Amidst the all the excitement of the Rays new stadium, I’d like to say a kind word about the Trop.
Hey, somebody has to.
Every year for the past 22 years, I have a tradition of going to see a Kansas City Royal game. Spring Training, regular season, didn’t matter as long as I got to see at least one game. It is the one day when I set aside my professional bias and reconnect with just being a fan - buying a scalped ticket, getting loaded on overpriced beer, eating ballpark food and screaming at the opposing team. (Even if it is against the “Devil” Rays that I am supposed to remain objective about the rest of the year.)
This year, I was able to keep that streak going solely because of that orange-capped cement behemoth with the slight mildew and urine smell. Thank you Tropicana.
The Kansas City Royals came to Tampa for their lone appearance on June 1st this year; Something that I had looked forward to since the teams had released their regular season schedule. Armed with a Publix sub and a sixpack of Leinenkugels I pulled up to the Trop a little after 5:00 pm. wearing a powder blue KC jersey that was the same color as the Florida sky thinking that it was a beautiful day for baseball.
15 minutes later it was raining, as my grandfather used to say, “like a cow p!$$!#& on a flat rock.” It rained for the next two days.
For those inside, the rain didn’t matter. Brian Bannister pitched a gem for the Royals and it turned out to be a great day for baseball after all. The next day was, too.
Rays Stadium Special ReportI remembered that series when I first heard about the proposed plan for a outdoor stadium. My next reaction was is it really wise to spend the millions of dollars that it would take to build a new park for the Rays? Or at least, one without a roof. This is Florida after all and you don’t need to be a meteorologist to know that there is a summertime trend for late afternoon thunderstorms. And baseball and rain don’t mix that well.
So I got to thinking. How much would weather have affected the season if it wasn’t for the dry confines of the Trop?
According to weather measurements taken from Albert Whitted Airport, which is adjacent to the proposed site of the new ballpark, almost one out of nine Rays home games in 2007 would have been directly affected by rain had they been played in an open-air stadium and not in the weather neutral atmosphere of Tropicana Field.
For the inclement weather to be judged to have a direct impact on the game play, the rainfall total must have been measured at 1cm or more in a one hour period during the game including the hour preceding the fist pitch, rainfall that was deemed “heavy” for 30 minutes or more after the first pitch, or the presence of significant thunderstorm activity in the vicinity.
Results:
Date Opponent Rainfall Rain Start Time Game Time Notes
17-Apr Baltimore Orioles .04 in/.10cm 8:53pm 7:10pm Light shower throughout evening
1-Jun Kansas City Royals .60in/1.52cm 1:53:00pm 7:10pm Heavy rain begins at 5:38pm
2-Jun Kansas City Royals 3.00in/7.62cm 7:53am 7:10pm Intermittent thunderstorms throughout the day
28-Jul Boston Red Sox .11in/.28cm 3:37pm 7:10pm Heavy rain thunderstorms began 4:01pm
31-Jul Toronto Blue Jays .91in/2.31cm 6:53am 7:10pm Thunderstorms continued until 8:03pm
1-Aug Toronto Blue Jays 1.12in/2.84cm 1:30pm 3:10pm Rain continued until 11:14pm
24-Aug Oakland Athletics .07in/.18cm 5:53pm 7:10pm Thunderstorms continued until 8:53pm
3-Sep Baltimore Orioles .19in/.48cm 1:39pm 7:10pm Rain and thunderstorms continued until 3:53pm
23-Sep Boston Red Sox .27in/.69cm 3:53pm 1:40pm 21mph wind gusts reported at 1:53pm
I’ve never been one to be afraid of a little rain. In fact, one of my favorite Florida moments is watching thunderstorms roll onto the horizon while sitting under an umbrella on the beach.
With the new design of the ballpark there will be a baseball game added to that mix as well.
In perhaps the most lame-brained decision by the Devil Rays organization since Ben Grieve, the Devil Rays are expected to announce that they will officially drop the “Devil” from their name and will now be known as just the “Rays”.
In an attempt to further alienate their younger fan base and eliminate the only element of cool from the franchise, the Devil Rays decided that a new corporate image needed to be forged. Beginning with the 2008 season, the only traces of Satan will be confined to the Devil Rays farm system.
The decision to drop the satanic prefix stems from pressure from the religious Christian right - the same religious right who has raged against such evils of humanity as video games, teletubbies and Flava Flav – who felt that the old moniker was offensive and may encourage young children to join Sadist cults. This marks the second major victory for Christians after their incessant nagging also helped to put an end to the wildly popular “Beelzebub Bobblehead Night” promotion.
This move is expected to have a significant impact on the bay area’s gothic baseball fan population.
