In case you missed it, the Devil Rays’ attendance sank to a new low the other night when a bit more than 7,000 fans showed up at the Trop to watch a game against the Rangers. It’s always been my position that attending professional sporting events is a voluntary thing and fans are under no obligation to “support’’ - translation: spend their hard-earned money on tickets - their local franchises. You’re either into it or you’re not.

Having said that, it’s always interesting when Mama Trib sends me to a place like Boston or New York, or even Baltimore. These are true sports towns, across the board. Tampa is like a lot of other places where support goes up when the team wins and collapses when it doesn’t. Even the area’s renowned allegiance to the Bucs was fraying until the Bucs won 11 games last year. Until then, you had begun to see large patches of empty seats at Raymond James Stadium.

Same thing with the Lighting. They sold out every home game this year, but that with the afterglow of a Stanley Cup as the draw. If times get tough again, we’ll see how they do.

It’s not just butts in the seats, though, that makes a great sports market. It was major news recently in Boston when the Red Sox traded for catcher Doug Mirabelli. Turns out, he’s the only one in New England capable of catching knuckleballer Tim Wakefield - which means Mirabelli will play once every five days on average. That didn’t stop Red Sox Nation from turning this trade for a backup catcher into a cause celebre. If you’re looking for the defination of passion, you just found it.

Fans here border on that kind of obsessive behavior with the Bucs - just ask Todd Steussie. That kind of juice lights up a marketplace and transforms it, but unless the passion runs truly deep it’s hard to sustain. The Bucs have been around long enough to have developed multiple generations of fans, and that’s a start. The Bolts are just getting there, while the Rays are still learning to get out of their own way.

I’ve often wondered what it would be like around here if Sept. 1 arrived and the Rays were in a playoff race, but since we’re a few years away at least from finding out, we’ll just have to guess. Until then, I guess many folks will focus on what really matters to them - the start of Bucs training camp.