Looking at Plan R...R for Rowdies

Hi there!

This might blow your flipping mind, but I'm not only gonna post something, but I'm gonna post something that's not related to 007! I know, shocker, right?

Yesterday, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg told the Hillsborough County Commission that "Major League Baseball at this point no longer believes in the Tampa Bay area." Not just St. Petersburg, but Tampa, Clearwater, and everywhere else talk has been discussed about building a new facility. This appears to be why (as backed up by St. Pete mayor Bill Foster) the contract at Tropicana Field is being enforced so severely by the City of St. Pete. Basically put, without that contract, MLB would have left Tampa Bay high and dry a few years ago.

I've advocated a new downtown St. Petersburg ballpark numerous times, pointing out the merits of pre- and postgame entertainment options afforded in such a location. However, I've also pointed out that no matter where the new ballpark is built — be it downtown St. Pete, downtown Tampa, or anywhere in between — mass transit is the vital key to making this whole thing work.

That said, Sternberg also reiterated the long-held position that he and the team will only look at any potential sites if all potential sites (including Tampa and Hillsborough County) are allowed to be explored. St. Pete's official position has been to restrict sites to within St. Pete city limits and bordering Pinellas communities. That stalemate looks nowhere near being cleared up. So, where does that leave us?

Personally, I think we start planning on a Plan B here in St. Pete. While we may ultimately be the best location in the Bay Area to house the Rays, it will never be known if the Rays aren't allowed to explore. And before you know it, 2027 will get here way too quickly, and we'll all be left holding the bag they mentally abandoned oh so long ago.

So, I'm willing to break my long-held belief that the Rays should be St. Pete's in perpetuity and look at the "what if?" of the Rays leaving St. Pete...but with a twist.

"What do we do to placate the Rays and keep St. Pete's leverage" you ask? Well, the first thing we have to do as a city is allow the Rays to look anywhere they want — with a condition. If they want the privilege of looking at Tampa, they have to sign an agreement requiring them to help St. Pete not only draft a rehabilitation plan for Al Lang Field to attract an MLB team from Arizona for spring training, but also help design (not pay for costs, etc.) a new Rowdies stadium in downtown St. Pete. If they want the privilege to look outside of Tampa Bay, but still in Florida (Orlando, perhaps?), they have to also agree — in addition to the aforementioned plans — to help recruit both a spring training team from Arizona and promise to move their (either the moved team's or the Rays') High-A minor league team to the newly-rehabbed Al Lang, should they move. Do they want to look outside of Florida entirely? Okay, but they're paying for at least 50% the rehab costs of Al Lang — as well as take care of all of the above.

(Point of clarification: those actions above would only go into effect if the Rays actually left St. Petersburg's boundaries. They would only need to sign agreements to look in those places, not actually make progress on the above at this time.)

I made mention of the Rowdies in those terms. That is because, unlike Sternberg and MLB, Andy Nestor and the NASL have fully and wholeheartedly embraced the city of St. Pete and all they have done for the rebirth of Tampa Bay's favorite soccer team. They have dealt with playing soccer on an odd-sided pitch in a baseball facility with nary a complaint, and enjoy everything the City has done to market and cater to them. Sadly, though, if they ever hope for true success (i.e. making a jump to Major League Soccer), they will need to get a new home. The Rowdies have pledged themselves to Al Lang until at least 2016, but they should get a new home around the end of the current contract. That said, it will be a lot cheaper to build a soccer stadium...and as luck would have it, the land is available downtown.

It's true. It might be a tight fit, but to make the pitch (the field for all those who don't speak "soccer-ese") the FIFA recommended size of 105m x 68m (roughly 115 yds by 74 yds), a stadium could be built on a couple plots of land that are mostly vacant, save for a dentist, between 2nd St and 3rd St S with 4th Ave S to the south and the University Plaza Shopping Center to the north. Design work would need to be done (I'm definitely not an architect), but I'm sure tighter places have been pitched — and built successfully — before.

So, if the Rays wish to ignore any and all proposals that are pitched to them by both the City of St. Pete and private businesses in and around the city, they should be allowed to look, but in a way that still prevents St. Pete from becoming irrelevant, something that this current government is doing by being the same spoiled kid the Rays are. Both sides need to give, or not only will the Trop become an empty dome, but we'll have to deal with Plan C: life without the Rays in Tampa Bay at all.

