It's Official, Rays considering name change

[Gothamite]

In short, baseball fans in the region chose not to be suckered into buying inferior goods.

In other words, fair-weather fans who only support a winner.

Fans who refused to support the franchise in its first year of existence because it failed to be the first team in history to win a pennant right out of the gate.

Doesn't speak very highly of the region as a baseball market.

[Survival79]

In short, baseball fans in the region chose not to be suckered into buying inferior goods.

In other words, fair-weather fans who only support a winner.

Fans who refused to support the franchise in its first year of existence because it failed to be the first team in history to win a pennant right out of the gate.

Doesn't speak very highly of the region as a baseball market.

[Gothamite]

The truth hurts, my friend.

The truth hurts.

[Brian in Boston]

In other words, fair-weather fans who only support a winner.

No. Fans who ask that management of their local Major League Baseball team exhibit some traits that indicate they know the first thing about putting a competitive team on the field.

Devil Rays team management didn't need to "win a pennant right out of the gate". It simply had to show that it had some clue as to how to put a Major League-calibre squad on the field. Chuck LaMar didn't exhibit that he had the wherewithal to do that at any point in his tenure as General Manager, including the period of time leading up to the team's inaugural season. Worse, Vince Naimoli didn't exhibit that he had the fortitude to hold Mr. LaMar to such a standard.

[BigShoop]

In other words, fair-weather fans who only support a winner.

No. Fans who ask that management of their local Major League Baseball team exhibit some traits that indicate they know the first thing about putting a competitive team on the field.

Devil Rays team management didn't need to "win a pennant right out of the gate". It simply had to show that it had some clue as to how to put a Major League-calibre squad on the field. Chuck LaMar didn't exhibit that he had the wherewithal to do that at any point in his tenure as General Manager, including the period of time leading up to the team's inaugural season. Worse, Vince Naimoli didn't exhibit that he had the fortitude to hold Mr. LaMar to such a standard.

Ahh....I love people who have very definite opinions on subjects that they obviously have done zero research on...

Chuck Lamar's hands were tied since day one. On numerous occasions the Naimoli would force Lamar to make moves he didnt want to make and also vetoed moves he di want to make.

Now that Naimoli is gone and we have an ownership group worth a damn, people will realize this. It only took the Tampa Bay area about 5 minutes of Stu Sternberg to realize that this man will turn the franchise around.

[BigShoop]

When exactly did Naimoli alienate the fans?

Whe he hired Chuck LaMar, the worst General Manager in baseball, to run the Devil Rays.

LaMar went on to "build" (I use the term loosely) a franchise that lacked a direction in terms of developing talent. It was a never-ending series of "one-year plans" with LaMar at the helm... and it showed in terms of the product the Devil Rays put on the field.

The only two things LaMar did consistently in terms of developing talent was to value athleticism over skills and to err on the side of drafting "high potential" high-schoolers over proven collegiate talent. For example, before the Devil Rays ever took the field or sold a ticket, LaMar had signed Matt White and Bobby Seay - a couple of unproven high school players - as the lynchpins of the organization. Both proved to be busts. They were the first, but they sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

There are a hell of a lot of baseball fans in the Tampa Bay area. They've seen countless schoolboy standouts develop their talents on diamonds throughout the region. They've flocked to spring training and Florida State League games, watching as ballplayers with raw talent grew into major-leaguers. In short, baseball fans around Tampa Bay know the difference between quality baseball and the piss-poor brand that Naimoli's stooge LaMar was peddling.

In short, baseball fans in the region chose not to be suckered into buying inferior goods. Many chose not to do so from Day 1. Unfortunately for the franchise, Vince Naimoli apparently lacked both the vision and the knowledge of his fans, because he stuck by Chuck LaMar for far too long and crippled a franchise in the process.

Naimoli signed the check for Matt White and Bobby Seay.

It was Naimoli who ordered Lamar to build the "Hit Show".