“I like to sit in the bleachers and drink goat’s blood,” said one fan who preferred to remain anonymous. “Now I’m going to have to root for the Yankees again.”
The new “Rays” logo
Accompanying the name change, the Devil Rays will be unveiling a new logo design and uniforms (shown above). The new “ray of sunshine” design tested well with fans over the age of 90 and research groups found that the design reflects the “totally unintimidating, completely banal” image that the team has been attempting to cultivate within the organization. This process began last year with the team’s bullpen. The royal blue and yellow color scheme with magenta trim further enhance the team’s harmless and uncontroversial image.
The new “Rays” uniforms
The Devil Rays are also expected to announce that their mascot Raymond will be replaced by the Care Bear’s Funshine Bear prior to Spring Training.
More Coverage:
The 10 Best Logos In Sports
Forum: New Look Rays
The bands were horny, the boys were rude and the girls were skanks. For those who enjoy ska music, it was a perfect setting Tuesday night when third-wave pioneers Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish blew it out at Jannus Landing in St. Pete. Even the courtyard of the old Detroit Hotel recalled notions of the original ska artists of Jamaica who performed on the backs of flatbed trucks in the alleyways of Kingston.
Every 15 years or so, ska peeks its pork-pie-hatted head from the underground to become the latest trend in music. The last time this happened in the mid-90s, bands like Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish were credited with bringing the bouncing brass sound beyond the beach culture of southern California and into the hearts of the MTV generation.
Joining them on the ‘’Shout Out Loud’’ tour were two bands that have been around a while themselves. Against All Authority, a punk-ska outfit from South Florida, has been bringing their DIY ethic and politically-oriented message around the country since 1992 and Streetlight Manifesto, the latest project from the members of another 3rd wave legend, Catch 22, rounded out the tour.
(It was a shame I missed them, but beer and nachos were calling.)
Deferring to Less than Jake’s homestate status, Reel Big Fish opened up with a set that kept the crowd bouncing, mixing in their latest material from Monkeys for Nothing, and the Chimps for Free with old staples like Sell Out and Beer. Their setlist included a handful of their trademark cover songs such as Aha’s Take On Me interspersed with frontman Aaron Barret’s self-deprecating humor on subjects like getting dumped for a chick and his weakness for tubetops.
After the crowd had been bounced into a frenzy, Less than Jake skanked them in circles. No other band seems to capture the growing-up-in-a-small-Florida-town angst like the guys from Gainesville. Like RBF, Less than Jake was promoting their latest album, In with the Out Crowd, and they sprinkled new offerings like We the Unispired and Overrated in between old favorite’s like The Science of Selling Yourself Short and She’s Gonna Break Soon. Less than Jake even reached back deep into their catalogs to play several songs off their 1995 release, Pezcore.
By the end of the night, I was soaked in sweat and overpriced beer and I am pretty sure my nose was broken while dancing around in circles. Despite those minor setbacks it was a tremendous show. The courtyard at Jannus proved to be the perfect setting to capture the blaring horns coming from stage and even though most of the crowd wasn’t even in kindergarden when these guys started making records, they managed to stay true to the ska roots with more checkerboards than a retirement home and the occasional odor of Jamaican culture rising from the audience.
By the end of the weekend, my ears hated me, my liver hated me, my sunburnt shoulders hated me.
They’ll get over it eventually.
Black in the Mind’s Jeff Young
This was a weekend of some of the best local music that central Florida had to offer and like many of the bands that performed, I was just getting warmed up for the upcoming 2 weeks.
The adventure started off with a trek across the state to Cocoa Beach along with Griz Collective’s Roy Kielich for a Friday the 13th show at the Sandbar featuring Orlando’s own, The Supervillains. Even the rain and a cameo appearance by a serial killer didn’t keep the boys from Orlando from skankin it out deep into the night.
After beaching off the night before, it was back to Tampa for a quick shower and another round.
For Letterperfect and Black in the Mind, Staurday night’s show at the Pegasus Lounge was the final tune-up before their gigs on the Ernie Ball stage at the Van’s Warped Tour. Letterperfect will be at the Orlando show at Tinker Field on the 22nd and Black in the Mind will be appearing at the St. Pete show at Vinoy Park on the 20th.
Also appearing at the Pegasus Lounge on Saturday was Tailgunner Joe and the Earls of Slander, Fall Empire Fall, Hatchetface and Frogmarch.
Letterperfect’s Sean McWilliams practices his moves for next weekend at the Warped Tour
(note to self-when the afterparty is at your house do not leave cameras unattended around drunk musicians.)
Photo Gallery
The Padres are going. So are the Angels. The Tigers will get a dance, too. The Yankees…
Haha! Not so much.
