Tampa Bay is the only metro area with major sports teams where the teams' names are based on a body of water, not a city or state. The Rays are the only team of the three in this body of water that have not won a championship this decade.
I know this team is a bit a of a laughing stock, but I think they're set up to be better sometime soon. I also know their uniforms also get mocked, but I don't think they're so bad anymore. It looks to me like the team has been trying to fix the ugly uniforms without making any sharp changes. (Replacing the black caps with green is definitely in the right direction.) It could be a lot worse. (It has been a lot worse.) I believe a major redesign is in the works for 2008, with more blue and less green, and with a formal name change to "Rays."
I thought I had a good idea of who was on this team. I do not. Here are the four scheduled starters, Casey Fossum, Scott Kazmir, Edwin Jackson (first start of the season), and Jae Seo.
(Fossum '07, Kazmir '07, Jackson '07, Seo '07)
Jackson was born in Neu-Ulm, Germany. I was born in New Ulm, MN. I wonder if we're related.
I'll break down Fossum and Kazmir later.
Dioner Navarro is the primary catcher with Josh Paul as his backup.
(Navarro '06, '07; Paul '07)
Some other pitchers are James Shields (the starter we won't see this series), Al Reyes (the closer), Jae Kuk Ryu("The other Jae"), and Ruddy Lugo.
(Shields '07, Reyes '07, Ryu '07, Lugo '07)
Another reliever is Shawn Camp, former Royal.
(Camp '04, '06, '07)
Casey Fossum has been around for a while, and I got his Texas A&M college picture from the year he was drafted by the BoSox.
(Fossum '99, '02, '05, '06, '07)
That goatee really stands out, doesn't it?
Someone decided to take Scott Kazmir's picture in a Braves hat during high school. Not really a mugshot, but whatever. I wish I could find a Mets mugshot.
(Kazmir '00, '05, '06, '07)
He'll pitch versus Santana.
Here's a bunch of position players and potential DHs over the past few years: Jonny "Goams" Gomes, Jorge Cantu (minors this year), Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, BJ Upton, Delmon Young, and Ty Wigginton.
(Gomes '04, '05, '06, '07; Cantu '05, '06, '07; Crawford '06, '07; Baldelli '06, '07; Upton '06, '07; Young '06, '07; Wigginton '06, '07)
Cantu does not look happy this year. With Upton taking his place on the roster, you can guess why. I've always been very fond of his look, although the reptile helmets broke that up.
Here are five more players you may want to know: Akinori Iwamura (New Japanese 3b), Ben Zobrist, Elijah Dukes, Carlos Pena, and Greg Norton (15-day DL).
(Iwamura '07, Zobrist '07, Dukes '07, Pena '07, Norton '07)
Norton is on the DL, but I put him on because I remember he hit 3 homeruns in 5 games against the Twins last year. (Well, I looked it up, but I remember being mad at him). You may remember Pena (no tilde listed) from his years on the hapless versions of the Tigers. Much like Delmon's brother Dmitri, he got out of there just in time to avoid the winning. (Going to Boston for that team's first miss of the playoffs in a few years.) Zobrist's career OPS (200 or so ABS) is less than .550.
This is a young freaking team. Reyes is 36, Paul is 32, Camp is 31, and Seo is 30. Everyone else is in their 20s.
"Jae" is Korean for "Jeremy" I believe.
Still think the Rays hats are the ugliest in baseball. The logo looks like it should be on a trucker hat.
Worse than the Blue Jays' monstrosity of a hat logo?
They could both be sold at Stuckey's.
I think they should add more ice. MLB Beisbol-bling. Don't leave the C-Notes on the sidewalk, Bud.
Rich
Is it just me, or did the Rays 2005 mugshots emphasize the ears somehow? For all 4 Rays pictured from that season, their ears stick out way further than in more recent pics.
That is odd. Brant-new ill-fitted hats? My dad once showed me his Army training yearbook (I didn't know they had things like that).
He said that right before someone's picture was taken, the photographer estimated his head size and gave him the hat, and after the pic he gave it back. Some of the pictures looked really ill-fitted.
Same thing?
The left side of Fossom's mouth doesn't turn up when he smiles. At least it doesn't after '99.
He doesn't have Carlos Silva disease, he has Sylvester Stallone disease.
I always thought they had "officially" shortened the name to just Rays about five years ago, but it never took cause everybody just kept calling them Devil Rays.
Tampa Bay is the only metro area with major sports teams where the teams’ names are based on a body of water, not a city or state.
I take it that Green Bay doesn't count as a "metro area," and Real Salt Lake doesn't count as a "major sports team"?
Green Bay is a city as well as a body of water. There is no city named Tampa Bay. The city is Tampa, the water is Tampa Bay. The baseball team plays in St. Petersburg. As for Real Salt Lake, you may have him there, although he certainly has the "not a major sports league" argument to go on. Plus, there's also the argument that the team is actually named after Salt Lake City and that the lake is actually the "Great Salt Lake" and not just "Salt Lake". /semantics
I take it that Green Bay doesn’t count as a “metro area"
More of a metrino.
I like the column format, AMR.
Yeah, and I'm such an idiot that when I saw it first, I thought he had things out of order and I reordered it, forcing him to fix the columns. I'm an editor without a clue.
Or, at least a half-baked clue.
It should be noted that they have the light colored under brims on their 2007 pictures.
I knew there was something I forgot to mention!