Diamonds in the Rough:  Topless Trop Presents Homeless Rays with Golden Opportunity

No obstacles, only opportunities.

I forget where I first heard this expression.  It might have been an old boss who first shared it with me.  Or perhaps I read it on one of those inspirational notebooks, you know the kind, the ones with italicized quotes at the bottom of each page to send you on your day with a smile and positive outlook.

I’ve always liked this expression and used it when employees come to me with a problem.  No obstacles, only opportunities.  Essentially, it means you take what’s thrown at you and flip it on its head.

The Tampa Bay Rays are in just such a predicament.

I was going over some old Rays posts to see just how long it’s been this franchise has struggled with its landlords.  Suffice it to say, it’s been a long damn time.

I have written countless articles on the Rays, and the Trop, and the team’s Snake Plitzkin-like efforts to escape from St. Pete.  Just kidding, they’re not looking to escape from the area, despite other cities like Montreal or Charlotte desperately trying to regale them with nicer digs.  The Rays are staying put, although to say anything certain about this team’s future seems rather tenuous at this point and has for some time.

I first met Rays manager Kevin Cash at a function at the Trop back in 2015 and even back then, almost ten years ago, the question I had for him was how he and his players could focus on baseball with the constant reminder that they didn’t have a home.  Even back then, the Rays were trying to get out of their lease, which ends in 2027, their obligation intact to remain at Tropicana Field, despite its reputation as the most obsolete building in the Majors.

Well, now the Rays have a new predicament on their hands as Tropicana Field doesn’t have a roof.

What’s the problem, SportsChump?  Most ballparks in the majors don’t have a roof.

Well, readers, you see, the Trop once did have a roof.  It got blown off in Hurricane Helene, parts of the roof found post-storm miles away a few towns over.  This is Florida where it rains almost daily in the afternoon, making outdoor baseball impossible, hence the dome’s construction in the first place.

Plans for a new stadium had finally been approved and unveiled not far from where the old, now roofless ballpark stands yet, unsurprising to anyone who’s followed this soap opera over the last ten plus years, they have not broken ground.  With the weather a constant threat, here’s hoping they build it sturdily.

The problem that the Rays now run into, with spring training looming with every passing day, is where they will play their home games and while you think this might not be a problem, of course, politics has become involved, the city of St. Petersburg fearful of the revenue it will lose once the Rays seek shelter elsewhere.  Never in the history of baseball has a major league stadium been so jealous of a minor league ballpark.

But minor league ballparks appear the only legitimate option for the Rays as no other parks exist in the area. 

Florida is home to Spring Training and there are countless diamonds in the immediate vicinity.  There are ballparks in North Port, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Lakeland, West Palm, Jupiter, Port St Lucie, Clearwater, Bradenton, Port Charlotte and Dunedin to name only a few and yes, I get it, these are minor league ballparks with both limited seating and amenities but the Rays ranked 28^th out of 30 teams in attendance last year so it’s not like millions are yearning to get through those turnstiles.

This is finally their golden opportunity to create demand.

Most Rays fans can name more beloved, former players that now wear other uniforms than they can that still play for the team.  It’s one of the less endearing qualities of being a Rays fan.  As soon as we fall in love with a player, as soon as we invest in their jerseys and in rooting for them emotionally, as soon as their salary gets to be around $14 million a year, they’re as good as gone.  Few departures were as emotional as Randy Arozarena’s.  Don’t believe me?  The day after he was traded, Arozarena sat in the right field bleachers, with his family, surrounded by the fans who once cheered him on.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?

The Rays, if they know what’s good for them, need to take hold of this situation.  No obstacles, only opportunities.  This is a chance for the franchise to better promote its team statewide in every ballpark and while I get that there will inevitably be logistical nightmares surrounding potentially playing in a different ballpark each homestand, this is the stuff that screen plays are made of.  Bull Durham remains one of the best baseball movies ever made, because of its small-town, minor-league plotline.  Field of Dreams is another, for it is based upon a story where a magical ballpark was built.  Baseball fans love Major League because it’s about a team that nobody thought could compete with the big boys.  We root for the underdogs and what better underdog story than a low-budget team without a home?

For years, the Rays and their fans have bitched about the ballpark they play in.  Now they get a chance to play in multiple other ballparks, and they’re still complaining?  Why am I not surprised?

While the Trop gets repaired (we think) or while they expedite construction of their new park (also a maybe), the Rays have been given a golden opportunity to barnstorm the state, or better yet, Cuba, where so many professional ball players and families in Tampa originate from.  Both the NBA and NFL routinely play games overseas.  Why not take advantage, play some of these games abroad and promote the heck out of them?  Build your fan base.  How often can one say that they saw a professional baseball team play in these environs?

The Rays need to assign people within their organization to properly promote and coordinate their upcoming series of “home” games with thorough assistance from Major League Baseball.  We are in this predicament thanks to a natural disaster and while the City of St. Petersburg may gripe about lost revenue from missing 81 home games, promoting the eventual return of its team, with a newly expanded fan base it will have made from traveling around the state, will only help this team, and this town, in the long run.

No obstacles, only opportunities.  If that motto is not printed on the notepad of all those Rays staffers making decisions during this unique time, they will have missed a golden opportunity, and that will be a disaster all its own.

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