal struck with Miami-Dade County and city of Miami, which are paying the bulk of the ballpark’s price.

While the name isn’t expected to change until the new ballpark opens, the team is already quietly easing into the transition. Its Web site is now just marlins.com without the Florida.

As for the original Miami Marlins, they were a minor league team that played in the International League from 1956 to 1960 at Miami’s famed and now-demolished Miami Stadium (renamed Bobby Maduro in 1987). Satchel Paige pitched for the team. Later, there was a Florida State League team named the Miami Marlins, which played at the stadium from1962-1970 and then from 1982-1988.

The original Miami Marlins are immortalized in a T-shirt produced by Ebbets Field Flannels, a Seattle mail order company (ebbets.com) that sells authentic flannel and felt-lettered reproductions of minor league baseball jerseys, jackets and caps, favored by the likes of Spike Lee, David Letterman and former Sex Pistol John Lydon. As you can see, the shirt’s orange – one of the Major League Marlins’ colors - and shows a baseball bat-wielding marlin popping out of old Miami Stadium.

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OK, not the whole team, but a piece of a team? Boca Raton-based iTeam Sports, which launched last year to provide fans an opportunity to become team owners, recently forged a partnership with HVM Racing, which has two cars competing in Sunday’s Indy 500.

iTeam’s model allows fans to pay typically $150 to $200 to invest in a minor league sports franchise. That investment provides no monetary return, but gives fans the right to be called “owner” as well as merchandise, ticket discounts, and unique access to team officials and players. They also become part of an online social network for each team.

The company launched with three independent baseball teams last year: the Atlantic City Surf in New Jersey and Texas-based Grand Prairie AirHogs and El Paso Diablos. Read the story I wrote about the company’s launch last October here.

But iTeam always planned to expand to other sports, including auto racing. In fact, iTeam President Steven Levenson said, partnering with an IndyCar team works well for attracting fans nationally.

“The stick and ball sports are very regionalized to where the team is,” Levenson said. “The appeal with motorsports is national and international … it’s a different model.”

For $199, fans can own a stake in Indianapolis-based HVM Racing -- read more about the partnership here. Team drivers E.J. Viso (No. 13) and Nelson Philipe (No. 00) are competing in the Indy 500. The partnership is exclusive through 2011.

“Racing fans are very engaged with their favorite teams, and this arrangement lets them get even more involved, probably more than they even thought possible,” HVM Racing Team Principal Keith Wiggins said in a statement.

iTeam has a booth at this weekend’s Indy 500, and representatives are handing out postcards explaining the deal. The company is running ads on other Web sites and pitching the investment as a gift idea, including for Father’s Day.

“You can sit and watch the race and say I’m a fan of so and so. It’s another thing to say I’m a fan of this team because I own this team,” said Bob Margolis, an iTeam spokesman. “It’s an opportunity to be Chip Ganassi or Roger Penske without the headaches.”

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More cowbell? The Panthers think so.

Capitalizing on the cowbell craze that swept BankAtlantic Center last season, the Panthers will give out 15,000 red cowbells at Saturday’s 2008-09 home opener. Don’t forget to bring earplugs.

Cowbells won’t just be for supporting the team, they’ll be introducing the team’s new inflatable mascot. Fear not, the popular Dancing Banana will still be making appearances this season.

The cowbell phenomenon at the Panthers started last December when Murphy Burch, a Panthers fan from Cooper City who will be dropping a ceremonial first puck Saturday, saw fans ringing cowbells at a Chicago Wolves minor league hockey game.

Burch, known as "VanMurph" on his Panthers jersey, had grown tired of noisy fans of opposing teams outnumbering -- or at least out-cheering -- Panthers fans at BankAtlantic Center. He bought a couple of cowbells to a game, then a couple more for some friends. Cowbells became a topic on the Panthers message board. Soon a clip of the popular Saturday Night Live skit in which Christopher Walken pleads for Blue Oyster Cult to use “more cowbell,” was playing on the scoreboard and cowbells were for sale at the team’s Pantherland store.

Read Burch's explanation of the cowbell movement here.

While the SNL skit has given renewed life to cowbells in pop culture, the cowbell has been intertwined with sports for years. Popular at minor league and college hockey games, cowbells have also been heard at the Olympics in support of downhill skiers and at bicycling races, among other events.

They’ve been so popular at college football games that the SEC instituted a ban on the noisy bells, threatening a loss of yardage should they get too loud. Fans of Mississippi State still smuggle in the bells.

The Tampa Bay Rays adopted cowbells in 2007 because principal team owner Stuart Sternberg loves the SNL skit. They’ve been handed out to Rays fans – fans in opposing team jerseys are denied – and are used when opposing players have two strikes. And you wondered what the secret was to the Rays finally making it to the playoffs for the first time in team history…

Watch the teaser video for the Panthers' new inflatable mascot here:

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BankAtlantic Center is to host the first professional lacrosse game in Florida in January, in what officials say will serve as a test to see whether South Florida can sustain its own indoor lacrosse team.

Sunrise Sports & Entertainment, the owner of the Panthers and operator of the arena, and the National Lacrosse League announced the Jan. 3 regular season matchup between the New York Titans and Toronto Rock this afternoon. Tickets for the matchup dubbed the Florida Lacrosse Cup, which will cost $10, $15 and $25, go on sale on Friday through Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.com; 954-523-3309 in Broward; 561-966-3309 in Palm Beach).

The NLL has 13 teams across the U.S. and Canada and plays a 16-game schedule between January and April. The league is looking to expand.

“We definitely view South Florida as a place for future expansion, and we are bringing the game here on January 3 to give fans a chance to experience the excitement of the NLL in person,” NLL Commissioner Jim Jennings said in a statement.

Sunrise Sports & Entertainment President Michael Yormark said the league contacted the Panthers four or five years ago about the possibility of expanding. But the team and venue weren’t ready yet, Yormark said.

Now, Yormark said, “There’s some potential there. There are quite a few NHL teams that are now in the indoor lacrosse business.”

Yormark said four or five NLL teams are associated with the NHL teams where they play, including the Colorado Mammoth, which is owned by Stan Kroenke, who also owns the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. Adapting the arena from hockey to lacrosse isn't difficult and some arenas host a lacrosse game in the afternoon followed by a hockey game that night, Yormark said. He said the fan bases are similar, too.

The Florida Lacrosse Cup game, Yormark said, will give SSE a sense of whether the community can sustain yet another lower-tier sport.

The region's track record with minor league sports hasn't exactly been stellar.

“We think it’s an opportunity to test the market,” Yormark said stressing that games are played in the winter. “If it’s successful, the goal would be to explore the possibility of having an expansion team.”

Yormark said organizers hope the Jan. 3 game will draw 8,000 to 10,000 people.

Is there any way that many people show up? And if they do, does South Florida get another team? Will you go?

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Couldn’t resist this minor league giveaway: The Lancaster JetHawks, a Boston Red Sox affiliate, gave out “Big Poppy” bobblehead dolls on Saturday. That’s right, the doll looks like David “Big Papi” Ortiz, but has a big orange “poppy” flower for a face.

The poppy is the California state flower. It blooms in the Lancaster area in the spring, and if the weather conditions are just right, the brown desert hills burst with color and look like they’re on fire. I know, I used to cover the city of Lancaster for the LA Daily News, long before the city had a minor league baseball team.

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