A Tampa Bay Ray of Hope in the Southland

The Tampa Bay DEVIL Rays are a past thought when it comes to baseball in Tampa today.

No longer do the stadiums fill to the favor of the opposing team. No longer do the fans root louder when Albert Pujols or Manny Ramirez obliterate a crappy pitcher's batting practice-like offering into the abyss than they do when Fred McGriff once bombed pitches into the upper-deck.

Who would've thought a new logo, new colors, and a new name would bring such a camaraderie to Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays?

As a baseball fan that lives about an hour and 15 minutes away from St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field, I can already see the new attitude developing around the zip codes of the Sunshine State.

Rays merchandise is stock-piling shelves in department stores everywhere. Of the handful of games I've attended this season, none have had an attendance count below 20,000.

In the past, 8,000-9,000 fans was considered a successful outing to go watch the un-loveable losers of the past.

New acquisitions such as Cliff Floyd and Troy Percival have given Rays fans the feeling that management actually cares about winning and is building for the future.

Superstar OF Carl Crawford now has some help, and Carlos Pena is one year removed from a 40+ home run season and rookie third baseman Evan "Don't Call Me Eva" Longoria is currently making a name for himself, not to mention his bank account.

Expected to be built by the year 2012 is a stadium the Rays will hang their hats on as quite possibly the finest in the league by that time.

It will be a bayside park with a ceiling overhead, but a ceiling that will be supported by beams and have no walls surrounding it. Think of it as a fold-up card table with a baseball game on the floor underneath it.

I know.

The biggest compliment to the new Rays organization is that baseball fans who don't consider the Rays their favorite team but who have rooted for them for years, like me, finally have reasons that don't get laughed at by others for going to games.

Are they one of the best three teams on paper in their own division? No.

But if the Florida Marlins of 1997 taught us anything, well, you get where I'm going with this.