22 March 26 - april 1, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | PLAN YOUR WEDDINGS | CORPORATE EVENTS SOCIAL EVENTS Dream Event VIEW OUR EVENT SPACES WWW.THERUSTYPELICAN.COM at 3201 RICKENBACKER CWY, KEY BISCAYNE, FL 33149 | 305.361.3818 BE SOCIAL WITH US! /RUSTYPELICANMIAMI Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | No Blocky! Little Havana residents make bank off Marlins Park events. BY CELIA ALMEIDA I f you’ve driven down 17th Ave. past LoanDepot Park (Marlins Park if you’re nasty) in March, you’ve likely encoun- tered congestion and spotted at least two of these sights: police directing traf- fic, baseball fans crossing the road, roosters crossing the road. You might have also seen Daniel. You’d know if you’d seen Daniel. Standing on the corner of 17th Ave. and NW Third St. in a reflective visibility vest, he held up a sign of- fering parking for $50 during the World Base- ball Classic (WBC) this month. If you were standing behind Daniel, you would have seen the back of his sign offering another price — $40 — to meet fluctuating demand. And if you were standing behind Daniel, you’d have wanted to get out of the way, because when a prospective client waved him down, he jumped on his bike, zipped right up Third, then hung an immediate left on 17th Ct. to es- cort his customers to the front yard where they parked for the duration of the game. Daniel is just one of the many Little Ha- vana entrepreneurs for whom the quadren- nial WBC was big business. Just up the road, his neighbor, Adela Bobadilla, lured custom- ers not with a bike, but with water bottles, soda, and homemade meals. It was a particularly successful hustle when Nicaragua played. “I’m from Honduras, but we have similar gastronomy,” Bobadilla tells New Times. “In Honduras, we call it yuca con chicharron, and they call it vigorón (boiled yucca topped with pork rinds)…They’re walking by, and you offer it, and they just im- mediately turn around. People who didn’t park here just come and eat.” Bobadilla has lived in her home for 24 years, and she remembers parking cars dur- ing Miami Hurricanes games when the Or- ange Bowl loomed over the neighborhood. She says she can fit 15 to 20 cars on her prop- erty, totaling upwards of $1,000 per day. The neighbors all have their own systems for parking cars during major events such as the WBC. Bobadilla keeps her customers’ keys to ensure no one’s car gets blocked in. That attention to detail has paid off: Six satis- fied customers kept her contact information from the last tournament and returned to park at her home this year. “It is a lot of work,” she says, but she takes advantage while she can. The home team doesn’t attract quite the same fervor. “We don’t park anything with [the] Marlins,” she says. “The Marlins [don’t] bring anybody.” Her neighbor, Melisa, also remembers the golden Orange Bowl era. Though the WBC was lucrative, she says she made even more money when the Canes played in Little Havana. ‘We would average between $40 and $60, but they wouldn’t mind being blocked, so we could fit more cars,” she says. “The Canes [crowds] were more university stu- dents, so they wouldn’t mind hang- ing out. Baseball is more [popular with] families, so they have children, and they want to leave early. Also, for Canes games, they would stay all the way to the end. With baseball, they leave earlier.” Melisa lives on 17 Ave., directly across from the stadium, and has a side yard and front yard with plenty of room — she says she can fit 32 cars on her property. She has the process down to a science. As we spoke, she waved away two trucks and ges- tured to the drivers, spreading out her arms to communicate that the vehicles were far too large to play automotive Tetris in her yard. It is indeed her yard now — Melisa says she’s paid off her mortgage, and parking cars during the series helped her with another major property expense: “We paid off our roof loan with just these games,” she says. [email protected] ▼ Culture 2026 World Baseball Classic Photo by Megan Briggs / Getty Images “WE WOULD AVERAGE BETWEEN $40 AND $60, BUT THEY WOULDN’T MIND BEING BLOCKED, SO WE COULD FIT MORE CARS.”
