Rays

[Race]

    One thing I think people are forgetting is that the Rays are a small market team thats only 10 years old. There isnt much tradition and little reason to follow them up until now. The other thing is Florida is the retirement capital of the world. Most people come from other states to retire with other teams on thier ball caps. Many of my baseball oriented friends go to watch the Yankees or the Red Soxs. Most of the fair weather fans you guys talk about probly rooted for different teams thruout the year. The core group of fans attended games no matter what the season record was. The people that were born here and live here I think have always been fans. The Rays had 40+ games with attendance of 30,00 or more. Clearly even before September they had a following.

If you count the metro area Id say you might have 1,000,000 people within reasonable driving distance (for a week game anyway). If you were to sell out every home game that would be around 3,500,000 seat days. Do you see your favorite team 3-4 games a year? Do most people? Can many afford it (more so now than in the past)?

Race

[FiLtH]

  I only have enough passion for one sport. I hated to see the Red Sox lose, but oh well. I dont follow baseball, too many games.

  BTW..GO Pats!

[Anaxogoras]

 

Those happen to be rays.  Hence the name of the team.  Kind if like a living mascot.  Money is donated to charity for every home run hit into the tank.  Besides, who wants to have smelly old socks as a team logo.    

Rays are fish.  It looks like cow-nosed rays they have in there?  I don't know, to me the gimic is bizarre.  I used to work at an Aquarium in California, and I can say with first hand experience that having animals open to the public is challenging enough without alcohol and home-run balls to worry about!   We had a similar species where I worked, and they were very amenable to captivity and public interaction (minus long-fingernails), but I'd hate to see one get plunked!