Tampa Bay Rays

Tampa Bay's primary rivals are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.[16] The Red Sox/Rays rivalry dates back to the 2000 season, when Devil Ray Gerald Williams took exception to being hit by a pitch thrown by Boston pitcher Pedro Martínez and charged the mound, resulting in a game full of retaliations and ejections on both sides.[17] There have been several other incidents between the teams during the ensuing years, including one in 2005 that resulted in two bench-clearing fights during the game and a war of words between then-Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella and then-Boston pitcher Curt Schilling through the media in the following days.[18] The rivalry reached its highest level to date during the 2008 season, including a brawl during a June meeting in Fenway Park[19] and a seven-game American League Championship Series between the teams that ended in the Rays' first ever pennant win.

As a fellow member of the AL East division, the Yankees and Rays play many times each season. There has always been some feeling of a rivalry between the teams because the Yankees make Tampa their spring training, as well as having a minor league team in the Tampa Tarpons; home and fan loyalty in the Tampa Bay area has historically been divided, especially among transplants from the northeastern U.S.[20] The rivalry became more heated in spring training of 2008, when a home plate collision between Rays outfielder Elliot Johnson and Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli was followed the next day by spikes-high slide by Yankees outfielder Shelley Duncan into Rays' second baseman Akinori Iwamura, prompting Rays outfielder Jonny Gomes to charge in from his position in right field and knock Duncan to the ground. The Rays and Yankees met in postseason for the first time in the 2020 American League Division Series in which Tampa Bay won in five games.

The Rays also have a geographical rivalry with the Miami Marlins. Tampa Bay currently leads the series, 59–56.[21]

The Rays play their home games at Tropicana Field.

The Rays have played at Tropicana Field since their inception in 1998.[22] The facility, which was originally called the "Florida Suncoast Dome", was built in the late 1980s to attract an MLB team through either relocation or expansion. After St. Petersburg was awarded an expansion franchise in 1995, the dome underwent extensive renovations and naming rights were sold to Tropicana Products, which was based in nearby Bradenton.

Tropicana Field underwent further renovations in 2006 and 2007 after Stu Sternberg gained controlling ownership of the team. Most of the changes sought to improve fans' game-day experience. For the players, the biggest change was the installation of a new Field Turf surface in 2007, which was replaced in turn with a new version of AstroTurf for the 2011 season.

The Rays' current ownership has long hinted that Tropicana Field does not generate enough revenue and that it is too far from the Tampa Bay Area's population center.[23] In 2007, the team announced a plan to build a covered ballpark at the current site of Al Lang Field on the St. Petersburg waterfront, and a local referendum was scheduled to decide on public financing.[24] However, in the face of vocal opposition, the Rays withdrew the proposal in 2009 and stated they had abandoned all plans for a ballpark in downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, preferring a location nearer the center of Pinellas County or across the bay in Tampa.[25]

Since 2009, local officials, media, and business leaders have explored possibilities for a new stadium for the Rays somewhere in the Tampa Bay area.[26] However, St. Petersburg mayor Bill Foster has repeatedly insisted that the Rays honor their lease agreement with the city, which runs through 2027 and prohibits the team from entering into talks with other communities, resulting in a protracted stalemate.

In October 2014, Sternberg, frustrated with efforts to build a new stadium in the Tampa Bay area, had discussions with Wall Street associates about moving the Rays to Montreal, which has been without a Major League Baseball franchise since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. in 2005 to become the Washington Nationals.[27][28] On December 9, 2014, reports surfaced that owner Stuart Sternberg will sell the team if a new stadium is not built.[29]

On February 9, 2018, the team said that Ybor City is their preferred site for a new stadium.[30] However, at the December 2018 Winter Meetings in Las Vegas, Sternberg announced that plans for the proposed stadium in Ybor fell through, meaning the Rays were still on track to play at Tropicana Field until 2027.[31][32] Later in December 2018, the team sent a letter to St. Petersburg's mayor, Rick Kriseman, foregoing an extension to search for a new stadium outside of the city.[33][34] On June 20, 2019, Major League Baseball's executive council gave the team permission to explore playing early-season home games in the Tampa Bay area and later-season home games in Montreal, with 2024 the earliest prospective date such an arrangement was thought to be feasible.[35][36]

Rays attendance has historically ranked among the lowest compared to all MLB teams including seasons following a playoff berth.[37] Rays attendance at Tropicana Field slightly improved in two seasons following playoff berths between 2008 and 2013 but dropped in two other seasons following playoff berths in the same span.[37] After the Rays earned the best AL record in 2010, average attendance in 2011 dropped by 4,100 per game.[37][38] In 2019 the Rays average attendance was just 14,552 per game.[37]

2005-07 road uniform, Rocco Baldelli running.

