Rays seem ready to dump Devil

[powersurge]

I like this concept alot actually. I'm just not a fan of having ANOTHER team with navy blue in their color scheme. I really like the Devil Ray in the 'RAYS' wordmark although I think you could have played more on the pointy tail of the Ray somehow.

The 'TB' seems a bit too bold for my taste. Looks more like some kind of underwater creature and less like an actual 'T' and 'B'. If it were me I'd thin it out a bit and make the top of the 'T' tip the other way. I generally favor logos that have an 'upward' feel as opposed to the 'downward' look it has now.

Overall, I really do think it is a very strong concept. I heard reports of blue and yellow. How about doing a concept with those colors?

[Gothamite]

Saw this on television - the Rays have a logo for their home series at Disney:

Way too busy for my taste. And why is the logo crying upside down?

[TBGKon]

Saw this on television - the Rays have a logo for their home series at Disney:

Way too busy for my taste. And why is the logo crying upside down?

Funny thing is that the Rays are not even playing in Orlando-proper. Downtown Orlando is about 16 miles to the north of Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex where the Rays are playing.

[Brian E]

Saw this on television - the Rays have a logo for their home series at Disney:

Way too busy for my taste. And why is the logo crying upside down?

Funny thing is that the Rays are not even playing in Orlando-proper. Downtown Orlando is about 16 miles to the north of Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex where the Rays are playing.

read my mind! what a pet peeve it is when everyone refers to disney as being in orlando, when it's really lake buena vista. drives me nuts. i love some of the concepts, but is it just me or is this franchise just destined to screw up anything and everything? somehow, i just feel like no matter what they do, they'll get it wrong. and trade us back scott kazmir! (ok, the last thing has no merit to it, but it still makes me angry)

[powersurge]

Saw this on television - the Rays have a logo for their home series at Disney:

Way too busy for my taste. And why is the logo crying upside down?

Funny thing is that the Rays are not even playing in Orlando-proper. Downtown Orlando is about 16 miles to the north of Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex where the Rays are playing.

read my mind! what a pet peeve it is when everyone refers to disney as being in orlando, when it's really lake buena vista. drives me nuts. i love some of the concepts, but is it just me or is this franchise just destined to screw up anything and everything? somehow, i just feel like no matter what they do, they'll get it wrong. and trade us back scott kazmir! (ok, the last thing has no merit to it, but it still makes me angry)

I hear what you're saying, but its all about marketing. Most people identify Disney with Orlando and therefore any type of Disney baseball complex would be thought of being in or around Orlando by MOST people. I think its smart for them to play it off this way, especially if they are even flirting with having a future home in that area....as impossible as that might be with their iron clad stadium deal in the Tampa area.

[Sir Donald]

Its odd that the logo does have Orlando landmarks rather than anything connecting it to Walt Disney World - but then again I guess that would cost them a little extra in licencing.

As powersurge says, everyone connects WDW with Orlando so they've just gone for that. It'd be just the same if they put an Eiffel Tower in the logo if they were playing at Disneyland Paris, which is 20m outside of the City of Lights.

As for that logo - not to my taste - three Rays in formation is ok, but notice the rays of light in the background? Coincidence?

[BigShoop]

I've lived in Florida (South Florida of all places) and don't necessarily agree with what everyone says about having an open air stadium. I think playing baseball indoors in Florida is sacriledge. A few rain outs here and there is the most that would happen. People don't go to Florida on vacation to stay indoors. If you live there then you're pretty much already used to the sun so it doesn't really matter eitherway.

no one cares about the SUN....it's the RAIN. if you lived here, youd know that it rains EVERYDAY at 4pm from June-September.

[Sir Donald]

Forget snowed out games at the Twins new stadium - outdoor Rays games would have to play dodge the rain!

[Brian in Boston]

... outdoor Rays games would have to play dodge the rain!

Say... that gives me an idea.

Tampa Bay (Rain) Dodgers

Los Angeles Rays (... of Southern Californian sunshine.)

[Gothamite]

I've lived in Florida (South Florida of all places) and don't necessarily agree with what everyone says about having an open air stadium. I think playing baseball indoors in Florida is sacriledge. A few rain outs here and there is the most that would happen. People don't go to Florida on vacation to stay indoors. If you live there then you're pretty much already used to the sun so it doesn't really matter eitherway.

no one cares about the SUN....it's the RAIN. if you lived here, youd know that it rains EVERYDAY at 4pm from June-September.

Yeah, but when does it stop? Is it like Hawaii, with a regular afternooon rainfall that disappears by evening? Very few games are played at 4pm.

[TBGKon]

no one cares about the SUN....it's the RAIN. if you lived here, youd know that it rains EVERYDAY at 4pm from June-September.

