25-Year Marliniversary: Fish Get First-Ever Walk-Off Win

Now in their 26th season as a Major League Baseball franchise, the Florida/Miami Marlins have had plenty of thrilling finishes and heartbreaking defeats.

Few things in baseball are as thrilling as the walk-off victory. The Marlins experienced their first one ever on this day 25 years ago.

It was May 1, 1993 as the Florida Marlins welcomed in their expansion sister, the Colorado Rockies, for the middle game of a 3-game set at Joe Robbie Stadium. It also marked the beginning of the first ever May for both franchises.

The contest had gone scoreless for four innings until the 12th. After Bryan Harvey worked a perfect top half of the inning for the Marlins, Rick Renteria, who entered the game during a double switch in the 11th inning, hit a sharp single to left field to score Jeff Conine and give the Marlins their first ever walk-off victory.

Conine looked as though he might be the hero earlier in the game. In the bottom of the fifth inning, he took Colorado's David Nied deep for a grand slam to put the Marlins ahead, 6-3.

That lead would last only until the seventh when Colorado put a 3-spot on the board. After RBI singles from Andres Galarraga and Charlie Hayes cut the lead to one, Rockies' catcher and future Marlins' manager Joe Girardi evened the game with an RBI groundout.

It was the second 3-run inning of the contest for the Rockies, who broke through early with three runs in the first inning off Florida starter Charlie Hough. The Marlins chipped away with two runs on back-to-back RBI singles from Alex Arias and Walt Weiss in the bottom of the second inning before going ahead on the Conine blast.

Harvey was the winning pitcher after he, Cris Carpenter, Bob McClure and Trevor Hoffman combined to work 5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. Steve Reed took the loss for the Rockies.

The Marlins have had plenty of other walk-off wins since then, including in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series and Game 4 of the 2003 World Series. The first one ever however, came from an unlikely hero and came on this day 25 years ago.

Mike Ferguson is the founder of Marlins Memories. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson.

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