When Major League Baseball announced its plans to expand by 1993, H. Wayne Huizenga began aggressively pursuing one of those teams to place in Florida.

On June 10, 1991, Florida, which for years was used for spring training, finally got a team of its own when baseball announced that Miami would get one of two 1993 expansion teams. To build the Marlins, Hazing hired Carl Barger from the Pittsburgh Pirates as the club's very first president.

Barger would oversee the search for a General Manager, and the building of the Minor League System as well as the expansion draft held on November 17, 1992, In that draft the Marlins tabbed Nigel Wilson from the Toronto Blue Jays as their first pick, among the 36 players the Marlins selected that day. Finally, the team was in place, and the countdown to the inaugural season was on.

Sadly, Carl Barger would never see Opening Day, dying on December 9, 1992, after collapsing during the owners' meetings due to a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.