Or worse, and something that will resonate through, and continuously haunt, St. Pete for generations: a jaded Rowdies organization whose patience will run out, leaving an even worse Plan D...no seasonal sports in St. Pete at all.

Twenty-Three Openings to Remember

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What I've Been Doing All These Months....

As I'm sure you're all aware (ha! like anyone reads my drivel), I've been neglecting to write anything on here for a while. Well, I haven't forgotten; I've been working on a side project of mine....

Presenting to you, my stadium reviews!

http://bit.ly/bundles/stpeterays/2

"What exactly is that?" you ask? Well, simply put, I review a stadium (not necessarily the team, though that factors in somewhat) for Stadium Journey and tell you all the things I like (or don't like) about them. Included in said reviews are (original post made at 1pm EDT on March 16, 2011):

USF's Raymond James Stadium in Tampa
Magic's Amway Center in Orlando
Rays' Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg
Lightning's Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa
Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena
UNF Arena in Jacksonville
FAU Arena in Boca Raton
B-CU's Moore Gymnasium in Daytona Beach
Stetson's Edmunds Center in DeLand
UCF Arena in Orlando
St. Pete Int'l Baseball's Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg
Orioles' Spring Training home of Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota
Everblades' Germain Arena in Estero
Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg's Streets of St. Pete in St. Petersburg
Blue Jays' Florida Auto Exchange Stadium in Dunedin
Yankees' Steinbrenner Field in Tampa
Marauders' McKechnie Field in Bradenton
Threshers' Bright House Field in Clearwater
Stone Crabs' Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte
Miracle's William Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers
Flying Tiger's Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland
Storm's St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa
Mets' Digital Domain Park in Port St. Lucie
Cardinals' Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter
Predators' Amway Center in Orlando
Panthers' BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise
Tampa Bay Rowdies' Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg
Blue Jays' Spring Training home of Florida Auto Exchange Stadium in Dunedin
Red Sox' Spring Training home of JetBlue Park in Fort Myers
Pirates' Spring Training home of McKechnie Field in Bradenton
Nationals' Spring Training home of Space Coast Stadium in Viera




I'll update this post occasionally, adding my newest reviews here. And as always, if you have questions, please leave some love in the Comments section.

Later!

A Lesson Learned (The Hard Way)

Being a Rays fan is hard; anyone who denies that is lying to themselves. We can never do anything right in the eyes of the world: we're a second-class team (there are three banners hanging from the rafters after April Fools' Day - and this isn't a joke - that will prove otherwise) playing in a second-class city (and Arlington, for some reason, isn't?) that has a second-class stadium (with guaranteed clear, 72°F weather 24/7 in the lightning capital of the US) with a second-class fan base that refuses to support the team. Cowbells aside, the Rays fans I've had the pleasure of meeting are as die-hard and passionate as their counterparts in long-established northern cities. Yet, for one tired reason, we're the most loathed fans in all of sports, even more so than Eagles' fans: our apparent apathy toward a stellar team.

This, however, needs to serve as a warning: the appearance of apathy – no matter how justified – will not only serve as fodder for the sports talk shows across the country, but keep true talent away from St. Petersburg and will drive outstanding homegrown talent away.

Baseball, like any other business, runs franchises for one reason and one reason only: to make as much of a profit as humanly possible. Do you firmly believe there are franchises in Toronto, Minneapolis, and Anaheim for the "betterment of the community," or to be an "exciting entertainment option"? No; they're strategically located across North America to get as much money as they can handle. They do this by selling merchandise, having broadcast deals with certain television networks, charging for seating to each and every game, and selling concessions at the stadium to keep those patrons fat and happy. They know that these four things will guarantee they can make ungodly amounts of money, and that's a fact we must live with, not just for this sport, but every sport in the world.

That said, the flip-side to such seemingly-rampant capitalism is extra money to invest into the team in hopes of not only winning a championship, but also to increase the profits at an even greater rate. Buying their merchandise is a great start to increasing their take, but only a fraction of what you pay goes to the team; a greater portion goes to MLB, with even more going directly to the manufacturer. Broadcast rights are a great moneymaker, too, but they're based on pre-negotiated rates set years in advance – long before you even think of turning on the game – so any new advertising dollars the network may get go directly into their pockets, not the team's.

