Why I am rooting for the Rays

Posted 2 hours ago

Picture I took in the outfield at Tropicana Field

I grew up in Kansas City. I grew up as a Royals fan. They were my hometown team. I was loyal to them through the ups and downs of the many seasons.1 The disappointment of losing to the Yankees in the playoffs for 3 straight seasons. The exhilaration when we finally beat them in 1980. The disappointment of losing that World Series to the Phillies. The swing of emotion in Game 6 in 1985 when they were three outs away from losing a second World Series only to make a dramatic comeback. And then the thrill of winning it all the next night. And then the post championship years and the playoff drought.

Skip ahead to 2009. I had relocated to Orlando ten years earlier. During the summer of 2007, my family and I went to a couple of Rockies games in Denver when we lived in Ft. Collins for the summer. And in 2008, the Rays had their first winning season and went all the way to the World Series. I watched several of those games and was pulling for the Florida team. But I wouldn’t have called myself a Rays fan yet.

The next summer, we decided to go to a game in St. Petersburg. We had a lot of fun going to the Rockies games while in Colorado and the kids were at an age that they could handle a day trip like this. We went to a day game in the middle of the week and they were playing the Royals. I started the day wearing a Royals shirt. We stopped at a Walmart in Tampa and bought Rays shirts for the whole family. But I admit, I still struggled with cheering for the Rays against my Royals. The Rays ended up winning that game. I had already started “following” the Rays–checking on their scores daily and keeping up with them. And I continued to follow them throughout the season. And we went to three more games that year.

My family at our first Rays game at The Trop. The Rays beat the Royals 3-2.
Me (light blue shirt on the right) touching one of the cow nose rays at the Touch Tank beyond the wall in center field. I took the kids while my wife stayed in our seats and grabbed this photo. My kids were to my left and blocked from view by me in the picture.

As I continued to follow the team that year, I fell in love. They had a young third baseman, Evan Longoria, that reminded me a lot of my favorite third baseman growing up, Hall of Famer George Brett. Evan was the spark plug of the team. The franchise was at a similar place to the Royals when I started following them in 1976.

My family and I enjoyed going to games. They had a lot of fun activities for the kids before the game like coloring old baseballs, playing baseball trivia, and getting your picture made into a baseball card. We went mostly on Sundays because of the two and half hour drive. After the games on Sunday, the kids (and this big kid) could run the bases.

That summer I adopted the Rays as my team. It only made sense because we could go to their games and I could follow them pretty easily, especially in the years following when I bought a subscription to the MLB At Bat app which allowed me to listen to their games on my iPhone.

We continued to go to games next three years. They had fallen short of the playoffs in 2009 but came back to win the division in 2010. We enjoyed their run in 2011 which climaxed with a walk-off homer in Game 162 in a dramatic comeback against the Yankees and clinched a wild card spot for the playoffs.

Several times during those years we were upgraded from seats in the upper deck to seats right on the field behind the visitor’s bullpen. We enjoyed that privilege three times.

One of my favorite memories of going to games at Tropicana Field was the day that we got to play catch on the field before the game. Someone from the Rays approached us when we came in the ballpark and asked if we would like to do it. That is a great memory I have with my kids.

We also had a lot of fun at a Fan Fest in 2011. We got to spend a lot of time on the field that day. First, waiting in line to get an autograph with Reid Brignac.2 We got to hit baseballs in a batting cages they had set up. The kids got to run home in the outfield. We got to run the bases together. We took a tour of the Rays locker room. And we got to meet Ken Rosenthal (Kenny). It was a really fun day together.

Another fun memory from our visits to the Trop was September 25, 2011. We attended a Sunday game against the Blue Jays. Every game counted as the Rays were trying to hunt down the Red Sox and claim the last wild card spot. It was the most electric atmosphere that we ever experienced at a game. The game included a homerun by Evan Longoria3 and an inside-the-park homer from Ben Zobrist. The Rays won the game 5-2. With a Boston loss that day, they pulled within 1 game with three games left to go. It was a lot of fun being a part of that historic run.

