Rays and Angels were both eliminated last night, even though both won. But the A's winning their game put the end on the season. For the Rays, their status as unheralded spoiler amidst the AL East apple cart was upset when the Orioles decided to play baseball for the first time in fifteen years. It will be interesting to see how the Rays unfold over time, as they have this rep as a solidly built young team, but they still get little fan support in a somewhat shithole locale. I mean, don't get me wrong, St. Petersburg is a chill place, kind of small towny even, and there's some awesome used book stores near the stadium. But that part of Florida is a steamroll flattened vast expanse of clustery suburbanisms, and most environments like that are full of people who don't care shit about shit but themselves. How long can the Rays hold it together?
It should be noted that my homeboy Dylan aka The Necro Butcher aka that guy who got dollar bills stapled to him in The Wrestler movie and made Mickey Rourke have a heart attack, he is a huge baseball fan, and has adopted the Rays as his team. I cannot think of the Rays without thinking of outlaw juggalo wrestler stoner guys with wild beards who were born and bred in the hills of West Virginia. It is a shame that is not their entire fanbase, because then eventually they could draw in the hipster crowds as peripheral parts of this experience, and even work out great marketing deals with Pabst Blue Ribbon and fixed gear bicycle makers and shit like that. It also would probably position them well for a move to Brooklyn a few years down the road, should that become necessary. Or fuck man, half of the baseball fans in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area are actually New Yorkers anyways, you could probably split the season's home games between Brooklyn and St. Petersburg and do pretty fucking well still. Just some ideas, you know, in case the three hits this post gets are MLB marketing dudes with a desire to initiate a bold vision for the futures.
No comments:
Post a Comment