Record: 45-35
Attendance: 31,650
In the midst of the Stu Sternberg Swan Song from the Trop and soon enough from Tampa, the Rays managed to botch up another game, a second straight loss for Charlie Morton, now 8-2, and a blown save from Emilio Pagan. They had homers from Kevin Kiermaier, Tommy Pham, and a go-ahead solo homer from Willie Adames in the seventh. Pagan, however, threw a bases clearing double to Nelson Cruz in the bottom of the seventh, and eventually the fat lady sang and the Rays lost 6-4.
But it was hard to keep your mind on a ballgame when the terrible news about the Rays playing half their home games in Montreal, Canada, was still settling in, a worse act of baseball betrayal than even Traitor Joe Maddon committed.
Here's what I wrote today to the Tampa Bay Times' columnists who have been covering this story, Marc Topkin, John Romano, and Martin Fennelly.
Gentlemen:
Has it occurred to anyone that
having the Rays until mid-June is not at all equitable? It's not even
close to being a 50-50 deal because no one cares about April and May
baseball, and all the fun begins during the pennant run and jockeying
for a wild card spot. Montreal would get all of that. We'd get
Associated Press wire stories.
(And what about you
guys? Is one of you going to learn French and move up there for three
months--even if the Times could afford it? And judging from the number
of higher priced columnists who have been let go in the last couple of years and either not been
replaced or replaced by lower cost writers, I'd say the chances are slim
to zero that one of you will be assigned to the Montreal Canadian Rays.)
Sternberg is running the Big Con on us--and he wants us to be grateful that we're keeping the Rays "for generations to come."
And
don't feel bad for him because of low attendance. I'm going way out on
a limb here: Stu's making a ton of money already. And we know the
franchise is worth much much more now than when he bought it. Finances
are not at the heart of this argument, greed is.
This
whole process is destined to move along at a glacial pace, but if it
were up to me, I'd evict the Rays and send them packing right now for
Montreal, Las Vegas, Portland, anywhere, as long as they were out of the
parking lot by sundown.
Sorry for the rant,
just one fan's opinion. As of now the Marlins are my new team--they're only 300 miles away, not 1500--plus I get them on my TV, and in
case you haven't noticed, they are playing way better baseball than the Montreal
Rays.
EC
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