Top 10 Reasons To Despise The Rays

The ALCS is upon us and it's a familiar site to see the Boston Red Sox in Johntober. Only this time (because of the city of Boston's successful sport franchises), the media wants to paint the Sox as the villian and the Devil Rays (yeah, old names die hard) as the lovable underdog. I'm not going to call myself a homer, but I'm a sports fan that'll support my local team. With that being said, I'm going run down a list of reasons to root against Tamper (yeah, I've create a colloquialism for the name of their fair city, sounds like hamper and Pampers). Here we go....

10. Evan Longoria

What's not to like about him, he's young (just turned 23 a week ago), he's probably going to be named AL Rookie Of The Year and he's going to be an All Star for years to come. He'd be a shortshop if it wasn't for his college team, Long Beach State already having a stud at that position in current Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitski. Well, every time I say his name, I think of Mrs. Tony Parker. I'm sure he thinks of the same thing and hates it.



9. The Life Aquatic

Is it a manta ray, a sting ray, why couldn't they have just called themselves the Tampa Bay Sting and signed the wrestler Sting to drop from the rafters of the Trop and be their DH? It would have been way better than having rocker Sting do the same thing while wielding a lute. It would be a better marketing ploy then having Nasty Boy Brian Knobbs show up at all your games as a season ticket holder. Needless to say, you shouldn't have a fish tank in your ballpark (that goes for you too, Arizona).


8. Jason Bartlett

He just looks like the sketchy guy that dated the girl you had a crush when you were younger. Nothing really scares you about him, but he gets under your skin because he has something that you want. He's a throwback like before Cal Ripken turned shortstop into an offensive position. Back when you could hit like Rick Burleson and still contribute to your team. Also, I once knew a guy whose last name was Bartlett. He irated everybody he met. So much so that I came up with a phenomenon called The Bartlett Factor. It's a triple threat basically; looking like, dressing like and acting like a professional bowler, but the bowler must be a jerk. This doesn't apply to this Bartlett, but the person that was the inspiration for it also was shaped like a Bartlett pear.


7. BJ Upton

He's one of 5 players in the majors whose last name begins with the letter 'U' (a vowelie along with Chase Utley, Juan Uribe, Dan Uggla and his brother Justin). Is your first name that bad that you have to go by initials? Seriously? (Well when your first name is Melvin and your middle name is Emmanuel, you don't go by M.E., you go by Bossman Junior because your dad was Bossman - Too bad Big Bossman is dead. I hear John Cena (from West Newbury, Massachusetts) is a fan of theirs because most wrestlers live in Florida nowadays.


6. Cowbell

I got a fever because the seasons they are a changing and I'll settle for thunder sticks or old fashioned hooting and hollering, but cowbell. Hey dude, it isn't dinner time on the ranch, it's baseball on the diamond. Really? Is cowbell the best way that one could come up with for supporting their team? Why not try to sell out your ballpark for an entire season and then you can develop quirks. Part of me wishes it'll just be a fleeting SNL sketch rather than a bad sports movie on the Will Ferrell comedy meter, but Tampa has home field advantage by virtue of winning the AL East. These are the Devil Rays, I'm starting to get a headache.


5. Scott Kazmir

This 24 year old southpaw has been in the bigs since 2004. He cost me my fantasy baseball league title because I had faith in him to pitch well in one game in September. He blew up against the Red Sox (I never wanted him to win, I just wanted him to stay in it and let the bullpen blow that game late) and I was never able to recover from the inflated ERA and WHIP the rest of the two week matchup period. This list is personal, deal with it.


4. The Rayhawk

This fellow went the full blown with food coloring look. The lazy haircut that looks like a Cleveland Browns football helmet when it's short. The mohawk without all the Mo Vaughn. Which leads to this query: Would Mo Vaughn have been better off as a full time DH instead of a first baseman? If he focused solely on hitting, would he have been as big of a star as Big Papi has been in this decade? If he had Manny batting fourth behind him, he would have been a beast. He would have been pitching Crank2O to the masses like it was VitaminWater. Back to the buzz, women are getting their areas styled into a southern hemispherical version of the rayhawk. Plus, it's keeping kids from learning in school.


