I fucking hate Tampa Bay

[MANNYHOF24]

There. f*** you Tampa.

[yeszir]

I hate them and I hate their fans.

 

Expect a 70% attendance drop by game 2 of the Royals series.

[The Dustball]

Little bitches.

[Cocos Disciples]

I hate the bandwagoners most of all.

[soxfan17881]

I need a new graphic. This is too tame.

 

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg189/rassmuss1/blog/dbags-1.jpg

[SchillingIsTheNatural]

Give them credit....they have sucked FOREVER and they are actually putting a decent season together. Everyone needs to remember it's July....come talk to us in the fall. They are not going to just "walk away" with the division.

[yeszir]

Give them credit....they have sucked FOREVER and they are actually putting a decent season together. Everyone needs to remember it's July....come talk to us in the fall. They are not going to just "walk away" with the division.

 

Rational and probably true. I hate the bandwagoners most of all though.

[SchillingIsTheNatural]

I hate the bandwagoners most of all though.

 

I will completely agree with that. Something else that bugs me.....my brother in law is a salesman for WJRR in Orlando, FL so he works closely with all the management in the Rays organization when they do advertisements....he tells me a handful of people in the management are actual Rays fans....they are mostly Red Sox and Yankee fans. Thats bad...

[The Dustball]

I hate how they now play Sweet Caroline, I mean what the f*** is that, just trying to be douchebags?

[Remember the Titans]

I hate how they now play Sweet Caroline' date=' I mean what the f*** is that, just trying to be douchebags?[/quote']

 

y u getin mad at somethin that is realy not that important? luv rite?

[Soxfan1]

y u getin mad at somethin that is realy not that important? luv rite?

 

You're stupid.

[yankeessuck013]

I never thought I'd be this excited to leave the Trop and go to Yankee Stadium for a 4 game set.

[The Dustball]

y u getin mad at somethin that is realy not that important? luv rite?

 

Yeah you're probabaly right, guess I was just very bitter after that terrible game.

[CrespoBlows]

You're stupid.

 

Haha, of all the times you could have said that, you pick the one time where RtT is actually correct.

 

Amazing.

[See Red]

I was at the first game and caught a lot of s***... f***ing bandwagoners. When the Sox came to Tampa last year that stadium was 2/3 full and well over 3/4 Red Sox fans. That place was damn near sold out and of all the Rays fans, I saw maybe three wearing shirts, jerseys, or hats from before this year.

[BSN07]

TB fans are a bunch of tossers. the Rays are the worst in road attedance in the Majors. It's only a matter of time before the Band Wagon collapses from all the Jumpers.

 

I do enjoy the fact that the Rays are giving the divison a run for its money. It makes for interesting baseball.

[HeadOfSoxNation]

Man, I'm really on the other side of this. I love watching the Rays and find myself wishing that they were in another league or even another division so that I could actually flat-out root for them. They're certainly not the most talented team on paper in the division, let alone in the big leagues, but straight-up, they're playing the best baseball right now. You're right, it is July. But it's also exciting to have a new team at the top in the ALE and to be chasing someone that's not the Yankees. Do I think they'll ride this out and finish the season in first place? No...but I'll tell you, if it's not the Sox that do it all, I'd love to see it be the Rays.

 

You guys that hate on the "bandwagon" fans...you're spoiled because the vast majority of you (granted, not all...) but the VAST majority have only followed the Sox when they've been at least halfway decent. Fenway didn't always sell out every game like it does now. Red Sox Nation wasn't ALWAYS as widespread as it is now. Most of you are less than 25 years old, some less than 20, and you want to talk about bandwagon fans. It takes time to build a culture around a team. By the time most of you were born, that culture for the Sox had already been created. The Rays have never even been DECENT. They've been atrocious and a doormat for their entire existence. If you only admitted the people that have followed the Sox since prior to decency, Fenway wouldn't be much more populous than the Trop was last year.

[ORS]

If you only admitted the people that have followed the Sox since prior to decency' date=' Fenway wouldn't be much more populous than the Trop was last year.[/quote']

No offense, but liking the Sox prior to the recent good stretch doesn't put you in any small crowd. Part of the poetic nature of the '04 title is the fact that many, many diehards who have suffered all their lives were finally rewarded. That story isn't compelling if the "many" is really only a handful. Quite honestly, you don't know the fanbase that well if this is your true take on the matter.