The only sure thing that you, as a fan, can do to make sure the team has enough money to operate in the manner you wish is to go to the games, plain and simple. The team makes the most money off of ticket sales, with concessions helping to pad the coffers even more. The more money the team makes, the more they can use in negotiating new, more-expensive contracts to attract high-quality talent to sunny St. Pete or keep the ones they already have.

"But the ticket prices are so expensive, especially in this economy, and I just can't afford to go!" I get that it's a burden; I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck myself and have a tough time meeting my bills on time. I also realize that by not giving the Rays money, they don't get to keep the Carl Crawfords and the Rafael Sorianos for anything more than either the initial rookie-arbitration periods or quick forays. The prices keep rising because of the Bostons, the Washingtons, and the New Yorks of the world paying players asinine amounts of money for mediocre talent, thereby causing the free agency market to be skewed out of whack (basically, it's a metaphor of the housing market that's caused us all to be paycheck-to-paycheck...if we're lucky). Blame MLB's Bud Selig all you want for not forcing a salary cap to be in place in lieu of higher-than-necessary ticket prices, but you can only blame yourself for letting our beloved outfielder slip through our fingers.

The question over attendance no longer pertains to the stadium drama; last night – the day that will be remembered in infamy by Rays fans the world over as the day our 2008 American League Championship seems decades ago, as we had a triple-shot of reality – proves once-and-for-all the question over attendance is really about getting talent here in the first place. Will we really want the team if we know the homegrown talent we've spent our blood, sweat, tears, and money on will just divest them in a few years time? If they're going to do that, will this area want to put out the commitment of tax revenue on a new stadium? Would you want to spend money to see a team that's dismantled due to budgetary constraints every few years?

The Rays brought up the stadium issue with the downtown St. Pete stadium on the waterfront in 2007 for a couple of reasons, but there was one that was so subtle, it wasn't caught until today: if they would have built it like they wanted, it'd be open 16 months from now, and Carl Crawford would be starting in its outfield – in blue and gold. We may not have been able to give him the big payday like they did in Beantown, but we'd have something they wouldn't: a new home. But that's the past and there's no point in lamenting it.

Let's learn from this mistake and prevent its repeat in 2016, when Evan Longoria's contract comes up for renewal. Sure, it sounds like a long time away, but take this into account: we signed him for 8 years at $44,000,000, and something tells me a Rookie of the Year and a few Gold Gloves will let him become worth a tad more than that. Knowing this now, however, will help us plan for its inevitability. Go to the games, spend some money at the stadium, and remember that you're doing your part to make sure Longo – as well as other young gems like David Price, B.J. Upton, Jeremy Hellickson, and many others – will be lifelong Rays.

Sure, it may be a sacrifice for you and your family to drive over the big, scary bridge, but this is what we have to deal with right now. My feelings on the whole stadium saga are well-documented on my other posts here on this blog, so I'm not gonna take one side or the other on this post; you just need to suck it up and support your team more than just thinking you're supporting the TV contract they grossly under-negotiated. The time for playing armchair manager is over; it may prove you're a loyal fan, but as much as it sucks to say, loyalty doesn't pay the bills.

Otherwise, when 2014 comes and the begging and the pleading by the Rays' PR department over those last four years failed to get you to the Trop, realize it's too late at that point to stop the ball from rolling and Longoria will be on his two-year long farewell tour. Just don't bitch to me when he's wearing pinstripes in 2017.

Why I'm a Diehard Rays Fan (and Closet Lightning Fan) - My Manifesto

For the first 10 years of their life, the "Devil Rays" (as they were once infamously known) were the laughingstock of baseball, and arguably all of the sports world. They had Wade Boggs and what is considered his greatest moment, his 3,000th hit, though he would have had that anywhere; it was just happenstance he was wearing black, purple, and green and playing in a perpetually-maligned dome. They had the "Hit Show" - Jose Conseco, Fred McGriff, Vinny Castilla, and Greg Vaughn - which, needless to say, didn't live up to their hype. They never had an out-of-last-place season - let alone a winning season - save for one season, 2004, when they finished 4th in the AL East. They had homegrown stars - Josh Hamilton, Joe Kennedy, Aubrey Huff, Randy Winn - that went on to have much better careers after leaving their first home. They had an owner who not only refused to open his wallet, but also refused to allow cheering, screaming, and any type of loud noises anywhere in "his" stadium; anyone caught breaking this "rule" would be asked politely to quiet down, then on the next attempt to hush the "rabble-rouser" they would be evicted.

