These are the good times for Tampa Bay sports ahead

Posted Jul 31, 2010 by Tom McEwen

Updated Jul 31, 2010 at 08:35 PM

It’s August 1 and hot as the dickens in this great place where we live, Tampa Bay.

It hasn’t gotten as hot as it is going to get nor has it rained as hard as it is going to rain and we still haven’t gotten the big blow off of the Gulf yet.

That will come, too. You know it and I know it. It always does.

Another signal of the times approaching, perhaps the best of times hereabouts, summer, fall and early winter.  The other signal is our four Tampa Bay Buccaneers season tickets that we in this McEwen household have purchased since the NFL franchise was awarded arrived.

And so now, we are embarking on another great major sports season for which we have our own Tampa Bay Buccaneers now, owned by the Malcolm Glazer family, which has been so involved in our sports programs, at a modern, ever-growing complex at One Buc Place, near Raymond James Stadium. There does not seem to be that much excitement so far about these Buccaneers—2010, but surely will grow and buzz if the Glazers and Coach Raheem Morris can build a successful team from an assembly of players gathering this weekend, to officially inaugurate the season ahead about which not a whole not is yet expected. 

Coach Morris, his staff and his players have plenty to prove to return the enthusiasm of past Buccaneer years. History tells us it won’t mean much, some individual stars emerging, for there are now so few, as well as early flashes to hint at success that may lie ahead. There are still tickets available, for these Buccaneers have not yet demonstrated the flash so needed to sell out, but that may well come. Tampa Bay Buccaneer fans remain loyal and expectant and enthusiastic. If Morris and his teachers can get this young Buc team off on a winning streak, believe me, Buccaneer fans will respond. 

Lord knows, the numbers of Buc fans has grown since they began here years ago.

In truth, this is a neat sports adventure about to start. This pro football team is the flagship, but there is so much more now than there once was—like the wonderful Tampa Bay Rays owner, Stuart Sternberg, and his manager, Joe Madden, a rock of a manager who can wear success well. He, and others, have assembled a fine band of baseball brothers who are on track to perhaps win another American League pennant and move on up the ladder toward another World Series. These Rays, of Sternberg and Madden, have truly captured Tampa Bay. They are not only stars offensively and defensively, but off the field, as they have involved themselves in this community with class.

This is a team who has produced that which they have sought out to do, without flaw.

The only shortcoming for the Rays has been the inability of those of us who may could have done more to provide them with an appropriate home in Tampa Bay, other than the inadequate Tropicana erector-set stadium, and even now as some leaders among us pursue angles for a new facility, no sound plan has yet emerged. One sports visionary of Tampa experience, David Lefevre, remains in pursuit of both an owner and his supporters who can simply declare that they are going to get this done. St. Petersburg has not yet provided a solution, despite full efforts and Tampa has been a bit reluctant to get into that search for fear of being accused of trying to steal the Rays. Thoughts here remain that the most likely site remains that property north of the St. Pete Forum, in the heart of Tampa and simply tearing down competitors.  Don’t know what the next step towards that development is, but for an area to become home to the Rays, surely stands out in the minds of so many. A few leaders with guts and a plan could get that done. 

Babaloo!