As of right now… it’s that baseball team that plays home games in St. Pete.

Yes, your Tampa Bay Rays.

There have been so many instances so far this season where a title next to the Rays name (AL East leading, for example) is just too foreign to grasp… But it’s happening, it’s really happening…

Enjoy it.

What do you do when someone is trying to voice disapproval of the new Rays ballpark propsoed by the team?

Answer: Block signs of the anti-sentiment. Hat tip to St. Petersblog.

The Tampa Bay area seems to be in disbelief right now with the team that resides in St. Petersburg performing in a certainly non sub-mediocre level that the area is so accustomed to.

Yes, the mighty Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Mighty? MIGHTY? They aren’t world beaters (as the series in Boston last week could certainly point out) but they are a sight better than what they have been in the past.

St. Petersblog pointed out how the Rays are ranked #4 on the worst-franchises ever list and it’s certainly fitting and deserved of the franchise that once attempted to charge a marching band to stay and watch the game after they performed the national anthem. On the field, they have won 70 games ONCE in ten seasons. Off the field… well, that national anthem flap is only the tip of the iceberg. I won’t go into that.

So with a whole lot of pathetic anecdotes and poor play dominating the team history, it’s not surprising that Friday’s game versus the Angels — a thrilling win with strong pitching and a Sayanora home run by Evan Longoria — drew a paltry 12,000. Even American Idol top-three performer Syesha Mercado couldn’t lure a larger crowd of people to spend a hot and muggy Friday night inside the climate controlled comfort of Tropicana Field and watch two of the top performing teams this season in the AL go at it.

It won’t take long for fever to truly grap Tampa Bay with this baseball team. But there have been a few seasons where there has been one degree or another of promise that only spiraled out of control into a pit of desolation and humiliation.

Terrence Mann’s soliloquy from Field of Dreams doesn’t apply yet. People won’t necessarily come, Ray. Winning may cure all ills but the element of belief hasn’t hit the general sport-fan populous in the area. Once it does… Look out. Until then, however, empty nights at the Dome will be what greets the team.

I’ve gotten used to the New York Islanders pulling stuff like this and I’ve also gotten used to the Tampa Bay lack-of-Devil Rays pulling this on a cost effective platform in the past…

But a nine year investment in a rookie? This takes things to new risk levels:

“This is obviously fairly unique,” Friedman said. “But it was something both sides had interest in really exploring and talking about. And both sides had to make some concessions along the way to get to this point.

“… We have to stay open minded. The economics of the game and us being a low-revenue team, we have to think differently and take chances such as this to keep our nucleus in place as long as we can.”

The salaries for the first six years of the agreement are guaranteed, with the team holding a one-year option for 2014 season and a subsequent two-year option for the 2015 and 2016 seasons. The contract guarantees $17.5 million. If the Rays exercise both options, Longoria would earn more than $44 million over the life of the nine-year agreement.

“Fairly Unique” does not begin to explain it. But Longoria was signed on the cheap considering what has has already accomplished and what he could command on an open market… IF he pans out (and even if not — scrub players are getting obscene money in MLB in recent years).

(yes, it’s been forever since I posted, this isn’t hockey talk alone though, so….)

How come, every time there is expressed outrage in the sports world, the fans cannot take it upon themselves to organize and petition or organize in one form or another for or against some tactic or move that has been undertaken by the powers-that-be of the sports world?

All of this jumped out into my mind Tuesday evening as a baseball fan complained about advertisements showing up on players uniforms while the players were in Japan for MLB’s opening series between the A’s and the Bosox. The horrid thought of MLB uniforms turning into NASCAR jumpsuits or stock-cars marred with stickers and advertisements was what led the person to post in the first place about the atrocity that is advertisements on uniforms.

Through my sports-fan experience over the years, I’m well aware of Baseball and other sports selling out where and when they can. Anywhere to make a few extra bucks — stick a sign and grab that cash you can. I’ve seen plenty of idiotic naming-rights battles (the freshest one being Wrigley Field in Chicago) and ridiculous names that come from it. I can understand fans being pissed off about this stuff…

…but has anyone noticed how little fans actually try to organize and openly revolt against such things in any given sport?

Why does cynicism or despair grasp the heart and mind of sports fans that they can’t find a common center and voice disgust together and show those powers-that-be their unified force? Why do we take such a lax view when we’re openly distraught over a change to the organized sports and pro franchises we love and cherish?

There are three examples I can think of off the top of my head — two from hockey, one from baseball. All have transpired the last ten years:

1) National Hockey League Fan Association: Probably the most notable organized attempt by fans in pro sports that I know of. The NHLFA was founded by a pair of disgruntled Ottawa Senator fans and gained traction in and around the hockey world for a brief time but never took off. In close to ten years the NHLFA claims under 30,000 members even with it’s repeated attempts to draw in the disenfranchised NHL fans that feel powerless to certain changes that Gary Bettman and others in the league have put forward. There is universal disgust among the hockey faithful at any given time, but there is no acceptance of a unified effort to give fans a say in the league.

1.a) The NHL Lockout of 2004-05: It was the biggest opportunity for a unified group to represent the fans at the bargaining table or perhaps gain Gary Bettman’s or Bob Goodenow’s ear. But instead of a unified effort, there were a number of small groups that would try to start fresh and organize there own anti-lockout faction. In the same light, I can re-tell a personal anecdote of creating a form email that would be sent to both Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux pleading for their intervention in the lockout. When I brought up this form both on Boltsmag and on message boards I was posting on at the time, it was met with cynicism and apathy. “Why would they listen? They don’t care.” “it’s not going to do anything, nice try though.” Over and over again the same dissatisfied, despondent response to the attempt to organize in mass.