Yet, with all that documented extensively, I made a seemingly irrational decision one day in September 2007: I became a shareholder in the team of endless misery. Apparently, I am - myself - a glutton for punishment. After I signed the paperwork and handed over the check, the first thing I said to myself: "What the hell did I just do...?"

I grew up in Pedricktown, New Jersey. I'm sure - unless you live in Salem or Gloucester counties - you've never heard of it. It is, however, the most-rural suburb of Philadelphia, and as a member of the Delaware Valley, your sports allegiances are already dictated to you in the delivery room: Sixers, Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies are your only choices, so choose wisely or face the possibility of adoption. You're forgiven if you choose not to like any of the aforementioned teams, so long as you don't like any other team in their respective sports league. Some people believe in a bastardized version of the Amish's Rumspringa, where when you are old enough to think for yourself (usually anywhere between 9-13 years old), you can choose a different team in any and/or all sports. However, once you choose, you are bound to follow them ad infinitum. This explains how, in an area that is very staunchly against any team in any sport's division rivals, you will find some "brave" Cowboys, Devils, Braves, and Knicks fans.

I stayed true and exclusive to my "birth-rite" teams (though I never really followed the NBA to any great extent, so my indifference toward the Sixers is forgiven by most) until about 2006 - 3 years after I moved to St. Pete. Up until that time, I refused to set foot in the "Dumb Dome" and my baseball fix was obtained in the short month of March on the open, grassy surface of Bright House Field in Clearwater or the occasional Phillies game on Fox and Sun Sports (when they played the Marlins).

I got my hockey fix going to the two games per year the Flyers played at the St. Pete Times Forum and would only go to other games if I got free tickets from work, convinced friends (like Kevin and "Rabid Nick") I knew would like them to come with me, and I'd get to cheer against the Bolts (be it the Maple Leafs or the Mighty Ducks); the only exception to the "cheer against the Bolts" was when they played the Atlantic Division teams...for obviously-selfish reasons.

My football fix would come with going to the local Eagles bar, The Bull Horn on USF's campus, every week with my friend from work, Immani, that I found, too, likes the Birds. Even if it was "all-the-way" in Tampa, I was there for almost every game - unless it was shown on local Fox, CBS, or ABC TV so I could watch with my mom. You could always catch me there with my Irving Fryar, then David Akers Super Bowl, jersey, chanting "Fly, Eagles, Fly!" with the rest of them.

Never in a million years would I root against any of them, as they were my teams, my link to the snow-covered region I left back on that cold day of March 16, 2003.

Then I visited Al Lang Field.

In 2007, my then-roommate Becky suggested, instead of going to Clearwater in March, I should check-out the ballpark by the Bay in Downtown St. Pete. I just started my new job down the street the May prior, so I could park at work and walk over, making it even more convenient. Sure it may not be as new and shiny as Bright House Field, but Progress Energy Park (as Al Lang Field is now called) had the old Florida charm all the other spring training stadiums combined couldn't even muster, she said.

So, I took her up on her suggestion. We went to the first meeting of the Devil Rays and the Phillies that year at Al Lang, and what I was saw on the field impressed me and gave me hope for the future of the team. I knew this team wasn't far off from finally, after years of mediocrity, being a contender. I was watching history in the making, and I loved everything I saw.

And I wasn't talking about the Phillies.

The Devil Rays played a style of baseball I hadn't seen on Broad Street since I was young. They had guys like Carl Crawford and Delmon Young that were aggressive on the bases, they had guys like Carlos Peña and Akinori Iwamura that could hit the side of the Mahaffey Theater in Al Lang's outfield if they tried, and they had starting pitching out of Scott Kazmir and James Shields that made opposing batters cringe. Their bullpen, with people like Chad Orvella and Jae Kuk Ryu however, was anemic - to put it mildly - and made high-quality pitchers like Grant Balfour and J.P. Howell look just as bad. Once that was fixed, I knew they were going to be not just good, but very good. They showed up the Phillies that day, and as we walked back to my work parking lot, I told Becky, "Sure, I'll go to more games down here with you."