During their first three seasons, the Devil Rays wore traditional white home and gray road uniforms with the text "Devil Rays" (home) and "Tampa Bay" (road) in an unconventional multicolor "rainbow" across the chest. The inaugural caps were also unusual: black with a purple brim at home and all black on the road, with both versions featuring a devil ray graphic and no letters at all.[40] The caps changed in 1999 to feature a smaller ray and the letters "TB" and were all black for both home and road games. During the 1999 and 2000 seasons, the Devil Rays wore an alternate black jersey featuring the same rainbow text as the white and gray uniforms.

In 2001, the Devil Rays dropped the multicolor text and de-emphasized purple in favor of more green. They also changed the font on their jersey tops and shortened the name on the home whites to read simply "Rays" while keeping "Tampa Bay" on the road grays.[41]

In 2005, the home uniforms were again tweaked to include still more green. The primary home whites became a sleeveless jersey worn with green sleeved undershirts, and the primary home caps were changed from black to green. In addition, a small ray with a long tail was added under the name "Rays" on the chest of the home jerseys.[42]

The Rays staged a "Turn Back the Clock" promotion with a retro theme and throwback uniforms several times early in their existence, and it has become an annual tradition since 2006.[43] Because the franchise does not yet have a long history from which to choose uniforms, they have usually worn the uniforms of other historical local teams.

On these special occasions, Rays have worn the uniforms of the Tampa Tarpons of the Florida State League (in 1999, 2006, and 2010), the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior Professional Baseball Association (in 2008), the St. Petersburg Saints (in 2000 and 2007) and Tampa Smokers (in 2011) of the Florida International League, and the University of Tampa Spartans (in 2000). The Rays have worn their own uniforms for Turn Back the Clock night only once: in 2009, when they wore Devil Rays "rainbow" uniforms from their 1998 inaugural season.[43]

For Turn Back the Clock night during the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons, the Rays took the field wearing specially designed 1980 Tampa Bay Rays "faux-back" uniforms that represented what the team might have worn had the franchise existed during the late 1970s and early 80s. These uniforms are patterned after the San Diego Padres' uniforms from the late 1970s, only in Rays' team colors.[44][45][46]

The Rays' opponent on Turn Back the Clock night also wears throwbacks from the same era as the Rays' retro uniforms. For example, the Houston Astros wore their 1980s "Rainbow Guts" uniforms, the New York Mets wore the road uniforms of their 1969 championship team,[47] the Chicago White Sox wore their red and white home uniforms from the 1970s, and the Baltimore Orioles wore their rare all-orange uniforms from the early 1970s.[48] Perhaps the most memorable such game was on June 23, 2007, when the Devil Rays wore St. Pete Saints uniforms from the early 1950s, and the Los Angeles Dodgers wore the gray road uniforms of the World Series-winning 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers to honor Don Zimmer, who played on that Dodger team and was a senior adviser for the Rays prior to his death. Rays management also gave away a bobblehead at the game featuring a young Zimmer in a Dodgers uniform and an older Zimmer in a Devil Rays uniform.[49]

WDAE (620 AM) has been the flagship station of the Rays radio network since 2009. The play-by-play announcers are Dave Wills and Andy Freed with Neil Solondz serving as the pregame and postgame host. Rich Herrera served as the host during pre- and post-game shows for the Tampa Rays Baseball Radio Network from 2005 to 2011.[50] The (Devil) Rays original radio team consisted of Paul Olden and Charlie Slowes, who broadcast games from 1998 to 2005. Slowes went to the Washington Nationals, where he is now lead announcer, while Olden pursued a photography career before replacing Bob Sheppard as the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium in 2008.[51] Rays games have been aired on WFLA 970 AM (1998–2004) and WHNZ 1250 AM (2005–2008) in the past.

In 2013, the Rays became the second team to enter into a contract to have games broadcast nationally by Compass Media Networks in a Game of the Week format. The broadcast team utilized during the 2013 season was TJ Rives calling play-by-play and a rotating circuit of analysts in Rob Dibble, Jeff Nelson, and Steve Phillips. 22 Rays games were produced nationally by Compass Media for the 2013 season.

Fox Sports Sun broadcasts the Rays' games on television. Through the 2008 season, many games also aired on Ion Television affiliate broadcast stations throughout the state of Florida, with WXPX-TV in Tampa as the flagship. However, after the 2008 season, Fox Sports signed an agreement to become the exclusive local broadcaster of the Rays, and will air 155 games per year through 2016.[52] Fox Sports Florida began broadcasting a portion of the schedule in HD beginning in 2007 after Tropicana Field's broadcast equipment was upgraded for in-house HD production. Most Rays home games are now broadcast in HD.

