THE PETER GOLENBLOG: Matt Silverman can Kiss My Ass   !

Woo-Hoo! Even Golenblock is getting the hang of this blogging/non-blogging thing!

Matt Silverman, who I consider a friend, can kiss my ass.  But his ######## about the attendance at the Trop was beneath his usual class act.  The Phillies were in town, and he was bemoaning the fact that there were only 20,000 or so fans there for each of the three games against a team that the Rays had faced in the World Series.  He speculated that the place should have been packed.  But why?  Rays fans don’t give a crap about the Phillies, who clobbered the home town in the series.  What Silverman should have said was, “Last year we drew an average of 13,000 fans, and this year we’re averaging close to 20,000 fans a game.  If we continue to play as well as we have been, I expect that next year attendance will go even higher.”  But commissioner Bud Selig has a bug up his ass about the Rays getting a new stadium—even though there’s no good reason to build one—and so even though he denied he was doing so, Matt was blackmailing the politicians a little bit—either you build us a new stadium or we’re going to move to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Which only served to infuriate Rays fans who are tired of Stuart Sternburg complaining he doesn’t have enough money to buy another player for the stretch run.  Hey Stu, you made $500 million dollars in the market.  If you can’t buy another player, maybe you need to find another investor so you can.

...As I said in the spring, the Rays are going to win 90 games this year, the mark of a top team.  The question remains whether they can catch the Yanks or the Sox.  I’m still betting they will.  And as they march toward the playoffs, attendance will rise.  So Matty, shut the f*** up.