Stuart Sternberg To Make Stadium-Related Announcement Monday
Stuart Sternberg June 20th. 2010, 3:37pm[Update] Tom Krasniqi reports (via Twitter) that Sternberg will read a 4-5 minute statement and will not take questions…Much of the speculation is now centered around idea of Sternberg giving a deadline for a new stadium.
[Update] Noah Pranksy’s sources are telling him that the announcement will be stadium-related, but “won’t be earth-shattering”…Well, that was fun for about 10 minutes. [Twitter]
[4:37pm] The Rays just announced that Stuart Sternberg will make “an important announcement regarding the future of the Rays franchise,” Monday at 12:15pm.
Well, that sounds both exciting and ominous. Let’s start the guessing at “new stadium plans” or “Stu has had enough of this crap and wants out.”
Any chance it is just a coincidence that this announcement comes an hour after the Rays fall out of first-place for the first time all season? Yeah, we didn’t think so either.
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Free pizza for only 8 strikeouts?
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SS is going to announce Maddon is going to be the new bench coach…in charge of player relations so everyone gets along!
The new manager won’t be announced until they can find someone who will work cheap, always likes the effort and will never hold any play accountable for their performance! Los and Bj immediately backed Mr. S. plan!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cork Gaines and Cork Gaines, Kendra Broughton. Kendra Broughton said: RT @RaysIndex: RaysIndex: Stuart Sternberg To Make Announcement Monday About Future Of Rays http://bit.ly/9iB1ik #Rays [...]
Oh I forgot…Mr S. probably does want out..since hes only doubled or trippled his investment since buying the team and he has 20,000+ fans believing he is putting the best product (players) on the field every night! But he said Joe Maddon has to be assured of a job if the sale goes thru!
Joe says… ok…even if the manager thing doesn’t work out…he use to pack bags for the Angels and he assured SS anything would be OK!
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if he sold the club…Let’s face it, to get what he wants, he for one, HAS TO MOVE TO TAMPA BAY!!! No more New York philanthropy. The Rays’ fans and franchise is not philanthropy!
I am concerned here that this process is being decided by which way the wind blows. It’s time to kick Michael Kalt to the curb, and if Stu wants something, well, he darned better well be prepared to no do it half-way and go at it full bore. He has to do a better job with public relations.
Anyone still know about Peter Gammons “sources” by the way, thinking about it?!
“Any chance it is just a coincidence that this announcement comes an hour after the Rays fall out of first-place for the first time all season? Yeah, we didn’t think so either.”
Surprised to hear this level of cynicism. To each their own but this ownership hasn’t shown me they do this sort of thing. And besides, it would largely be ineffective and short-sighted if so. Say we have a better week than the Yanks and regain 1st by a game, and then lose all 3 this weekend. Would they have to come up with another press conference then?
I’m not being cynical as much as I am just asking “why?”, and speculating on the answer. The Rays don’t take a dump unless every detail is planned out in advance. So there is a reason the Rays announced Sternberg’s statement an hour after today’s game.
Your better argument would have been that the if this is indeed a public push for a new stadium, then the Rays would have been better off making the announcement when they were 20 games over .500 and had a nice lead in the East. But then that leads me to wonder that maybe the announcement was pushed up because the Rays can’t risk making the announcement after the team has fallen off the pace out of contention.
Or maybe the announcement comes tomorrow because Sternberg is meeting with the St. Pete mayor this week and the ABC group might be releasing their final report tomorrow. Two pieces of information that I didn’t have when I made my initial speculation on the timing. Points that will be covered in The Hangover tomorrow.
I’m not afraid to be wrong. I am afraid to accept everything at face value just because that is what somebody said. Being a critical thinker is how we get past the “world is flat because they say it is” mentality. If that requires some cynicism, so be it.
Any positive momentum does risk to be lost because of the Rays inability to stay in first place. This is part of the difficulty you are referring to Cork. I do believe what is happening tomorrow, whatever that may be is probably on an expedited path. I have heard that this is either an ultimatum or a path to build the park.
Just speculation on my part, but I have no idea how cordial the City of St. Petersburg, the City Council and the Mayor’s Office can be if the Rays decide they feel they need to break the lease. From all indications, the better options (PLURAL) are on the other side of the bay. Not tooting any horns here.
I am also not afraid to be wrong either. I have not been a fan of this process, but again, this has to come from Stu himself. I would like to see him take personal charge of this, in whatever endeavour he chooses. For the accomplishments that Stuart Sternberg has had since he bought the club and took it over, I do NOT put the club on a pedestal that others in the local media have put it on. I do wish the club all of the success on the field and off, but I want fairness and transparency to be the rule of the day.
[...] If you missed the news last night, Stuart Sternberg will make a statement at noon today. It is believed that the topic will be a new stadium. [Rays Index] [...]
This can’t be good.
Suppose a move did occur, and the Rays ended up in San Antonio or Indianapolis or even Nashville . . . . Would anyone here still root for them? Just curious.
I’d probably still pull for them, not the same way I do now though. I’d have to buy the mlb.tv package and make the Reds my number one team.
Ste’s press conference: “I intend to break our contractual agreement (the team won’t be living up to its lease obligations and playing in the Trop in 2029) but I expect everybody to fall all over themselves in a double dip recession to finance me a new ballpark where we’ll sweat to death like the Marlins fans yesterday and we’ll have to less to spend on payroll because we’ll have massive increases in rent to pay off the new stadium debt.”
How about, no? We like the air conditioning.