Miami ? Amazement is best served suddenly.

As a 100-meter dash is more exciting than a marathon, what impresses most easily in sports is what we can see happening right now – as in one frenetic night at the Orange Bowl, for a totally random example. Or in one swing of a bat, such as what made unsung Joe Borchard the latest hero Monday in the latest magic by the Marlins.

It is harder to step back and fathom what unfolds slowly, especially in the midst of it. Imagine trying to appreciate the Mona Lisa if you saw the painting come to life one brush stroke per day.

That might help explain why South Florida hasn’t gotten behind the Marlins in any way close to what this team deserves and has earned.

This is the best story in baseball nationally, at least if flabbergasting surprise counts for anything. But so many of the people who would be eyewitnesses don’t act like it.

This might be the best story of any sport or year locally, in terms of one of our teams coming from so far down to turn a sour season special. Yet our reaction – our back to the parade, stifling a yawn – has been equal parts stupefying and embarrassing.

Monday’s 8-5 comeback over Arizona from a five-run hole, sparked by Borchard’s three-run homer, was simply a microcosm of what the no-quit Marlins have been doing since late May.

“No way to put it into words,” Borchard said, shaking his head. “The effort and the daily heart, you can’t describe what these guys have done.”

South Florida never has known Cinderella quite like this one in baseball spikes.

“Nothing short of amazing,” veteran closer Joe Borowski said. “We could have easily mailed it in, taken the route everybody thought we would. It’s shocking. I can’t explain it. To come from where we were? No way.”

This is the team with a record number of rookies, a team so young you half expect to see the players being dropped off at the stadium by their moms.

This is the team with the below-low, sub-$15 million payroll, which is to MLB budgets what the Dollar Store is to Rodeo Drive.

This is the team that was forecast to surpass the infamous 1962 Mets as the worst team in baseball history – and started off like it, with an abysmal 11-31 record more than a quarter into the season.

“That wasn’t a fun universe to be in,” manager Joe Girardi recalled.

Now, on Monday, the Marlins became the first team in history to go from 20 games below .500 to over .500. No team since the 1899 Louisville Colonels had gone from 20 below to get to .500. (Quick aside: Those 1899 Colonels included players named Chief Zimmer, Farmer Steelman, Topsy Hartsell, Tacks Latimer and Dummy Hoy. Whatever happened to great baseball nicknames?)

But support in the stands is terrible, with Florida dead-last in attendance and no spike since the upturn that has seen the team 58-37 since late May. Talking about 1899, was that Monday’s crowd? The announced gate of 12,191 surely counted a slew of no-shows.

When players mention the crowds, sadly, it is often with dark humor.

“It’s Labor Day. Hey, we got 25, 30 extra people!” Borowski noted kiddingly.