Riiii-iii-ng. Riiii-iii-ng.

Operator: Florida Marlins baseball-club ticket office.

Potential consumer: Yes, I’d like to know the starting time for tonight’s Marlins game against the Expos?

Operator: Hold on [long pause] ... Well, what time’s good for you?

MIAMI — This long-running joke is certainly apropos for new Sox owner John Henry’s former holding, the Marlins, a team just five years removed from a still-mystifying World Series title. During a recent vacation in the Sunshine State, I had the opportunity to take in a Marlins game at Pro Player Stadium, and for a guy accustomed to the passion and frenzy of Fenway Park, what I experienced on that 76-degree night two weeks ago was as mind-numbing as it was puzzling.

I attended a Thursday-night contest against the Montreal Expos, the third home game of the season for the Marlins. Attendance was 33,765, which would constitute a sellout at cozy little Fenway Park. Not bad, huh? Not quite. The aforementioned attendance was the total for the three-game series with Les Expos, including an Opening Day crowd of 23,877. Yes, when I walked into this state-of-the-art stadium that beautiful night, I shared the comforts of the 70,000-plus capacity stadium with only 4400 other baseball zealots, a franchise low for attendance.

How could this be?, you ask. I remember watching the 1997 World Series when the park was packed with more than 67,000 fans each night, and now they are drawing fewer people than the bleachers hold at a typical weeknight Red Sox game?

I guess some history is in order. Pro Player Stadium was built in 1986 for the region’s football club, the Dolphins; there is little doubt that it was built for football, and football only. Professional baseball in Florida at that time existed only in terms of spring-training venues and single-A minor-league clubs scattered throughout the state. However, in the late ’80s, local officials made concerted efforts to secure a National League franchise for the area, and in 1991 Major League Baseball awarded a team to South Florida. The Marlins began play in 1993, drawing more than three million fans through the turnstiles at then-named Joe Robbie Stadium their inaugural season. Blockbuster Video CEO Wayne Huizenga was the team’s grand poo-bah, and following three disappointing seasons, drastic moves were made in the off-season of 1996, including the hiring of veteran manager Jim Leyland and the investment of nearly $89 million in free-agent signings.

When the team opened the 1997 season, it had a payroll of nearly $100 million, and played in the now-renamed Pro Player Stadium, whose naming rights were purchased by the sports-apparel line of Fruit of the Loom. With a team that consisted of Moises Alou, Bobby Bonilla, Darren Daulton, Charles Johnson, Devon White, and Gary Sheffield, along with hurlers Al Leiter, Livan Hernandez, and Kevin Brown, the team won the NL wild card with a 92-70 record. After sweeping the Giants and stunning the Braves in six games, the Marlins won a thrilling seven-game World Series over Cleveland.

The ecstasy soon faded, though, because Huizenga announced that he lost $34 million during that championship season and began dismantling the club. By the end of the 1998 season, with most of its top players traded and team payroll down to just $13 million, Florida had lost 108 games and most of its disgusted fan base.

Supposedly, John Henry would save the day when he purchased the club from Huizenga for $150 million in January 1998. But he admitted that the future of the ball club depended on a new taxpayer-funded stadium. When that didn’t materialize, and the team continued to flounder, Henry began to shop for a new team. As everyone around here knows, he ended up at the helm of New England’s flagship sports franchise.

Former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria — who certainly knows something about lousy attendance and low payrolls — now owns the Marlins. They continue to play in Pro Player Stadium, which is not a bad place to take in a ball game. But I am told that, as at Fenway, there are numerous seats down the left- and right-base lines that face the outfield, rather than the infield action, and that most seats are just too far from the action. The night I was there, I pretty much had my pick and got an infield box behind home plate, just 11 rows from the field, for 25 bucks. The cost of a seat like that at Fenway would put you in the hinterlands of the right-field grandstand.