It was Naimoli that wanted Wilson Alvarez and Juan Guzman.

Lamar sucks at drafting young talent? I'm sorry, I forgot, maybe you can refresh my memory, but who was the GM that drafted Crawford, Baldelli, Huff, Gomes, Cantu, Delmon Young, Upton, Gathright, AND traded Victor Zambrano to the Mets for Scott Kazmir?

Yes Lamar made some bad moves, but so does every other GM in the game. As I said in my previous post, Lamar's hands were tied from day 1. No move he made or didnt make didnt have to go through Naimoli first.

[CC97]

How come the "crappy owners destroying the fan base" excuse works for the Devil Rays but not the Expos

[rams80]

Random question...who made the call on "The Rookie".

[BigShoop]

How come the "crappy owners destroying the fan base" excuse works for the Devil Rays but not the Expos

Montreal TOTALLY got screwed. That whole deal was and still is a sham. MLB owning the team and choosing it's owner and negotiating it's stadium deal is a COMPLETE conflict of interest.

[Brian in Boston]

Yes Lamar made some bad moves, but so does every other GM in the game. As I said in my previous post, Lamar's hands were tied from day 1. No move he made or didnt make didnt have to go through Naimoli first.

Which is why each of my posts which you quoted make it abundantly clear that Messrs. Naimoli and Lamar were both responsible for the struggles of the Devil Rays to date. Neither gentleman was working in a vacuum. Each was complicit in the franchise's failures.

[Gothamite]

Now that Naimoli is gone and we have an ownership group worth a damn, people will realize this. It only took the Tampa Bay area about 5 minutes of Stu Sternberg to realize that this man will turn the franchise around.

We will see.

The track record isn't good. They have a lot to make up for.

[jkrdevil]

The Devil Rays need a retractable roof stadium.

Pretty much the entire area is transplant from the New York area and it is mostly Yankees Fan.

Get your facts straight.

My family is from Ohio. My next door neighbors are also from Ohio and Wisconsin. The family across the street is from Michigan. Their next door neighbors are from Toronto and Chicago. The only person on our street that is from New York is the old maid from Long Island that lives on the corner. The Tampa Bay area is very diversified.

Diversified because the team is losing.

When he Rays start winning, all you bastards who still cheer for your "teams back home" will jump on the bandwagon. It happened with the Bucs, it happened with the Lightning, it'll happen with the Rays.

All Yankee fans are jackoffs.

I certaintly will not. I hate living down here. I grew up in New Jersey and went to Devils and Yankees games. I'm not going to throw away those memories and not root for those teams because I live somewhere else now.

As far as the transplant, I know not everyone is from New York and New Jersey. I was generalizing. However most people I have meet since moving down here have ties to the northeast.

And what pooter siad proves my point. The area is mostly transplant people. No matter where they are from they are probably going to keep rooting for their teams from back home.

And when I said no shot I didn't mean winning. I don't think they have a shot of building a long time fan base. The team will probably end up moving in 10 years.

[pooter]

I certaintly will not. I hate living down here. I grew up in New Jersey and went to Devils and Yankees games. I'm not going to throw away those memories and not root for those teams because I live somewhere else now.

And what Pooter said proves my point. The area is mostly transplant people. No matter where they are from they are probably going to keep rooting for their teams from back home.

Please, please don't stop rooting for your teams "back home".

Since there was no NHL team in Cincinnati when I was growing up, I listened to the Blackhawks and the Red Wings on the radio and root for them to this day.

But...I root for the Lightning too. I go to about 10 games a year and I make sure I go see Chicago and Detroit if they play the Lightning over in Tampa. I was there, outside the Forum with the other 35,000 people that couldn't get a ticket for Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals, and wanting the Lightning to win too since the Blackhawks (ha!) nor the Red Wings weren't there.

I go to about 20 D-Rays games a year but still root for the Reds too.

Why can't you root for the teams "back home" and the ones that you have rooted for all your life?