Yeah, but when does it stop? Is it like Hawaii, with a regular afternooon rainfall that disappears by evening? Very few games are played at 4pm.

Let's put it this way, here in the Tampa area the rain can begin anytime between 4 and 6 and go for a solid 2 hours, sometimes more than that.

[Gothamite]

Shame, then, that your city fathers didn't build a retractable-roof park. They played it safe with a dome.

They built at just the wrong moment, locking themselves and the team into a park that was obsolete when it saw its first game.

[BigShoop]

no one cares about the SUN....it's the RAIN. if you lived here, youd know that it rains EVERYDAY at 4pm from June-September.

Yeah, but when does it stop? Is it like Hawaii, with a regular afternooon rainfall that disappears by evening? Very few games are played at 4pm.

Let's put it this way, here in the Tampa area the rain can begin anytime between 4 and 6 and go for a solid 2 hours, sometimes more than that.

Exactly. It's not the lightning capital of the WORLD for nothing. We dont just get rain, we get thunderstorms.

There's also the......."ok, it's raining at home. Which way is it headed? Will it be dry by the time 7 oclock comes? Aw hell, I'll just stay home and watch on tv.".........factor.

I understand that everyone has rain delays, but to deal with the above scenario EVERYDAY when you get off of work is pretty ridiculous.

[tBBP]

I've lived in Florida (South Florida of all places) and don't necessarily agree with what everyone says about having an open air stadium. I think playing baseball indoors in Florida is sacriledge. A few rain outs here and there is the most that would happen. People don't go to Florida on vacation to stay indoors. If you live there then you're pretty much already used to the sun so it doesn't really matter eitherway.

no one cares about the SUN....it's the RAIN. if you lived here, youd know that it rains EVERYDAY at 4pm from June-September.

Boy if THAT ain't the truth...and that's true on up in the Panhandle, too!

[IronChefShark]

Its odd that the logo does have Orlando landmarks rather than anything connecting it to Walt Disney World - but then again I guess that would cost them a little extra in licensing.

well if you look closely, the logo does somewhat resemble EPCOT Center.

well ok, maybe a stretch. they are both circles, anyways.

[Survival79]

Changes on the way for Rays

By Fred Goodall, AP Sports Writer

Additional image-shaping changes are on the way, beginning with a slight modification of team's nickname for 2008.

Although Silverman insisted it's ?not a done deal,? the club faces a May 31 deadline to notify major league baseball of plans to change logos, uniforms, colors and likely drop the word ?Devil? from a moniker many have opposed since the franchise's inception nine seasons ago.

?We don't expect a name change to sell tickets,? Silverman said. ?At the same time, we don't want anyone to not support us because of the name.?

[Gothamite]

They have a real high opinion of the locals, don't they?

The team could just change the name for its own sake, without dragging back out the silly claim that the good citizens of the Tampa Bay area will stay away in droves from anything called "devil."

[maz]

And why is the logo crying upside down?

Maybe those are bubbles, y'know, like you see underwater...

...Or just the evaporating tears of Rays fans.

[BallWonk]

They have a real high opinion of the locals, don't they?

The team could just change the name for its own sake, without dragging back out the silly claim that the good citizens of the Tampa Bay area will stay away in droves from anything called "devil."

I can't speak to Florida, which has some pretty distinct local cultures. But I don't live that far below the Mason-Dixon Line and I can assure you that even this far north in the South, you will alienate a lot of people with the word "devil," unless of course it's a college team from the Carolinas or a combat brigade nickname or a carrier fighter wing. There are a fair number of biblical literalists here who believe that even mentioning un-Godly stuff is 1) just as bad as doing un-Godly stuff and 2) can actually cause un-Godly to happen. We've got folks down here who protest at soldier's funerals because the military is too permissive toward homosexuality and who boycott all Disney products because the company offers insurance to employees' unmarried partners. And you don't even want to start with children's books that might merely use the word "witch" or "magic" in passing: They will be protested at Wal-Mart and the school board.

So, yeah, the "devil" thing is a legitimate concern. I don't know if I'd call it "underestimating" folks who think this way -- they're just people who take some things a lot more seriously than the rest of us might, on sincerely held religious grounds. They're like Amish people, but without the humility and self-sacrifice.

But I do agree that the team should not rely on the fears of that minority, which may or may not exist in Florida, to justify the change. "Devil Rays" is a crap name without bringing theology into it. All multi-word team nicknames are either totally awesome or they're complete crap. There is no middle ground or acceptable mediocrity in this category. A single-word nickname can be acceptably mediocre. If the extra word does not kick the name up to genius status, then it's just a mediocre name with an unnecessary extra word, which by definition is a crap name. I'm pretty sure Erasmus provided the original proof of this axiom.

[BigShoop]

Devil Ray is the name of the species.

It's not an adjective.

This should be a non-issue.