Running home with my youngest

As I was writing this post, it dawned on me. The answer to the statement that is the title of this post. The reason that I root for the Rays is that the Rays became not just my team but they were our team, my family’s team. We built so many fun memories going to see them play and by being part of Fan Fest in 2011. The Royals were my team. The Rays were our team. I had not thought about that when I started writing this post. But looking at all these pictures, it became very clear to me.

We even enjoying watching the Rays on TV (or the computer). We watched the 2011 divisional series on the computer in our living room.

We relocated to Chattanooga in 2013. But I still followed the Rays from afar. I was bummed that they were eliminated in the ALDS by the Red Sox after winning a tie-breaker game with the Rangers (Game 163) and then winning the wildcard game against the Indians. The Rays struggles over the next 5 years just as the Royals got hot and grabbed my attention between 2014 and 2017.

I was excited when the Rays made it back to the playoffs in 2019. I had played a modified season with that team in MLB The Show 18 (I traded for several of the key players). I was very excited about the 2020 team and excited they made it back to the World Series in that shortened season. Game 6 was a heartbreak as an early lead vanished and they lost to the Dodgers. It was also disappointing when several players were traded after the season (Blake Snell).

I had high hopes for them in 2021 and they had an incredible season winning of 100 games. But then they fell to the Red Sox in the ALDS 3-1 and it was another short playoff run. I watched both of their games in 2023 as they fell in two games to the Rangers in the wildcard round. Another heartbreaking end to a promising season.

And now they are back in the World Series again. But it has been heartbreaking to see them lose the first two games of the series against the Brewers. I was hoping that the third time would be the charm. I don’t want to give up on them quite yet but in a lot of ways it feels like the Brewers year. (If the Rays were not playing against them, I would have cheered on the Brewers. I enjoyed watching them sweep the Dodgers in the NLDS.)

This year is a bit strange for me. I don’t feel as invested in this team. I mostly followed them through Facebook and saw that they were doing well. I did get a chance to watch them play on FOX against the Phillies near the end of the season. I was much more invested in earlier teams due to me playing with the Rays in MLB The Show 20 and MLB The Show 23.

Brandon Lowe was one of my favorite players and they traded him to the Pirates after the 2022 season. They also traded away several other favorites in the prior years like Randy Arozorena and Josh Lowe. I have an affinity for Yandy Diaz because I played with him both of those years in MLB The Show and for Drew Rasmussen, who I played with in MLB The Show 23.

I have missed the uniforms with the Rays primary mark even though I like the throwback alternate uniform that they introduced late this season. I miss the uniforms that connect me to the team. I hope to see the classic uniform in at least one of their home games.

I have enjoyed getting to know the team a bit better watching them the last two nights. I read an article about Jonathan Aranda on Friday and was drawn in by his story. It has been fun to get excited about the Rays again. And I will keep cheering for them now and into the future. Rays Up!

The baseball shelf in my office filled with both Royals and Rays memorabilia, including the baseball cards of me and the kids that we made at Tropicana Field.

Footnotes

1 The Royals are still my team. I just have two teams that hold my heart–the team I grew up with and the team that was my family’s team.

2 We had originally been in a very long line to get Evan Longoria’s autograph. But judging from the size of the line and knowing they were only going to sign for a limited time, we decided to get Reid Brignac instead. We liked Reid and enjoyed talking with him.

3 The was a highlight clip of Evan’s home run on MLB.com. I could hear my oldest yelling “Evan, Evan” as he rounded the based and touched home plate. We were all very excited.

* I enjoyed watching the games at The Trop. I know a lot of people don’t like the stadium and there have been calls for a new stadium even back when we were attending games. It was the first dome stadium (and only) that I have seen a game at. I liked the fact that I could count on a consistent temperature, didn’t have to wear sunscreen and worry about getting sunburned, and didn’t have to worry about rain. (There was a pretty heavy thunderstorm that came through when we were watching the September 25, 2011.) I liked the different amenities–the Rays tank, the games for kids in the concourse, and a spacious parking lot. It is quite a haul and the bridge across the bay can get congested (we were on that bridge for an hour after one game). But overall, I thought it was a very nice venue to watch baseball.

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