3. J.P. Howell

Because every time I hear his name, I think of Gilligan's Island. Which leads one of the all-time top 'would ya' debates: Mary Ann or Ginger? One's simple, one's flashy. Does it really matter? This isn't a communist society, we have options and choices. At any rate, J.P.'s also a soft tosser and I prefer my tossers like my tacos and turtles, hard shelled. I still believe turtle soup is an urban myth. You aren't a starter, you aren't a closer, you're a specialist. And nobody likes to see the specialist because he makes you pay big time.


2. Carlos Pena

The pride of Haverhill Mass could have been a big league 1B for many clubs mainly the Detroit Tigers, but it took getting to play in Tamper every day in order to be a big bopper. 46 dingers last year, a mirage. It'll build your confidence, but at 30 years old, you are yesterday's news.


1. Tropicana Orange Juice

It's bad enough that nobody can agree on the type of orange juice they like (no pulp, some pulp, lots of pulp, calcium fortified, screwdriver). They have to be the sponsor of the most hideous ballpark in MLB (at least the Metrodome looks presentable). If the Rays beat the Red Sox and go onto win the World Series, I may have to give up on my daily intake of Vitamin C for the rest of the year.

Ring Around The Rosey

Most of this was culled from a MySpace blog I did a couple of days ago, but it still should be relevant.

I remember when I was younger and the Olympics meant something. That was back when there were only a handful of TV channels. That was also before 9/11. Not to say there hasn't been times when nations didn't get along. There has been civil unrest since there were dinosaurs. But times have changed, there is so much going on that our attention spans have been shortened. We live in an on demand world.

But NBC and all of its dysfunctional sister stations have decided that they are God and Bob Costas is Jesus. In order to see what you want to see, they don't tell you exactly when they are going to air something so you have to tune out what you don't care about. Then there are the countless human interest puff pieces they feel the need to report. They only care to really cover these sports for a two week period every four years. It's all about ratings, advertising revenue and blatant egostroking and ballwashing.

So you want to make the Olympics interesting? Air them on HBO or Showtime and allow nudity. That's more compelling then kayaking or handball. I don't just want a nip slip, I want full frontal and then some. Then all these blogs that comment on pictures of hot chicks will stop blogging and start jerking off into a semicircle. Why a semicircle because eventually you'll hit the wall. That's why they have household cleaning products. When was the last time you saw a squigee (sp.?)

I'd watch Track & Field, if the competition was running from rabid dogs or the cops. Hell, give me a K-9 unit then we'll really find out who's doping. Gymnastics - can we have some developed girls please? These underdeveloped girls won't grow up without having some sort of social hurdle. I want to see a meaty girl try to do a cartwheel. Swimming, throw some sharks in there. Diving, make them dive through a ring of fire.

They could do so much more with the Olympics. The Olympics are almost as bad as the news if they aren't worse. I'm hungry, I'm debating going to the other end of town to pick up a pie from the Greeks at Olympic Pizza and then maybe I'll catch a flick at the Cameo. What are my choices - Mamma Mia and Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2? I'll pass and fast.

P.S. - Does Bela Karolyi do functions? Can you rent him out like people do with The Iron Sheik and D List celebrities looking for a buck? We can even call it 'motivational speaking' to give it credibility. The guy is clearly the most entertaining facet of Olympic programming. Why else would they stretch out the coverage of gymnastics and have him speak to Costas on a nightly basis about the travesties of the scoring and the plight of the American squads? If you want this to be rhetorical, go for it.

Lighten Up, Wimbledon!

There was a great gentleman's final at Wimbledon this year between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The match was almost postponed at its climax due to darkness. You see, the British tennis community might as well be cavemen. Sure it's tradition like it was tradition that they didn't have lights at Wrigley Field. Perhaps that's the reason the Cubs haven't won a pennant in a 100 years and haven't won it during all those years where all home games were day games. Bats often come alive at night. But get with the times, Wimbledon. Just like general dentistry, we've come all long way, baby. It's all about the primetime.