This is the time when the rest of the baseball world gloats with a one-sided smile. The mighty Yankees aren’t going to the postseason this year. It would mark the first time since 1993 that it has happened.
It was a valiant effort. Too bad they ran out of Royals and Orioles pitching staffs to feast on.
Unless Joe Torre is going to borrow John Turturro’s prosthetic ears, even a month long homestand facing Daniel Cabrera every night wouldn’t have set this ship right. All the money in the world can’t buy a championship and that makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside.
The best laid plans don’t always account for an aging bullpen anchored by an aging closer with the nosferatu shoulder. Without the cut on his fastball Rivera has looked like an over-the-hill Jorge Julio. Even Kyle Farnsworth is making fans long for the days of Ron Villone.
The rotation has been a patchwork with a high price tag as well; Mussina appears to be done, Clemens hasn’t been the band-aid they envisioned and they have yet to have a reliable 5th slot starter all season.
The Yankees will face their biggest hurdle this week as they take on the Boston Red Sox and depending on the outcome they could fall all the way to 11 games behind the division leader. Unless the Yankees can invoke the spirit of ’78, these bombers are toast.
For those who are familiar with the long-standing tradition of the the Freedom Swim, they know that the “Freedom” has very little to do with it being held on the 4th of July. The “Freedom” comes from the tradition of making the swim between Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte sans-swimwear.
“Going unencumbered is definitely part of the tradition,” explains Mike Haymans, one of the event’s contemporary torch(bum)-bearers,"but you don’t have to.”
The Freedom Swim tradition dates back roughly to the 1920’s when young teens, such as Irving and Edwin Roundtree (who later owned the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Punta Gorda) made the swim across Charlotte Harbor in the buff as a sort of rite of passage into manhood.
On July 4th. 1991, Haymans, Frank Desguin and Sandy MacGibon made the swim along with 10 others from the Seahorse Marina in Port Charlotte to the Howard Johnson in Punta Gorda. Every year since, it has become a tradition to meet at high tide on Independence Day and dive into the brackish-brown water while the nearby sailboats hoist the discarded swimsuits up their masts like floral-print pirate flags (insert your own booty joke here)
Last year the event drew over 250 participants ranging in skill level from strong swimmers to those who might be strong swimmers if they weren’t towing their own beer cooler with them.
“It isn’t a race” says Mike Haymans, “people can go at their own pace and if they can’t make it all the way, there is always dozens of boats to pluck you out.”
For those who do complete the 1.6 mile swim without aid of a boat another tradition awaits: the “Tarpon Roll”
Think of it as a victory lap along the dock…
with no pants.
For those wishing to participate in this year’s event, the departure point will be at the north (Port Charlotte) side of the US41/Gilchrest Bridge at 8:30 and will conclude at Fisherman’s Village in Punta Gorda.
Check out pictures directly from the water.
Note: I was fully trunked for this adventure...not so much out of journalistic integrity but because I have pulled enough blacktip sharks from these waters to avoid exposing anything that could be misconstrued as bait.
Sure, he has some flaws, in his swing and in his character, but does Elijah Dukes really deserve to take a beating worse than the D-Rays bullpen on a near-daily basis? Maybe it is sympathy. Maybe it is a little bit of empathy. Maybe I just like local-boy-does-right stories a tad too much, but I just don’t think that Dukes is a lost project just yet.
Seriously, I think the Devil Rays organization needs to take their fair share of the blame in this situation; they created this monster, the least they can do is keep him from being lynched like a center-fielding Frankenstein. After all, it isn’t like Dukes is the first 22-year old from the suburban pseudo-ghettoes of St. Pete to have one too many “baby’s mommas” and it isn’t like the D-Rays didn’t know he had some issues when they drafted him. (he was suspended for 6 weeks by the FHSAA for berating a football official)
What did anyone truly expect? The Rays gave Dukes the keys to the ride in the breeding grounds of his demons. Why not let him start the year at Durham? Crawford, Baldelli, Young, Wigginton, Norton and even Upton (it was only a matter of time before that transition was made seeing as he has more boots than Kenny Chesney) could have manned the outfield while Dukes found some maturity in Durham. At least he wouldn’t have the temptations he has had here in the bay area (and a major league paycheck to bankroll those temptations.)
This is not to absolve Elijah from wrongdoing but alarm bells should have been ringing in the D-Rays front office. Last year in the minors Dukes managed to build up a lengthy rap sheet and gained a black sheep reputation despite having teammates who got caught driving drunk and assaulting and battering an umpire. It got so bad for him that the organization actually sent him home before the season was over. Maybe home isn’t always the best place to be.
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