CaddyStyle

Attention national media, 4 letter network, Stu Sternberg, and anyone else who may be listening...please stop blaming the baseball fans in the Tampa Bay area for baseball not thriving in the area.  If you tune into any local am sports radio station you can hear every possible excuse for why the fans in this area do not come out to see this team play but the reasoning is far simpler than the "experts" have defined it to be.  This thing takes time!!!  The fanbases of the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, and numerous other teams are vast.  Those fanbases were not built overnight!  GENERATIONS of fans are supporting those teams and that is something that the Rays do not have and will not have for many years to come. 

The Tampa market is obviously a smaller market than many of the cities that major league baseball resides.  It is for this blatant reason that the current direction of the Rays will only end in disaster for the Tampa area.  As a fan, I love the fact that Stu Sternberg is pumping money into this franchise but as a realist I believe it was also a Major League mistake to throw that kind of money into the team at this point. 

The Rays are going to be a young team for many years to come.  The Tampa Bay area will support a major league franchise but we cannot be held hostage by ownership that demands attendance immediately.  Although there was a high level of young talent within the Rays organization, no one expected this team to make a run to the World Series last year. 

I am afraid that the ownership of this team has gotten swept up in the excitement of a world series appearance and is straying from the greater good.  The signing of Pat Burrell, while ambitious, was a deviation from the overall direction of the team and will ultimately take away from the youthful future of the Rays. 

The Rays need to focus on youth for the coming years and accept our place within Major League baseball.  If we attempt to do more than what we are capable of then the experiment will ultimately fail.