Tag: baseball

A new day in Tampa Bay?

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This entry isn’t terribly timely. It’s another entry I’ve been kicking around for awhile, in my spare moments.

There’s a persistent rumor floating around that we have a professional sports franchise in this area that plays football. Alas, this rumor is wholly unsubstantiated.

But I didn’t start this entry to talk football. I wanted to talk off-season baseball… during this time when hope for our other professional franchise springs eternal (if not exclusively). What is the reason for hope this year? It springs partially out of a sense of “due-ness.” Even the Cubs have occasional years over .500. Even if every Rays baseball decision was made with a coin flip, they’d be bound to luck their way into a winner once every ten years or so, wouldn’t they? Sadly, for a few years every decision was made with a pinch rather than a flip, but I won’t go there now; except to say that they Rays may be showing some signs of a renewed willingness to spend (if only a little). The new owners said they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) spend with the big market teams, but they did promise to spend (some) money wisely. Under the previous owner this was code for bottom line spending… as in, “what would my wallet do?” This year we’ve been greeted with the news that the Rays won a bid to retain the services of a promising Japanese player. Under the previous owner, news of the Rays winning a bidding competition with other MLB franchises would have caused a spike in the price of shares in Philips Electronics. Now, the Rays have won the rights to sign decent Japanese players in two consecutive years. This isn’t the kind of news that makes national headlines, but it gives me a little hope.

In other news, the Rays placed a few minor leaguers on their 40 man roster. Among them was their mercurial prospect… le enfant terrible… Elijah Dukes. In case you are unaware, this is a guy who many say would have been in the majors two years ago… possibly on his way to stardom… if he didn’t have a “can’t miss” temper to go along with his “sure-thing” talent. Fairly or not, this is the guy who has been accused of being the catalyst for the miss-stepsof a couple other Rays’ prospects’: namely B.J. Upton and Delmon Young (of bat throwing fame). Let’s hope he can keep the temper in check. The last thing a perennial loser needs is a cancer in the clubhouse. That’s assuming he makes the team out of spring training, or gets a call-up. My guess is he’s got too much talent not to get a crack at the team.

No fair

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If you read the sports section of the St Pete Times, you may have read a column by John Romano about the new owners of the Rays. The title of this article is: “New boss looking too much like old boss.”

As you may have guessed, I have a problem with this article (why else would I be writing about it?). In order to address my issues I must first point out the problems with the “old” owner and the specific charges against the new owner – which I will then attempt to refute (on the fly… per usual, no forethought went into this post).

First of all, the old owner was cheap, had a terrible sense for public relations (either that or he had a pathological lack of restraint), and his staff made generally bad personnel decisions. As for the charges against the new owner, Mr Romano implies that he may be cheap (although he doesn’t specifically level that charge), and that he may lack a good business sense for baseball. Responding to (team president) Matt Silverman’s suggestion that it won’t help to spend money just to be able to say money was spent, Romano states:

The plan makes sense as a business model. And if it were my money, I might tell Silverman and Andrew Friedman to do exactly what they’re doing.
But here’s the catch:
A baseball team is not like a regular business.

To some extent I agree with Ramano, but not in a way that is favorable to Romano’s argument. Owning a baseball team is not like a regular business… in some ways it may be easier to turn it around, from a public relations point of view. When a product in the marketplace earns a bad reputation for quality, it can be impossible to shake it. People stop buying, they stop talking about it, and it withers and dies. On the other hand, a baseball team gets constant exposure in the news, no matter how badly it does. Even if no one goes to the games and personally witnesses a turn around in quality on the field, it gets reported on the front page of the news to legions of potential customers. Immediate positive exposure results, bringing customers flocking back. Just look that big, mid-season win streak under Pinella. The team had been doing wretched in the beginning of the season (not counting the eight or so years prior to that), but two weeks into that good month and attendance was already going up significantly. How many other businesses can turn around sales figures that quickly?
How about being cheap, or the bad owner’s attachment to terrible public relations? I give you (or rather, the new owner gave you): free parking, tailgating, your own food in the stadium, stadium renovations, and arguably… a better overall game day experience. That doesn’t exactly sound cheap or bad to the public’s ears. You can argue that free parking is a net gain for the owner, because more people come to the games as a result (increasing revenue in other ways) – but would a “cheap” owner do it? Did a cheap owner do it?

