Who doesn't wish they were a Rays fan? Just about everyone who lives in Tampa Bay, I guess.

Hard to believe the attendance numbers. Sad.

Well, it was the Kansas City Royals. Not exactly a marquee draw for any team.

But still, damn are the Rays terrifyingly good right now. And if the Yanks can hold on and down the Red Sox, their division lead will grow to 5.5 games.

Give it time. Even if they don't have the demographics to build up an Evil Empire-sized fan base, a few big seasons would go a long way towards building a loyal middle-tier following. I say "a few big seasons" as Florida fans are probably a bit jaded from the Wayne Huizenga Marlins experience.

Hard to believe the attendance numbers. Sad.

20k for a game versus the Royals for a team that has absolutely no history of anything but bad teams? Attendance doesn't magically jump from 10k for poor draws to 30k overnight, it takes months of a gradual process and really isn't complete until the next season when more season tickets are purchased. It's not really an issue.

Well, it's a holiday weekend and the team is the best in baseball. I don't know, I'd expect more than 20K.

The Rays haven't exactly earned a bunch of loyalty points from their fan base up until now. You can't expect people who never had a reason to watch the Rays suddenly rush out for tickets because they've had a few good months.

Francesspool, before the season...

"The Devil Rays (musta ate the memo) will NOT win 65 games this season. Where are they going to get the wins from in the AL East?"

For the Pool to be right...Rays have to go 9-66 the rest of the way.

For the Pool to be right...Rays have to go 9-66 the rest of the way.

It gonna happen. As Pool said on NBC a few nights back, "The Devil Rays are a paper tiger. They've never been where they're heading in the second half so they'll never get there." Shortly thereafter, Michael Kay called in to demand his fountain of idiocy back.

FWIW, when the Royals came to Tampa last season for a 4 game series (Friday-Monday), it was June 1-4 (so not a holiday), and the attendance was 12032, 14403, 12220 and 9435. 20K looks like a lot of improvement, even with the holiday.

I think the fans probably expect that all the good players will be gone when they get expensive, so they don't want to make the emotional investment. And that's reasonably likely.

And that's reasonably likely.

Based on what?

I think the fans probably expect that all the good players will be gone when they get expensive, so they don't want to make the emotional investment. And that's reasonably likely.

Shields, Kazmir, and Longoria are all locked up to team-friendly deals that buy out arb years and a couple years of FA. Carlos Pena is signed on for the next three years. A deal for B.J. Upton may be in the works soon. And the team is solidly in first place RIGHT NOW. So I'm not sure I agree with this.

Based on what?

Based on their experience with the Marlins. Most fans aren't at BTF-awareness levels. The vast majority don't know, as Esoteric points out, that Shields, Kazmir and Longoria are locked up. they don't know that they'll likely sew up Upton. They don't know any of this because they're casual fans. What they DO know is that the last two times a Florida team got good, it was immediately blown up. The Rays have a lot to prove right now.

they don't know that they'll likely sew up Upton.

If Upton signs a team friendly pre-FA deal, I will eat my Rays hat.*

*-I do not have a Rays hat, but the point stands.

Based on their experience with the Marlins. Most fans aren't at BTF-awareness levels. The vast majority don't know, as Esoteric points out, that Shields, Kazmir and Longoria are locked up. they don't know that they'll likely sew up Upton. They don't know any of this because they're casual fans. What they DO know is that the last two times a Florida team got good, it was immediately blown up. The Rays have a lot to prove right now.

Do you really think the citizens of Tampa Bay fans will judge their team's future based entirely on a different team's history?

What genuinely great players has Tampa Bay dumped on the cheap? Even under the previous ownership, Tampa Bay wasn't really cheap, merely incompetent/unlucky. And the current ownership group, it seems, has done almost nothing to give the fans reason to be cynical. As Jim says, it will take a year the wins to translate into season tickets, but I find it hard to believe Rays fans are expecting a Marlins-style firesale forthcoming.

How about: "The Rays will attempt to sew up Upton"?

The 1997 Marlins won the World Series. Within 18 months, Luis Castillo and Alex Fernandez were the only two contributors from that squad to remain Marlins. I can understand why the fan base in St. Pete hasn't completely embraced the Rays yet. If the team continues to be competitive, and win something once in a while, there's no reason at all why a fan base wouldn't build in the area.

Tampa/St. Pete has a comfortably separate sports identity from Miami. Citing the '97 Marlins is about as useful as equating the Pirates and their fanbase with the Phillies and theirs.

Citing the '97 Marlins is about as useful as equating the Pirates and their fanbase with the Phillies and theirs.

Maybe, but the Rays have to start drawing fans to have the Marlins market be anything but a dream comparison.

In 1997, the Marlins were in just their fifth year of expansion, and baseball was still recovering from the strike. The Marlins were also in second place for most of the season. They ended up averaging over 29K fans per game.

The Rays have had 10 years to build a fanbase (although the losing obviously has hurt that process), and they are an exciting, young team that is running away with the best record in baseball.

They're going to continue to face questions about their fanbase if they struggle to draw 20K consistently. Hopefully the fans will come out for the Rays down the stretch, but from my perspective a thousand miles away I see no reason to expect that to happen.

The location of the Trop certainly doesn't help with attendance. I don't think we'd be having this conversation right now if the stadium were located in downtown Tampa.

Another one of the things most fans don't understand is that players are hardly certain to be worth the money past their first couple of FA years; they value continuity. And it's not just the Marlins; a number of clubs have jettisoned high-priced players despite having good teams at the time, and the national media gives the impression that all but a handful of teams "have to" do it.

But as far as "reasonably likely", that may be unwarranted. Still, the Devil Rays' ownership group is a MLB ownership group, and therefore reasonably likely to pinch pennies and value profit over winning.

I think the Royals are drawing 19K or 20K this year for what looks to be another 90 loss year. Granted, the Royals also play in a real baseball stadium, and the Rays don't.

But congrats to the Rays in thwarting Clutch God Jose Guillen so far. The closest Jose has come to a hit this weekend was when he was arguing with the pitching coach.

David Price: another sterling outing (seven innings, one run, six Ks) in Double-A. He's going to pitch Game 3 of the World Series, I predict.

I get the sense from relative down there that there is some bitterness, in St Pete at least, over the Rays' efforts to build a new stadium at the waterfront. I think that there are probably some people who have a dislike for the team, who might have only thought of them as mild and ineffectual in years past.

In St. Louis on July 6, you can go to the baseball game or you can go to the arch. In Tampa, on July 6, you can go to the baseball game or you can go to the beach. It's just not fair.

Hard to believe the attendance numbers. Sad.

It's about as embarrassing as the situation in Oakland.