From afar, I’m sure this looks like a beautiful story. The American League’s favorite punching bag, the endlessly futile Tampa Bay Devil Rays, drop the ‘Devil’ and start winning. With no superstar, the entire team pulls together as one, and unites to win their division over 3 other great teams (and the Orioles…) and then the ALDS. Wow! How incredibly heartwarming!
But it is far less beautiful up close. Well, I may be biased. In fact, I am biased. I have Red Sox shoes. But still, what are more sickening then fair-weather fans?
I go to Florida State University (though I’m from the Boston area), and all I see these days are Rays t-shirts, and blue hats sporting that new TB logo. (No, I have never seen a Devil Rays hat, or a Devil Rays t-shirt. Isn’t that curious?) I had a girl a few weeks ago berate me on campus because the Rays were going to ‘kick the %$#@ out of our #@$’ that night. I had a roommate who, slowly but surely, got louder, cockier and more abrasive after each win.
I’m not sure how to react to it, because I pity the Florida baseball fan. Just as America is a nation of immigrants, Florida is a state of American immigrants, people who left the old world of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, etc, for the sun and the beach. These imports don’t have a culture to rally around because they all share different ones, so there is no one thing that they can agree upon. Often, they try to cling to the regional culture of their parents, or people they know, just to belong. This often explains the amount of Red Sox hats I see around campus.
I asked a guy in my class last fall about his Red Sox hat, since we were both wearing one.
“Hey man, you are a Sox fan too? Are you from up there?” I asked.
“Well, my Uncle’s brother-in-law lives up there, so yeah. I’ve visited a couple of times.”
I turned back around and pretended to do my homework. What could be sadder than that? Florida had two baseball teams, but the Devil Rays were a joke, and barely anyone likes the Marlins, even with the two titles. What would it take?
Well, it took what it always takes—winning. Joe Maddon came in with his special math, making 9 some how equal 8. (I’m still surprised, frankly, that motivational crap like that actually works. Who moved my cheese?) Youngster Evan Longoria came in with fantastic rookie numbers. (My roommate told me the team jokingly calls him Eva. How cute.) And somehow they pulled off the division, winning games in the 9th, winning the close ones, and becoming a team of clutch. And frankly, I’m fine with that. And I’m fine with the Tampa folk finally having a real baseball team.
But then I went to a game at Tropicana Field. You may remember the game back in July—Daisuke pitched a wonderful game, and then the Red Sox bullpen fell apart, letting up a ridiculous amount of runs in a never ending inning. And the fans really surprised me. I saw a Tampa fan push a Red Sox fan down the stairs. I heard boos after Kazmir gave a really decent effort against a really tough offense. I sat next to a drunken man in a brand new Rays visor, who yelled at an eight year old Sox fan for cheering his favorite player on. His parents took the youngster home after he started crying. My roommate high fived him.
And now we have the Ray-hawk, started by Rays player Jonny Gomes. They are all over campus too. Some people even have spray painted their heads blue. It’s great they love their team for winning, but I think it’s best for the world if they lose. Because they need to suffer, they need to find character. They need to be teased a little bit. They need the chase, and the feeling of failure. I know they sucked before, but that was a different kind of sucking. That wasn’t the kind that Sox fans have dealt with all these years, where we kept getting ever so close and then blowing it. They need to become true fans, because this Rays team is not going away. This is a new rivalry, and I welcome it, and will like to see the interesting dynamic of a three-way division rivalry bloom. But the fans need to find their way, and they can’t do that without a little suffering. So, we’ll see you next year, Rays fans, hopefully. But until then, your team has a date at Fenway on Monday against Jon Lester. Best of luck to you.