2) The Montreal Expos: This is the biggest example of how both the feeling of entitlement and a cynical attitude can only help bring an end to something you love. Where indolence and apathy brought on by disgust did not save somethign that was indeed beloved. Montreal did have a baseball fan base. It did have passionate fans that loved the Expos. But it also had fans that felt entitled to being treated better than they were treated. Fans that took that entitlement and would revolt from the luxury of their own personal computers and over the Internet (but no where else). Even then, they were apathetic to do this revolting widely online and instead prefered to bitch and whine in their echo chamber. You can’t sway opinions by complaining about Jeffery Loria in one forum and not enlightening people to yoru plight. You can’t rally yoru own fans by feeling entitled to the team treating you better BEFORE you’ll openly revolt.

3) Rory Fitzpatrick: 2006-07 brought one of the best viral marketing campaigns I have seen by pro sports fans. Unfortunately it was awash in absurdity, it still is the #1 example of fans organizing. It’s just a shame that they had to do it as a joke. Starting with a small group of fans on hockey message boards, this started grabbing much more light in the eyes of the blogosphere and th mainstream meadia just after I blogged about it. Yet the movement was real and was ultimately stopped at the top, and likely to the relief of Mr. Fitzpatrick who was said to be embarrassed about things, it showed a sports example of what can be accomplished when fans unite. The NHL had to intervene tos top things…

Looking at the three examples (four) I can only note the personal gratification in each case — fans do not jump out to do work unless they feel personally gratified by the results. How do fans accomplish that feelign besides chatting with other fans and getting kudos in their discussions? they see that gratification through their personal commitment to a sport or team. But beign active to prevent a change? Even that action goes beyond many a loyalists personal comfort zone. While the power of the Netroots (and I mean this broadly, not in a partisan political sense but internet organizing by and large) can accomplish much, one has to wonder if fans can find satisfaction while taking action for/against a change to something they love?

Of course, what to revolt against or unite against is always subjective… It’s tradition infringement that tends to unite fans of any given sport. if Major League Baseball infringes on it’s uniforms and starts placing advertisements upon battling helmets and jersey’s - will fans do more than express disgust online and go outside their personal comfort zones? What level of grievance must sports fans experience before collectively dissenting and showing the force which they yield as a voice, as an opinion and as a consumer?

The Tampa Bay Rays have been doing much to improve their image the last few eyars since Stu Sternberg took over the team. But you want to know one quick way to tear all that down with fans who are sick of the scandals, sick of the fact baseball has been sullied by BALCO and artificially inflated stats?

Explore signing Barry Bonds.

A great young nucleus with some new veteran additions this winter… Ruined by bringing in the biggest blowhard in pro sports.

Got a post-mortem season poll for the Bucs up over at Sticks of Fire regarding the team’s direction. Please head on over there to vote, kvetch and all that jazz.

The site note I have to bring up is a change to the anti-spam plugin employed here at Boltsmag. I’ve just switched to the built in anti-spam Akismet plugin for Wordpress due to a conflict inspired by Spam Karma on my other blogs. The technical mumbo jumbo shouldn’t effect many (or any) on Boltsmag but if you suddenly find your comments locked-out, please get in touch with me over the problem.

Do the Rays really need a new stadium?

At the same time, do they really need a new stadium on a cramped location on the water that offers no parking? Continues life on the tip of the Pinellas Peninsula at an increased distance from points east?

There’s a lot to be discussed — And it’s getting discussed at Skyscrapercity.com with minor rumblings also going on at SkyscraperPage and FanHome of course. That being said, the most discussion (rambling about development, economics of baseball, the real estate bubble bursting and what not) are on the SkyscraperCity link.

There will be a press conference in little less than an hour with renderings of the Rays proposed ballpark. The St. Petersburg Times already did a mock rendering from passed-on takes of the stadium rendering. It raises more questions than answers though.

Red Tide News has been a local source for football, snark and satire regarding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the NFL. It’s undergone lots of changes over the years (along with quite a few missing-in-action periods where the site founder goes… well, MIA) but it’s still out there on them fancy fangled intertubes. Recently re-designed (and if you’d like to check out previous designs and previous stories, use the Way Back Machine) and relaunched, the local granddaddy of blogs and sports satire mainstay remains a standard for hilarity.

Since 1999, Red Tide News has been one of many, many destinations on the Internets. Once a powerful beacon of the Tampa Bay Buccaneer hooligan scene, RTN has over the years transformed into a somewhat less-powerful beacon for sports fans in Tampa Bay, bored cubicle-workers in Tampa Bay, and confused marine biologists looking for information about the algal bloom commonly referred to as red tide.

You can read more on the About page or perhaps you can just dive in and check things out yourself. There isn’t so much right now, but that’s due to the switch over.

The St. Petersburg Times blog The Heater brings you the leaked supposedly new Rays logo, colors and uniform.

My gut reaction is that I liked the green (which many people around baseball ridiculed) and that this new logo is a mix and match reminder of various logos from around the MLB world. It reminds me mostly of various San Diego Padres logo elements since 1991, it reminds me of the Milwaukee Brewers, it reminds me of the California Angels before they became Disney-fied in the 1990’s and reminds me of the Florida Marlins somehow).

Are they bad? Arguable. Are they good? Arguable. Will I go out and buy a ballcap? Not until the team shows more promise than a few games a season. That’s been my mantra since 1998 and it hasn’t yet changed.