Archive for February 21st, 2008

Feb 21

[NEW STADIUM] St. Pete Times To Live-Blog Public Hearing

New Stadium Cork Gaines 2 Comments »

Seriously we can’t make this shit up…

Tonight the St. Pete City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed redevelopment of Tropicana Field and the subsequent building of a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays along the downtown waterfront.

Aaron Sharockman of the St. Pete Times will attend the meeting and will be live-blogging the event.

I’m here in City Hall, more than 3½ hours before the public hearing on the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium and redevelopment proposal begins at 6:30 p.m., and already people are lining up for their turn to speak.

It kind of has the atmosphere of a big-time college basketball game –- without the pep bands or cheerleaders. Proponents of the Rays’ plan, mainly from the group Fans For Waterfront Stadium, are expected to be wearing white. Opponents, those associated with the group Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront, will be dressed in red.

Big-time college basketball game? Sure. Minus about 15,000 people.

We are not sure why Sharockman is live-blogging the event. Certainly it would be sufficient to provide a summary write-up after the fact. In fact, we will go one step further and provide everybody with a play-by-play of how things should go down.

Playa Haters: Well, well, well. It’s Stuey’s Stool Pigeons. Where’s your mommy?
RaysCrazies: You back off, Fake Manatee Lovers.I’ve had enough of you. This is gonna end right here, right now
Playa Haters:Let’s dance, asshole. You wanna dance, Stuey?
RaysCrazies: I wanna polka. Come get a taste. (turns towards another RaysCrazy) Andrew, where’d you get a hand grenade?
World B. Friedman:I don’t know.
Playa Haters:All right. Let’s do this!
RowdiesRowdies: Hey! If you’re gonna have a fight, then don’t forget the Tampa Bay Rowdies with me, Rodney Marsh! We want our own stadium!
Playa Haters: You dirtbags have been dead for 24 years.
RowdiesRowdies: Yeah? Well, you’re about to be in dead place.
CrazyCatWomen: Not so fast, you ingrates! The coalition to save the Florida Panther is taking a break from its pledge drive to kick some ass. No commercials! No mercy!
Ybor’sEyores: Cómo están, bitches! Cuban Anti-Communist Federation is here. Tonight’s top story: The sewers run red with Stuey’s blood. Hyah! Hyah!
RaysCrazies: Well looks like we got ourselves a bilingual bloodfest
RaysCrazies: Now, before we do this, let’s go over the ground rules. Rule number one: None of this will actually have an effect on the City Council’s final decision.
Playa Haters: Of course
RaysCrazies: And that’s it! Now let’s do this!
Playa Haters: Begin! I’m gonna straight-up murder your ass!
(all hell breaks loose. World B. Friedman kills somebody with a trident)

Rays stadium: Let the debate begin [The Heater]

Feb 21

[Kid K] Scott Kazmir Sports A New Look In 2008…Unfortunately

Jeff Niemann, Scott Kazmir, Scott Kazmir is just a lil' guy Cork Gaines 4 Comments »

Matt Bishoff of DRays Bay attended the Rays workout yesterday and snapped some pictures. Fairly typical practice pics. But then something caught our eye.

Last year, Scott Kazmir looked like this.


This year Kaz looks like this…


There is a reason we call him ‘Kid K’, with his boyish looks. The 6’0″ Kaz is just making it worse by wearing Jeff Niemann’s (6’9″) pants.

Pictures and Full Practice Report [DRays Bay]

Feb 21

[THE HANGOVER] The Rays Are Beginning To Believe

Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, Cliff Floyd, Dioner Navarro, Don Zimmer, Elijah Dukes, Eva Longoria, Evan Longoria, Glenn Gibson, Joe Maddon, Jonny Gomes, Rocco Baldelli, Scott Kazmir, Tony Parker Cork Gaines 2 Comments »

Tampa Bay Rays (39 days until Opening Day)

A while back we were critical of Joe Maddon for the following quote…

I think [81 wins is] a reasonable goal…But of course I don’t want us just to stop there.

Some thought we were too hard on Papa Joe. Our point was simple…While 81 wins may be a “realistic” goal, it is not a reasonable goal. If winning games is the goal, as it is this year, then the playoffs are the only reasonable goal. If a manager sets a goal of .500 and only ‘wants’ more, the team will never attain more.