As for personnel moves… we won’t know how those pan out for a few years yet, but take a look at what they gave up in trades versus what they got back. They gave up a starting shortstop in the last year of his contract who probably wouldn’t have re-signed, a 30+ starting pitcher having a career year (which for him yielded a 4 – 5 ERA), a 30+ catcher who had reached his potential, and a 30 year-old designated hitter who had been in decline for several years (even if he had been hot for a month prior to the trade). They got back four players (that I can immediately think of) who played at the major league level this year. They got a 26 year-old catcher who may be just as good NOW as the one they gave up (not as good an arm, but a switch hitter with equal production and who may handle pitchers and overall defense better), a pretty good defensive shortstop (who admittedly needs work on offense), a starting pitcher and a relief pitcher. No, they didn’t get another Scott Kazmir, but that wouldn’t be a fair measuring stick. Those kinds of lopsided trades are the stuff of legend – not the basis for how all future trades should be judged. However, they did get a AA starting pitching prospect that has been absolutely tearing it up at Montgomery. Essentially they gave up some older players for youth and upside. If you have to spend money wisely (and let’s face it ,this is not New York or Boston), shedding salary for potential isn’t always a bad idea… even if it is hard to swallow as a fan.

In one way Romano is right, the Rays are no better this year in the win-loss column. However Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were the Minnesota Twins. The Twins are a low revenue team it wouldn’t hurt to emulate. They aren’t competing with Boston and New York for free agent signings either (although they don’t have to compete in the same division… but that’s a topic for another entry). Let’s give the new owner AT LEAST a full off season before we brand him with the “next Naimoli” label. I think his moves so far have given him the right to expect THAT much from us, no matter what the win-loss record is this year.

Tween time

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I am stuck in that moment between getting home late and the time when you feel like going to bed.

We decided to go to a Devil Rays away game this evening, and we’re just getting back. They were at Tropicana Field, where they occasionally play home games, so we didn’t have to travel too far. Tonight’s benefactor of the ice cold Rays’ bats were the Indians from Cleveland; and there were a lot of Indians from Cleveland there this evening. It was so bad there was this old Midwestern fella who pointed to the Rays’ base runner on first and arrogantly proclaimed, “I’ll bet that guy hasn’t stolen a base in HIS short career.” He was, no doubt, playfully taunting the Rays’ fans about all the youth being served on the field. It was almost too bad that the guy he was pointing out was Carl Crawford.

It sucks when you can’t get a taunt right… on the player’s home field no less.

In the middle innings, Beth got into a grudge match with a couple of Indians sitting around us (we were surrounded).
Beth: “Why are you rooting for the Indians?”
Indian: “Because I was born in Ohio.”
Beth: “But where do you live now?”
Indian: “I live here.”
Beth: “Have you lived here a long time?”
Indian: “Longer than you have kid.”
Beth: “Then you should be rooting for the Rays.”
Indian: “We can’t help where we’re born kid.”
Beth: “My dad was born in Boston, and he roots for the Rays.”
Indian: “I think I might have left my lights on.”

Then there was the drunken Indian incident.
Beth: (Screaming at the top of her nine year old lungs) “GO RAYS GOOOOOOOOOO AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Drunken Indian: “Way to go kid, gimme five.”
Beth: “Why should I give you five? You’re an Indian’s fan.”
Drunken Indian number two: “HA HA HA! She showed you!”
Indian chorus: “HOO HOO HOO! You tell him!”
Dad: sits quietly in his seat, not sure whether to be proud or afraid for his daughter’s life.

Capping the evening off, Beth gets in the extended, post game bathroom line.
Woman leaving the bathroom, walking past, talking to someone else: “There was this little girl in there trying to talk one of us into letting her cut in line….”
Beth’s grandfather: “I wonder who they could have been talking about.”
Beth’s dad: “Yeah, I can’t imagine.”

There are times when I can see a lot of myself in my daughter, but not one of those times came up this evening.

Upton update

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With yet another Rays loss last night, I went fishing for some good news.

BJ Upton, one of the Rays’ top twenty fielding short stops this year, was moved to third base 12 games ago. The move was made possible with the acquisition of another short stop prospect via trade with Houston. Prior to the trade and subsequent move to 3B, Upton had an error per game rate of .318 (28 errors in 88 games played). Since the move to third base, he has an error per game rate of .167 (2 errors in 12 games played).

Could this be a sign of things to come? Will Upton make Rays fans forget names like Smith, Sandberg, Castilla, Gonzalez, Blum, and Huff?

