Saturday, July 05, 2008

No More Excuses

The Tampa Bay Rays have been the "feelgood" story of the baseball season so far, coming out of seemingly nowhere to not only lead the AL East at this juncture, but also have the best record in baseball. But I have an important question right now.

Where are all their fans? Do they have any beyond their hardcore supporters?

They only drew just over 16,000 for a July 4th game against Kansas City yesterday. If they are taking the baseball world by storm right now, where's the support? They only sellout the Trop when they play the Red Sox? (Hey, it still seemed like at least half the fans at the three-game series earlier this week were supporting the Red Sox.)

No more lame excuses for the lack of support in Tampa, like what a rotten stadium they play in for example. They have an exciting team there, one that clearly isn't going to collapse any time soon. Fans will come to a lousy park to see a winning team. You can't point fingers at the Rays management anymore for putting a lousy team on the field.

You really have to wonder if the Tampa Bay area only cares about the Bucs and football, and even a winning team won't bring out any support. Or as my dad said to me yesterday, "I guess there aren't a lot of Kansas City fans in the Tampa Bay area."

And also to Rays management: I wouldn't be fooling with the "baseball gods" guys. Playing "Sweet Caroline" after the sweep on Wednesday night wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. You haven't put up any championship flags yet. Things have a funny way of evening out in the end.

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