The Sweet Spot has two cool posts up evaluating  the biggest questions facing each playoff team. Two quick thoughts: 1. I had no idea there was a potential that Justin Morneau could return for the playoffs.  Now I really don’t want to play Minnesota in the first round. 2.  Thank heavens New York is trying  [ Read More ]

With all this talk of 10,000 empty seats at Tropicana Field it is easy to forget that there are bigger problems in the world: like 800 abused and neglected children in this community passing through the legal system without representations. Please come to Curtis Hixon park on October 16, 2010 and show the abused and neglected  [ Read More ]

In my effort to avoid all media coverage of the Rays’ attendance, I nearly missed this incredibly thoughtful comparison The Common Man wrote over at The Platoon Advantage — another member of The Sweet Spot Network. The Twins had attendance struggles too when they first righted the ship 10 years ago.  The Rays have additional  [ Read More ]

You might have heard that Evan Longoria and David Price made a little national news two nights ago.  Most reaction to their comments on the Rays’ attendance woes focused on the attendance.  The more I thought about their comments, however, the more I realized that we all may have missed the most interesting plot. The  [ Read More ]

The Rays’ young stars are not the only people being negatively effected by the low attendance at recent home games.  First time authors camping out in local bookstores are also struggling. The Time has this tragic story about Vince Naimoli’s failed book signing on 1A this morning. Two things: I will definitely read this book.   [ Read More ]

I swear that I intended for yesterday’s post on attendance to be my last word on the issue so that this space could re-focus itself on the ballclub. But, this story just won’t die, thanks in part to David Price and Evan Longoria. I worked up quite an angry sweat on the treadmill this morning  [ Read More ]

Yesterday was throwback day for Tampa Bay sports fans.  I put on my orange Bucs shirt to listen to Gene Deckeroff call the Steelers’ rout of the home team, just like when I was a kid.  The blackout got me thinking about the most-discussed Rays topic: attendance. The Bucs seem like a natural comparator for  [ Read More ]

You can’t swing a dead cat without finding some member of the national media commenting that we don’t care about the Rays.  Be it Bill Simmons on PTI, or the guy that does the sports updates at NPR (“…the Rays are in first place this morning, if only the people of Tampa/St. Pete knew about  [ Read More ]

Wednesday morning, we all awoke to a media coronation of the 2010 AL East Champion New York Yankees.  After all, they had just beaten the Rays twice in a row by a combined score of 16-9.  Those two games put the Rays 2.5 games back in the division which, apparently, sealed their fate. All those  [ Read More ]

Seems like Vincent LaGuardia Gambini became the managing editor of every major sports news outlet overnight and is now directing all the preview coverage for tonight’s tilt with the Yankees. Tonight is the last regular season matchup between the Rays and Yankees. The Rays are only 1.5 G back of New York in the standings.  [ Read More ]