It was a beautiful night for a game that night in Miami, but it was mind-boggling to see the sea of empty seats around me. If I had wanted to, I could have counted every person in the stadium that night (and did total 140 hardy folks seated in the outfield bleachers). If you wanted to heckle, you would be heard — there is no doubt about that. Odds of catching a foul were definitely in your favor. At times, it seemed like the roving concessionaires outnumbered the fans in the box seats.

Most local folks insist that the team definitely needs a new park, even though the stadium still seems brand new, with cup holders at every seat and enough room between rows to slouch and still not nudge the seat in front of you. We Bostonians complain (rightfully) that we need a new park to replace our 90-year-old antique, while South Floridians clamor to replace their 16-year-old stadium, even though the reasonably priced marquee seats for every game consistently go unsold.

Other things I noticed about that night’s experience, for better or worse:

• For the ceremonial first-pitch, the Marlins’ mascot, Billy, served as the catcher. That’s bush.

• Beer is $5.50 for a 16-ounce plastic bottle and is sold in the stands, as well as at the concessions, where everyone gets a receipt for their purchase. Short lines, by the way.

• Nine bucks to park at the stadium. Park sideways if you want — there’s room.

• If you catch a foul ball, you can get it certified for authenticity by taking it to Customer Service. If you catch a Marlins’ home-run ball, you can get it signed through the same process. I’m sure eBay patrons want some proof when they bid on your Marty Malloy treasure.

• Radio broadcasts of the game can be heard throughout the concourse and even in the rest rooms, and TV monitors tuned to the game are at every single concession stand. There’s no escape.

• The first seven rows of the infield boxes are similar to the club seats at the FleetCenter, where you can get wait service for food and drink and you never have to leave your seat. As if you’d want to.

• The umpires wear tan, and the World Series–championship " banner " is prominently placed against the left-field wall. Wherever will we put ours next spring?

• ADT, makers of home security systems, is a prominent advertiser throughout the park, and you can make of that what you will. I was also intrigued by the signage for the Miccosukee Indian tribe — it didn’t mention a casino, just the tribe. Miccosukee. I don’t know why that makes me smile; it just does. Miccosukee.

• Ushers won’t let you take your seat until there is a break in the action, such as an out or an inning ending. It is a posted rule, designed to prevent you from disturbing other patrons. The practice was laughable, since I pretty much had a row to myself, but I liked the concept nonetheless. Can you imagine this working — or being obeyed — at Fenway?

• Schedule magnets were still being distributed to fans on this, the third home date of the season, despite the uproar that ensued during Opening Day: fans, incensed by an umpire’s call, had flung the schedules like Frisbees onto the field. Both teams had their cut men at the ready.

• Mrs. Fields’ cookies can be purchased in the stands. No confirmed reports of them being thrown on Opening Day, just lost.

I got the impression from other fans that John Henry’s tenure as head of the Marlins was rather inconspicuous. That he did no harm, but didn't do much to improve the club, either. On the heels of the villainous Huizenga, anyone would have been a step up, but the Marlins — sometimes rumored to be a future victim of league " contraction " — need to do something to regain their fan base. They actually have a nice young competitive team, and the stadium really isn’t that bad. We’ll show you bad.

But I still can’t figure out how the defending 2001 World Series champs can come to town and draw a total of just over 44,000 over the course of the weekend, even when Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling are tossing for the D-Backs. Sunday’s total of 13,976 was in addition to 312 canines as part of " Dog Day Afternoon " — bring-your-pet-to-the-park day — at Pro Player Stadium.

Some day, Greater Miami may get a new stadium, but until the fans there show some support, I’m not sure they deserve one. Three million folks showed up at Pro Player in 1993; at this rate, they’ll be lucky to draw a half-mill this year. It won’t surprise anyone to find out that Hollywood Greyhound Park may attract more fans for its sixth-month season than the Marlins, which means that the majority of South Floridian sports fans are now going to the dogs, as is their baseball team. Woof!

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at bostonphoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com