With the highly-publicized entrance of a new manager and ownership (the "Under Construction" campaign was extremely visible the entire 2005 season), they turned Tropicana Field from the "Dumb Dome" to "The Trop". Gone was the empty space on the walls that made it feel like the inside of an oil container or warehouse, and the redesign made it feel more like what a baseball field should feel like: large, easy-to-see stats boards and scoreboards, advertisements that felt more like those at Yankee Stadium, and what was once the largest-HDTV in baseball. On- and off-the-field, it felt like baseball finally arrived at the Trop...9 years late.

Despite Peña setting the team record for most HRs in a season (as well as leading the AL) and winning the AL's Comeback Player of the Year Award, Kazmir having the most strikeouts in the AL (and most in 162 games for all of baseball; Jake Peavy needed 163 days to beat him when San Diego played Arizona in a tie-breaker game), and Delmon Young being 2nd in voting for AL Rookie of the Year, the team still finished poorly: 66-96, worst in the majors, thanks in large part to the bullpen's over 6.00 ERA, worst in the majors in over 50 years. But the stage was set for greatness, and after going to over 20 regular season games through the course of the season - even when they took their tailspin in late June into August - I decided to invest in their future.

I became a season-ticket holder of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

"Sure hope you know what you're doing...." my conscience and checkbook both said. I'm sure glad I did, though, for - as everyone knows by now - the newly-christened "Tampa Bay Rays" kept winning and kept winning, making the playoffs for the first time in their history (not to mention it was their first-ever winning season), then continued to surprise as they went to the World Series in 2008 against (holy shit!) my Phillies. For the record, I wore my Devil Rays jersey - I got it on super-clearance at the end of the 2007 season for $50 (normally $200) - with my Rays hat only because my friend, Brad, was in town from Philly, so I had to balance out his Philly love. However, for Game 2, I wore my Phillies shirt with Rays hat. I didn't care whom won, as my "impossible dream" scenario came true.

I'm still a season-ticket holder of the Rays to this day. Even as the prices kept going up - and my pay at work went down - I cut corners to make it work, as I'm not about to give up my tickets; I love my Rays too much. I still love my Phillies and always will, but let's be honest: what do the Phillies do for my community? They don't help with youth sports funding in Tampa. They don't visit schools in New Port Richey to help add to the reading programs. They don't contribute $100 million to the economy of St. Petersburg every year. The closest they come to me in normal years during the season is Miami.

The Rays do all that, and more, for my new home. In that area, they are even greater than the 2008 World Series champions, and it took me a trip to Al Lang Field to finally admit that to myself.

The Lightning, on a smaller scale, contribute in the same aspects, but I don't carry a torch for them nearly as much as I do for the Rays; I don't however, boo them when I go anymore, and only cheer against them when Philly's in town. I can safely say I'm still a Flyers fan first, but I enjoy getting my hockey fix at the Forum on days that the "Orange Crush" doesn't take over the stands. So, in that aspect, I guess it makes me a Lightning fan, but don't expect me to choose between the two: it's not a choice - Broad Street Bullies all-the-way!

I can't say the same if I had to choose between the Rays and Phillies, nor should I have to. They never play each other except in spring training, occasional interleague games, and the World Series. They have (for the most-part, if I'm any indication) completely separate fan bases that work differently, but are just as passionate as each other. But most importantly, they hold different places in my heart: the Phillies represent my past and all the great things I miss about it, while the Rays represent my present and all the even greater things and people I know now (and good friends I go to games with on a regular basis, like "McLovin" and James). So, that being said, I guess I'd have to say if I had to choose, sorry Uncle Cholly, but Merlot Joe and his team of superheroes are my number ones.

Sure, they may play in a nationally-loathed but locally-loved dome with catwalks people refuse to understand in front of crowds deemed "unacceptable" by suits in a faraway city that has a fan base with a 40+ year headstart to grow to today's sizes with a media that laments their eventual removal from the area, but the people who preach to me and other converted fans that those aspects should be cause enough not to even like them just don't get it. You can't have it both ways: "you can't forsake your birth-rite" but "they don't deserve a team since they can't support them." For a team that's oldest "birth-rite" fan is only 13 years old today, it's impossible to sustain a team with only kids under 13 in the stands. So, I'm doing my part and supporting my team, and damn anyone who tries to pull that "birth-rite" crap on me. Face it, reality dictates you cannot have it both ways, so the sooner you realize that, the sooner I can possibly convert you too, if only for a day. As with me, a day is possibly all you need to change your thinking forever.

I still have never been to Raymond James Stadium and have no intention of going anytime soon, in case you're wondering.