Yesterday Carlos Pena was asked about the recent comments by Scott Kazmir in which Kaz stated that the playoffs were something “that’s possible”. Pena’s comments are exactly what we want to hear from the team’s manager.

“Obviously, in our minds we are a playoff team,” Pena said. “And first we have to believe that. So that has to almost be ingrained in you and not a second thought. We just know we should be playing in October.

“We also know there’s a process. Every game needs to be played to the best of our ability. We need to optimize every single opportunity that comes our way to win ballgames. We know that there’s a process involved. But we do have a vision about becoming a winning team. And we see that in the very near future. We don’t really think that’s very far-fetched.”

It takes more than ‘wanting’ to achieve greatness. It starts with ‘believing’. The Rays are beginning to believe and that is the first step. If a manager/coach can convince his players they can be great, there is a better chance of achieving greatness. Let’s hope that Papa Joe’s words behind the scenes exuded more confidence than his words to the press.

Maybe we are nitpicking the choice of words put forth by Maddon, but for a leader…Every. Word. Counts.

Joe Maddon Considers Mediocrity A ‘Reasonable Goal’ [Rays Index]
Playoffs?! Did he say playoffs? [St. Pete Times]
Notes: Baldelli healthy, ready to go [Tampa Bay Rays]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

  • Rocco Baldelli says he is healthy, but he can’t go all out in workouts the way he would normally. [Bradenton Herald]

“I don’t worry about it. My body might respond a little different if I went out there and killed myself…Normally I go out there in spring training and every drill that I do I do all the reps I’m supposed to and then some, and I do them as hard as I can until when I leave the field…That’s my normal routine, that’s the way I’ve done it for the last eight years…I don’t take reps off. I do everything, and I do it as hard as I can. And maybe that’s not something that my body may agree with, so if I don’t have to I’m not going to. It’s tough, when you play one way, I’ve pretty much always tried to play hard my whole career in every aspect of the game, so it’s an adjustment to not do that every single time you take the field, but it’s something I’m going to do this year, I’m going to take it easy some times.”

  • Jonny Gomes reported to camp with plans for being an everyday player. Sorry Jonny. You are one of our faves, but if Rocco Baldelli is healthy, you are sitting against righties most nights. That means 50-60 starts. [Tampa Tribune]
  • Di you realize that only two players from last year’s opening day lineup will be in the same position on opening day 2008? Carl Crawford and Dioner Navarro. [The Ledger]
  • Rays of Light spotlights Cliff Floyd…who we affectionately refer to as “Dr. Huxtable”, because he is old and wise and jolly and loves pudding pops*. [Rays of Light]
  • Don Zimmer will be wearing #60 this year to commemorate his 60 years in professional baseball. We remember an interview with Zims once when he thought it was weird when he received his first Social Security check because it was the first check he had ever received outside of baseball. [TampaBays10]
  • Tonight the St. Pete city council will hold the first public meeting on the proposed waterfront stadium for the Rays. [Tampa Tribune]
  • Evan Longoria stays away from newspapers and blogs. However, his mother is an avid reader of everything that is ‘Evan Longoria’ on the ‘net. [Tampa Bay Rays]
  • Riverwalk Talk has a couple of quotes from Joe Maddon on Evan Longoria and why they do not want to rush the Dirtbag, and a couple of quotes from Longoria. [Riverwalk Talk]
  • And yes! We have our first sighting of a blog that has attempted humor by dedicating an entire post to the Evan Longoria-Eva Longoria name-likeness. The joke? Eva should have married Evan instead of Tony Parker. Hey Jim Baumbach! We have a joke for you. Peter Pan called. He wants his costume back… It’s not even March. Jim Baumbach of Newsday is now officially on our shit-list. [Newsday]
  • Elijah Dukes said something. Honestly, we don’t give a shit anymore. We barely cared when he was here. Dukes is a loser. He failed the Rays, his teammates, his coaches and the fans. Instead of playing baseball and helping the Rays win games, he turned his own life into a circus. Not only was he an idiot for getting himself suspended and thus not able to help the team, but he made life for his teammates and coaches more difficult. He is dead to us. If Glenn Gibson never pitches one inning for the Rays we will still be glad the Rays got rid of Dukes. [Rays Report]

*we might have made that up