Then again, are either 27 or 51 projected errors in a season acceptable?

Bite of the bug

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In the beginning there were local sports, and they were occasionally good. Home teams present and past; Bucs, Pats, Bruins, and Bosox held occasional sway with my attention. Home teams past were particularly prominent as there was but one home team present; as were the high scoring affairs: namely football, owing to my impatient nature.

Ah, but things change: home team became home teams, and youthful impatience gave way to a mature appreciation of the sweet science of sport. Rays and Lightning, despite their losing ways, supplanted Bruins and Bosox… just as the lower scoring affairs gained more equal footing with almighty Football.

Now I find myself tracking the progress of prospects, reading box scores, and sitting through whole games. Not every game mind you – they play almost every night for heaven’s sake! But watching some is more than none, and reading up on box scores and prospects is more than the occasional article in the paper.

Look at me: mature sports fan.

As the home teams have taken their rightful place among my allegiances, I have found other changes: tenuous ties of place becoming roots of home… my sense of self shifting from northern transplant to… something else. Florida may be a place without a “sense of there,” but it isn’t exactly the south either; too many people from elsewhere, bringing their “there” here for geography alone to define my home. The home team is here, not there, and it can’t be the home team unless this is home; so whether or not outsiders or fellow transplants find a sense of “there” here, in my own way I have found “here” here, and I can finally say *I* am home.

Go Rays!

Cold snap

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Colds, illness and allergies are running rampant through the Kauffman Household (v 2.2.1). There’s a flip side to a saying… “Anything that doesn’t make you stronger will only kill you.”

Ah, now that’s a relief.

Oh, this is also the time of year when all of the optimism of spring training… is shattered by terrible D-Rays pitching. With a couple of exceptions, it’s been kind of bad. How often does your offense score 7 runs, most of them really early, and you still lose by six runs? Man, I really-really wanted McClung to do well last night.

Ah well. Looks like the Sox are doing well, at least. Man, I NEED re-alignment! I heard an interesting idea… that divisions were divided up by team payroll… the top five AL payrolls in one division… and so on. Yet another idea that will never happen.

I am the very model of a modern major league punch-line

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The owner of our beleaguered little baseball team has more than his fair share of bad press. Whether or not it is deserved is for others to decide. I’m interested in the press release the team recently made available, after Vince was accused of throwing a tantrum in front of a group of fans. A team spokesman reported that the Rays had conducted their own internal investigation, and determined that Mr. Naimoli had done nothing wrong. Here’s an excerpt from that internal report,

DISCLAIMER: A real excerpt of the actual text of the report does not follow. I’ve wholly invented my own version for the expressed purpose of entertaining myself. I am, after all, my own most loyal fan.

“Mr. Naimoli is a kind, loving, easygoing, and charitable man. The very idea that he would yell at a fan is unfathomable. Our own, hand picked, witnesses to the alleged “incident” concur that the gentleman that signs our paychecks is guilty of no wrong doing. We understand that misunderstandings will occasionally happen, and this organization is willing to forgive and forget. We therefore hope that the confused fans in question will continue to purchase full price tickets to our home games this season.”

No Alex? No Nomar? No problem.

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The other day I was talking with a coworker about how I always manage to get on the wrong end of a rivalry, or in other words, the only team that saw it as a rivalry. Dunedin High School versus Clearwater (basketball and football), UF versus FSU (the last fifteen years or so in football), Red Sox versus Yankees, Rays versus, well, I guess we don’t really have a rival there, but you see the pattern.

But you know what? Being raised in the Boston area and the Tampa Bay area has really worked out the last several years. Think about the Patriots (twice), the Bucs, the Lightning, and now the Red Sox. Three years or so, and five championships? Not a bad run, is it?

The Red Sox? Sure, they’ve got a big payroll. But hey, they’ve been trying to buy a championship for years (80 plus?) – they did it this year.

I’ll let others, more capable than me, talk about the significance. I’m just going to sit in front of the TV for a while and nurse my voice back to health.

After the game, the Sox manager was asked how he wanted this team to be remembered.

“As winners.”

THE BOSTON RED SOX HAVE WON THE PENNANT!

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Only once has a televised sporting event brought me to tears. It was 1986. To this day, I cringe when I hear the name “Mookie,” regardless of the context. Now for the third time in my life, and the first since ’86, the Red Sox will play in the World Series.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to get an ulcer.