Dewayne Staats (play-by-play) and former MLB pitcher Brian Anderson (color commentary) are the TV voices of the Rays. For the first 11 seasons of the franchise, Staats teamed with former MLB pitcher Joe Magrane on the Rays' TV broadcasts. Magrane departed after conclusion of the 2008 season to take a position at the MLB Network. Former minors catcher and MLB manager Kevin Kennedy then served as the primary color commentator in 2009 and 2010, with Brian Anderson filling in on some road trips, after which Anderson took over as the everyday commentator from 2011.

Early on, as Staats' first wife was battling cancer, Paul Olden would occasionally fill in for Staats. As a result, Paul Olden ended up calling Wade Boggs' 3,000th hit.

Staats, Magrane, Wills, Olden and Slowes have all been nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award, the broadcasters' path to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bobbleheads 2013 This year the Rays released several bobbleheads. The first was released on April 22 and featured David Price's dog "Astro". On April 24 the Rays released the famous "Joe Gnome" bobblehead. May 24–26 saw the release of the Fernando Rodney bobblehead in his famous shooting-the-arrow position. On July 6 the team released the Evan Longoria retro bobblehead.[53]

Bobbleheads 2012 The first bobblehead released was Kyle Farnsworth on May 24. June 3 saw the release of a Desmond Jennings Bobblehead. Coach Joe Maddon saw his bobblehead released on June 15. On June 29 the Rays released the whimsical Zim Bear. Although this was not a bobblehead, the likeness of long-time coach Don Zimmer proved to be a fan favorite. July saw the release of two bobbleheads with James Shields on July 1 and Matt Moore on July 22. The last bobblehead was Matt Joyce on September 23.[54]

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were featured in the movie, The Rookie, a 2002 drama directed by John Lee Hancock. It is based on the true story of pitcher Jim Morris, who had a brief but famous Major League Baseball career with the team.

Morris was a 35-year-old high school baseball coach who could repeatedly throw a baseball 98 mph (158 km/h), an ability that only a few major leaguers could equal at the time. He was persuaded to try out for professional ballclubs and signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays organization. Morris was initially assigned to the minor league Class AA Orlando Rays (now the Montgomery Biscuits), but quickly moved up to the AAA Durham Bulls and was called up to the "Bigs" during the September 1999 roster expansions.

Jim Morris spent parts of two seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a reliever, pitching 15 innings in 21 games, with an earned run average of 4.80 and no decisions.

The Rays' Cowbell was originally a promotional idea thought up by principal owner Stuart Sternberg, who got the idea from the Saturday Night Live sketch. Since then, it has become a standard feature of home games, something akin to the Sacramento Kings of the NBA and the bells their fans ring during games. Road teams have often considered the cowbell a nuisance. Once a year the Rays hold an annual "cowbell night" and give away free cowbells. Cowbells are available for purchase throughout the year as well. The cowbells are rung most prominently when the opposing batter has two strikes, when the opposing fans try to chant, and when the Rays make a good play.[55]

Whenever the game situation calls for a rally, the 'DJ Kitty' appears on the large video screen in Tropicana Field. A large anthropomorphic cat, wearing a Rays jersey, appears on the screen wielding a turntable similar to those used by rap DJs. Loud music is played over the PA system while the arrival of the DJ Kitty is proclaimed on display boards throughout the ballpark. The character was created in 2010 by Rays entertainment director Lou Costanza in an attempt to rally the Rays players and the fans at Tropicana Field.[56]

Rays games are frequently visited by professional wrestlers, as there are a large number of wrestlers living in the Tampa Bay Area. The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobs and Jerry Sags), Brutus Beefcake, and Hulk Hogan all appear on a semi-regular basis at Rays games. John Cena appears on occasion.

The Rays held a "Legends of Wrestling Night" on May 18, 2007, featuring several wrestling matches after the game, an 8–4 loss to the Florida Marlins. Outfielder and wrestling fan Jonny Gomes ran interference for the Nasty Boys during the main event.[57]

A second "Wrestling Night" was held on April 19, 2008, after a 5–0 win over the Chicago White Sox. Gomes participated again, this time making a post-match save for the Nasty Boys.[58]

During the playoffs, Rays players and coaches sport mohawk haircuts, nicknamed "rayhawks". The trend started during their 2008 World Series run.[59]

Tampa Bay in the World Series

The mantra 9=8 (spoken as "nine equals eight") was used by the Rays during the 2008 season. The phrase was originally created by manager Joe Maddon while riding his bike after the 2007 season. The meaning of the phrase was that if nine players play nine innings of hard baseball every day, that team would become one of the eight teams who qualify for the postseason. Prior to 2008 season, the Rays had never had a winning season in franchise history, much less a postseason appearance.