[Jayhawk Bill]

If you only admitted the people that have followed the Sox since prior to decency' date=' Fenway wouldn't be much more populous than the Trop was last year.[/quote']

 

OK...I watched the Red Sox a little bit before 1967, but I don't know as I can honestly call myself a "fan" before then. Perhaps I need to call myself a "bandwagon fan." :dunno:

 

By that definition, though, I can answer your point. If you only admitted the people that have followed the Sox since prior to decency, most of the fan base would be undead. The Red Sox have been a contending team (over .500) from 1967-1982, from 1984-1986, from 1988-1991, in 1995-1996, and from 1998-2008 (thus far). Boston won the AL three times in the 20 seasons from 1967-1986 (as well as playing perhaps the greatest regular season game in MLB history in 1978), and it reached the playoffs six times in the 16 seasons from 1988-2003. Boston was not a good team from 1950-1966 (nor from 1919-1937, FWIW), but it's been good with very few interruptions since 1967.

 

Most teams as good as Boston was from 1967 to 2003 won at least one World Series. That Boston had failed to do so in so many years of contention, as well as having failed to win between 1938 and 1949, made them "lovable losers" of significant magnitude. If you look back, Fenway was being sold out frequently by 1988 (when I couldn't get tickets, much to my surprise, for any game in a summer homestand without resorting to scalpers). Red Sox Nation, by whatever name, was probably second to the Yankees' fan base even before the 2004 World Series victory.

 

***

 

The Devil Rays' best season was 2004, where they went 70-91 and finished fourth in the AL East. In no other season did they finish out of the cellar; in no other season did they reach 70 wins. The Devil Rays survived on visitor shares, revenue sharing, and fans of other teams coming to watch their home games.

 

The Devil Rays were so bad that THEY CHANGED THEIR TEAM'S NAME. Think about it: how would Red Sox Nation respond were Larry Lucchino to announce that, starting in 2009, Boston's MLB team would be called the "Socks," not the "Red Sox," with a different-colored pair of socks as the logo?

 

***

 

There were no Devil Rays fans, or at the least very few. The Rays fans could almost all be called "bandwagon" fans. Even in my youth, though, before NESN, cable and MLBAM via satellite, every summer night as the sun went down the Red Sox Radio Network came to life, and hundreds of thousands of New Englanders listened through the static and the hisses to make out the play-by-play and to cheer for the Red Sox.

[BoSox21]

obviously the Sox are going to have a larger, more loyal fanbase considering the Rays were born in 1996 and have been absolutely pathetic since, not to mention the dump of a stadium they play in. Ownership hadn't exactly done anything to make Rays baseball a big attraction prior to this season so I can't blame their fans for only coming out now

[BSN07]

I've always been a Sox fan, but it wasn't until I was about 10, did I really start to follow them on a regular basis, so that would be about 1992. I remeber those days, Billy Hatcher, Mike Greenwell, Bob Zubzic, Tony Pena, Scoot Cooper, Jody Reed, Phil Plantier and his all croutched up stance, Tom Brunansky twice, Danny Darwin,( sorry for any mis-spellings).

 

 

Cheering for those guys every day, game in and game out should be enough to get me my " Non- Bandwagon" card.

[a700hitter]

I hate that damn heckler.

[See Red]

obviously the Sox are going to have a larger' date=' more loyal fanbase considering the Rays were born in 1996 and have been absolutely pathetic since, not to mention the dump of a stadium they play in. Ownership hadn't exactly done anything to make Rays baseball a big attraction prior to this season so I can't blame their fans for only coming out now[/quote']

 

But their attendance was down to 1.5 million for their second season.

 

I understand the luster wore off but how can anybody expect an owner to put money into a team that draws 20,000 per game?

 

Hell, the Rockies were just as bad in their first year and they were on pace to break the attendance record again for their second, strike shortened season and they were playing in Mile High Stadium.

[schillingouttheks]

I just watched highlights of tonight's KC and TB game, and I was sickened to see that the attendance made it look like it was any year but 2008. There was no one there despite the team's success. Awful.

[ORS]

To be fair, that game was a day game. Yeah, it came on the heels of a holiday weekend, but it's still a work day. That said, whereas they would draw 8 maybe 9K when the Royals came into town in previous years, they only drew 16K on Friday night. By percentage that's a good increase, but that's pretty sad when the team is leading the division with the best record in baseball in July.

 

EDIT: Just looked at Sat and Sun, where they drew 30K and 20K respectively. That's not bad for a 10 year doormat. Looks like the fans are starting to get behind them a little.

[schillingouttheks]

To be fair' date=' that game was a day game. Yeah, it came on the heels of a holiday weekend, but it's still a work day. That said, whereas they would draw 8 maybe 9K when the Royals came into town in previous years, they only drew 16K on Friday night. By percentage that's a good increase, but that's pretty sad when the team is leading the division with the best record in baseball in July.[/quote']

 

Oh, didn't realize it was a day game. But even still, with everything that's going on down there...

[MANNYHOF24]

BUMP

[Cocos Disciples]

Yep. CK pretty much confirmed my hate for the Rays.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Go Bucs!

[JoeMagrane]

this thread makes me