Tampa Bay Rays

(Redirected from Devil Rays)

The Tampa Bay Rays (formerly the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) formerly served as cannon fodder for the American League, an opportunity for easy wins. (However, the handful of National League teams who faced them in 2004 interleague play unaccountably lost 15 of 18 games. In 2005, they just as unaccountably defeated the New York Yankees 11 out of 19 times.)

Owned by Vince Naimoli and GM'd by former Braves scouting director Chuck LaMar ever since their expansion season in 1998, the Rays appeared unlikely to clean house until they had a truly poor season. How they defined "a truly poor season" was anyone's guess.

2005's 67-95 campaign turned out to be the truly poor season everyone had been waiting for (though 2002's was worse). New ownership and a new general manager team (Andrew Friedman and Gerry Hunsicker) forced Naimoli and LaMar into retirement before further damage could be done. As the rebuilding process began, 2006 (61-101) turned out to be an even worse season than 2005, and 2007 resulted in more of the same (66-96), so the future prospects of the team are anyone's guess.

The Rays responded to local apathy to the ballclub by announcing a total image revamp: changing their colors, redoing their logos, and removing the "Devil" from the team name. These moves were meant to downplay their inglorious past and to assuage some fans' guilt over possibly supporting Satan. At the same time, they announced a proposal to replace their widely-disliked home stadium Tropicana Field with an outdoor ballpark on the Tampa Bay coast.

The Rays have been associated in one Primate's mind with "the ugly girl with the bad personality at the beauty contest." They have also been described as "resembling a dog who was never fixed but is nonetheless impotent."

Whoever at ESPN came up with calling them the Deviled Eggs is a genius and a true American hero.

Fans of the Rays on BBTF include Jim Wisinski and possibly deJesusFreak. For the rest, see Fans of my team.