[hawk36]

I don't see any problem with someone rooting for multiple teams (I'm one of them). It's just part of our society in which many move far away from home. They are always fans of their first team, but become more familiar with the team from the city in which they now live.

[BigShoop]

Why can't you root for the teams "back home" and the ones that you have rooted for all your life?

because then you can conveniently choose which team to root for based on who's having a good year and who's having a bad year, and that is pretty much as hypocritcal as you can get.

it's one or the other. pick one. but if you pick the one "back home" and they get their ass kicked by the team where you make your new home, take your whoopin and do NOT jump on the bandwagon.

its funny actually, how everyone makes fun of tampa as a bandwagon town, but it's the out of towners that are the ones jumping ON the bandwagon! it's like an endless cycle.

[BallWonk]

How come the "crappy owners destroying the fan base" excuse works for the Devil Rays but not the Expos

Who says it doesn't work?

But after the decade that the Expos' owners and MLB put Montreal through, it's hard to imagine interest in baseball returning for a generation or more. Baseball pretty well salted that field; Expo delenda est. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that for the better part of a decade, Montreal's per-game attendance would have been in the second-rank for a double-A team. On many nights, the more popular single-A teams outdrew the Expos, and that situation went on for years on end. Maybe it's not the patient's fault that he's dying, but at some point it's the better part of mercy to pull the plug.

And it's not like there were any easy solutions, like calling for committed local ownership instead of the likes of Jeff Loria. Just look at Baltimore to see what passionately committed local ownership gets you. Charm City is experiencing the slow-motion, twenty-year version of how the Expos squeezed the life out of local baseball fans in the four years after the '94 strike.

In a just world, Portland will lose its much-neglected triple-A team to Montreal, and Quebec will have a chance to rebuild local interest in the sport to be ready for the massive pan-North-American expansion that will happen about 20 years after Castro dies (a team in Havana, two in Mexico, and one in Canada). Of course, in a just world, the Devil Rays would have gone to Washington, not Tampa, and Jeff Loria would have been forced to sell his stake in the Expos on the open market at a loss like any other owner who so badly screwed up his team and never return to baseball, thus preserving the Expos and giving baseball a chance to spend that generation recovering fan interest in the sport.

[Gothamite]

I would tend to agree to an extent, but the city and fans have to take some responsibility as well.

Many teams suffer under bad ownership. The Brewers had Wendy Selig-Preib for over a decade, after all. You don't cut and run.

Publicly-financed stadiums have been the price for getting and keeping a team for over half a century. Montreal knew that. That Montreal decided to send the Expos packing in a fit of pique over an owner does and should count against them when it comes to awarding future franchises.

[Gothamite]

its funny actually, how everyone makes fun of tampa as a bandwagon town, but it's the out of towners that are the ones jumping ON the bandwagon! it's like an endless cycle.

True.

That's one of the reasons I don't think it's a good baseball town. Nothing against the city, but the argument can be made that developing markets aren't good sports markets for just that reason.

[M59]

I would tend to agree to an extent, but the city and fans have to take some responsibility as well.

Many teams suffer under bad ownership. The Brewers had Wendy Selig-Preib for over a decade, after all. You don't cut and run.

Publicly-financed stadiums have been the price for getting and keeping a team for over half a century. Montreal knew that. That Montreal decided to send the Expos packing in a fit of pique over an owner does and should count against them when it comes to awarding future franchises.

Montreal never forgot, forgave or got over the 1994 strike. The patient was dead from that moment on. Everything after that was just slapping makeup on a corpse.

Can you imagine how much differently the story would have turned out if the Expos had played in a World Series in 1994?

[Gothamite]

I'm not disputing that, but such a show of petulance doesn't exactly help Montreal's case.

The 1994 strike wasn't personal. It didn't happen so that Montreal could be denied a World Series berth.

If that's really why Montreal told the Expos to take a hike, then baseball shouldn't be looking at them as an expansion city.