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2008 Tampa Bay Rays UltraMega Preview by ManRays (Part 1 of 3)
Posted February 14th ago via ArmchairGM
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2008 Tampa Bay Rays Ultramega Preview They already "iced" the Devil, now it's time hell to freeze over! Watch out AL EAST!!!! Synopsis Yes, Yes... Welcome to 2008. Tampa Bay Rays pitchers and catchers report on Friday, February 15, Spring Training games begin March 1st against the Toronto and their regular season begins in Baltimore, March 31st. You've had over two years of warning that they are just the Tampa Bay Rays now. The name change was intended to be implemented in 2007 including a new color scheme but MLB decided that they had too much merchandise and not enough time to allow it, so they made the team wait a year. Meanwhile, the team agreed with MLB's decision and then promptly erased the word devil' from just about everything - uniforms, tickets, apparel, even the announcers and media were encouraged to get a clue. So if you don't get it by now, you're not as knowledgeable about baseball as you say you are. When principle owner Stuart Sternberg took over the Rays in late 2006 he immediately wanted to give the team a new image, a new attitude and most importantly a future. And that future is now. Changing the logo and eliminating Devil' from the name had less to do with superstition or religious favor and had more to do with common sense. First, it seems just about no one calls a Manta or Giant Ray a Devil Ray' even though the fish (yes, they are fish related to sharks) have two horns' on their head. Secondly, they want badly to shake the previous ownership's horrendous track record of not having won more than 70 games in any of their first 8 seasons, shoving ill-fitted managers into running a young, building franchise and generally running a debacle of a baseball franchise. Since the new ownership has come in they have installed some of the youngest, brightest minds in baseball including early-30's something wunderkinds Andrew Friedman as General Manager and Matt Silverman as Team President. The management lowered costs of concessions (cheapest beer i...

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