This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola's Marlins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

This season marks the 25th anniversary of the 1997 World Series championship ballclub. In this latest installment, we catch up with Jeff Conine, who couldn't attend the May 13-15 celebration at loanDepot park but recorded a video message.

Selected from the Royals in the 1992 Expansion Draft, "Mr. Marlin" played in all 162 games during the inaugural '93 season and was part of both World Series championships. He was an All-Star twice, being named MVP in '95. In '97, however, a 31-year-old Conine had a down year at the plate, slashing .242/.337/.405 in 151 games.

MLB.com: What stood out most from that 1997 team?

Conine: [Owner] Wayne Huizenga was trying to find out if baseball was going to work in South Florida, and he gave [general manager] Dave Dombrowski kind of an open checkbook to say, "Let's see what we get here, go all out and go for it and build something that is going to be a playoff contender." And that's exactly what he did. When we first got to Spring Training with all the new faces, and [manager] Jim Leyland leading the ship, we realized from Day 1 that we had something special just because of the way the atmosphere in the clubhouse was. Once we started playing in Spring Training, I think our record that year was insane, like [26-5]. We never lost it seemed. We knew we had something special from the get-go.

What was it like going back to first base?

I started off at first and I started the season extremely hot, and then I struggled for a while. They didn't waste much time bringing in Darren Daulton [via trade from the Phillies], because they knew that this was maybe one chance to do what we're hopefully going to do. They brought him in to platoon with me at first base, and [I] wasn't too happy about that when it happened. But Darren Daulton became one of my favorite teammates of all time. In the end, it was for the good of the team.

What was it like having your son, Griffin (Miami's No. 24 prospect), born during that season?

Big year in multiple senses. It was in the middle of the year, and luckily I was home when he was born.

Was there a game, a play, a performance of yours that stood out?

[On Aug. 26], we were in Chicago and I came off the bench, because they had switched pitchers and put in a lefty to face Daulton. Leyland put me in, and I ended up hitting two home runs and having five RBIs in my only two at-bats. I just remember that was a big game for me, because when you're struggling, you want to contribute any way you can.

Where were you on that final play of Game 7?

I had gotten into the game and then was taken out for a pinch-hitter, so I'm on the bench. Every play, every strike, literally I couldn't even watch the field. I was pacing up and down the dugout, and there was a television monitor at the very end. I remember going into the bat room and you could tell every pitch by the way the crowd reacted. If it was a strike, they'd go crazy. If it was a ball, there was silence. I knew what was going on by just the crowd reaction. I didn't have to watch.

I couldn't almost stomach watching, because there was so much tension in the air. When Edgar [Renteria] came up, as soon as he hit that ball, I'm watching it on the monitor on the TV. I got a much better perspective than everybody else, because I was watching it from center field. From my perspective, watching on TV, I knew it was going to be over his glove and there was no way that anybody was going to get it up the middle. I think I almost started running out of the dugout before anybody else.