After a slow start to the 2008 season, where they lost nine of their first 15 games, the Rays began to pick up speed and found themselves among the best teams in the league that year. Maddon had blue T-shirts made with the phrase on the back in yellow, representing the team's new colors, and gave them to the players during the season. His idea to put the slogan on the back of the shirt, rather than the front, was that a person who was walking behind someone wearing the shirt would see it.[60]

Rays right fielder Gabe Gross, who was acquired by the team through a trade early into the 2008 campaign, said that as much as it was 9=8, it was more along the lines that 13=8, because the Rays had many players contributing to the team's success that season.[61]

The Rays played well enough throughout the year that they surpassed their previous team record for wins in a single season by more than 30 wins, and ultimately clinched the AL East division title for their first postseason appearance in franchise history. As the phrase 9=8 had come to fruition, Maddon stated that the phrase also meant that theory and reality had come together.[62]

With each level the Rays reached, the equation was changed. After they clinched their postseason spot, it became 9=4, to represent the teams advancing to the LCS. When they won the ALDS, it became 9=2, for the teams advancing to the World Series. When they won the ALCS, it became 9=1, representing the possible World Series Championship. In the end, they did not win the World Series, losing to the Philadelphia Phillies four games to one.

A week before Spring training for the 2009 season, Maddon introduced a new slogan, '09 > '08. The meaning of his new idea was that he doesn't like to use the words "great" or "greater", but would rather the phrase be spoken as "better than." His only problem was that there is no symbol for "better than." Originally thinking about creating a new symbol to mean "better than", he admitted that he didn't want to get "too nuts", so the symbol for greater than would have to do. Re-emphasizing that 9 would always equal 8 in the Rays' math, the upcoming season would be greater than the previous. He wanted the players to understand that "in order to build this new road we have to be better than we were last year." Unfortunately for the Rays, 2009 was not better than 2008. Though they finished the season in 3rd place with an 84–78 record, making it the second best season in franchise history, they failed to reach the postseason.

Opening Day in St. Petersburg

For the 2010 season, another slogan was created. Unlike the previous two seasons, this slogan did not involve any sort of math. The slogan was WIN, an acronym that stood for What's Important Now?, with the message being "stay in the moment." In his explanation of the slogan, Maddon credited Ken Ravizza, the performance consultant of the Rays and a sports psychologist, as the creator. Maddon stated, "It's always about staying in the present tense and having a higher state of awareness."[63] GTMI became another notable slogan during the year, standing for Get The Man In (though it is reported a player has used a "more colorful" term to take place of the word "man"), referring to an in-game situation in which the Rays had runners in scoring position. Historically, the team had a habit of stranding runners on third base with less than two outs. In practices during the 2010 season, the Rays would run the "get-the-man-in drill" to improve situational hitting. Derek Shelton, who came into the season as the team's new hitting coach, taught that batters should not look for a pitch they could hit for a home run, but one that they could hit well enough to score runners.[64]

Don Zimmer had his #66 retired by the Rays.

The Tampa Bay Rays have retired three numbers. These numbers are displayed to the left of the center field scoreboard and "K Counter" on a small wall.

Jackie Robinson's number 42 was retired by all of Major League Baseball.

Wade Boggs 3B Retired April 7, 2000 Don Zimmer Coach Retired April 6, 2015 Jackie Robinson All MLB Honored April 15, 1997

Statistics below are through the end of the 2018 season.

• Highest batting average: .325, Jeff Keppinger (2012)
• Most games: 162, Aubrey Huff (2003), Evan Longoria (2014), and Delmon Young (2007)
• Most hits: 198, Aubrey Huff (2003)
• Highest slugging %: .627, Carlos Peña (2007)
• Most doubles: 47, Aubrey Huff (2003)
• Most triples: 19, Carl Crawford (2004)
• Most home runs: 46, Carlos Peña (2007)
• Most RBIs: 121, Carlos Peña (2007)
• Most stolen bases: 60, Carl Crawford (2009)
• Most wins: 21, Blake Snell (2018)
• Lowest ERA: 1.89, Blake Snell (2018)
• Strikeouts: 252, Chris Archer (2015)
• Complete games: 11, James Shields (2011)
• Shutouts: 4, James Shields (2011)
• Saves: 48, Fernando Rodney (2012)