The flashbulb serenade that Nadal received after he closed out Federer in the epic five set battle and won his 1st Wimbledon was tremendous. No one expected there to be rain delays that would even bring the match to dusk, but they should be prepared. Championship sporting events do not need a curfew, ask the NBA and MLB how that works out for them. Stretched out programming to generate more advertising revenue is not an issue. Your target audience already has a Rolex perhaps they need a new one. Tennis might as well be a cult, a smug elitist one at that.

Tennis has become the world's game and America is it's bitch. You may not get America back without bringing in a player like John McEnroe or Pete Sampras. Andy Roddick and James Black, they aren't the answer. Neither is Allen Iverson quite frankly, what was the question? No lights, no problem. Glow in the dark tennis, everything is neon or in black light. Everyone is traditionally wearing white so they look like they would at club night. You could play trippy music as well. You get the hippies on board because what else are they going to watch. They are still trying to figure out how to DVR Wipeout! without sober help. Lite Brite Pong, you have me buying what you are selling.

Maybe if ESPN had a UK SportsCenter (they probably do and call it SportsCentre like they do in Canada), but then again, the sight of a Brit version of Stuart Scott might drive them bonkers across the pond. I don't know if they are ready for someone resembling Tanqueray Gin ad guy Tony Sinclair to offer them hugs and handpounds. We stole Cheerios and Cheers from them, we might as well give them something back.

Past Perfect

The 2008 NFL schedule was officially released this afternoon and now is the time for all good men to discuss the sexiest pairings of the upcoming season. What, you can't break down the bumper crop of offensive lineman in next week's draft for the umpteenth time? "He said, she said" with Brett Favre not being able to give it up has skinned the cat that got your tongue? I could make many observations about my local squad, The New England Patriots, but I'll keep it succinct. Business trips to Shamu's Privates to take on The Bolts in Week 6 and Hoosier (dare I discover the origin of the term 'hoosier') Central for a date with The Colts in Week 9. I was tempted to call them 'The Horseshoes', I'm even more tempted to insinuate that they should have a mascot in the shape of a horseshoe named Ringer that drunken Hoosiers could fling onion rings or better yet, an Awesome Blossom. I'm sure Outback would love that and the sheilas rejoice.

Both games are on Sunday nights so make sure you spank your sister after the 4:15pm games so she'll have a spring in her step come kickoff. My favorite matchup will be the other Sunday night tilt (there's a possibility that NBC will pull another early Sunday matchup during the latter half of the year for their flex matchup, but there's a cap on the number of primetime games a team can play) when they visit the artificial 12th man in Seattle versus The Seahawks. I'm sure Peter King will be at the game drinking Starbucks and he'll have something to say about it in his Monday column.

I'm not drinking any Kool-Aid, but I'll say it, as much as I'd like to see a perfect season from New England in 2008, I don't want to see it happen. I probably wouldn't be able to watch football ever again. But I thought that was the case when I felt like I was sucker punched after the AFC Championship loss to Indy in 2007 and the most recent Super Bowl versus The Giants (I still think Fox fixed the game, they are 'The Devil's Channel, but that's my conspiracy theory for another day). The collective romanticism that would result from an undefeated, unblemished Super Bowl championship team would exceed that of Jim Nantz during a Masters weekend. A season without defeat would be the ultimate accomplishment, but where do you go from there? It would be a tall order to live up to that singular season in every season after that. Bill Belichick has found ways to movitate his championship rosters of the past. But do you really want to become like Mercury Morris? He's the guy at your school reunion that has held onto his past for way too long.

Sure it's great to have a memory, but the band must play on. There's more music to be heard. That's what athletics is all about, the ebb and flow of the pursuit. I hope the Patriots win every time they take the field, but if they don't, it'll be something to vent about. With that being said, I hope to see them in Tampa at the end of the year for Super Bowl XLIII. I predict that they'll face the Dallas Cowboys and win 34-20.