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IN MY OPINION
Rays taking ownership

By KEVIN BAXTER
kbaxter@MiamiHerald.com

ST. PETERSBURG -- Although Brian Reed considers himself a Devil Rays fan, he never had attended a home game until last weekend because he said there was no reason to.

Don Cook came, but only grudgingly.

"You never really had the feeling you were welcome," he said.

Aubrey Huff felt the same way, although he had to come, what with being on the team and all. He didn't necessarily have to come back, though, and he said he wouldn't have without the change that took place in Tampa this winter.

"I don't know if I could have gone another year the way it was," said Huff, who holds nearly every significant offensive team record. "It's been tough the last couple of years. And it got progressively worse, it seemed.

"But this change, you could feel it as soon as you walked into spring training. It's been great. It actually feels like a game again."

The change was one in ownership, with former Wall Street securities executive Stuart Sternberg replacing the tempestuous Vince Namoli, a corporate turnaround specialist who brought Major League Baseball in 1998 to Tampa, then nearly destroyed it.

And the effects of change were felt immediately, with the pall over the floundering franchise lifting before Sternberg's first news conference had ended.

Within days of taking over, the new owner announced he would lower ticket prices, pay for fan parking, double the number of promotional dates and spend more than $10 million to refurbish and improve the team's ballpark.

A new manager, president and two vice presidents for baseball operations were hired. Ushers were renamed ''Fan Hosts'' and forced to attend a weeklong series of seminars dubbed Devil Rays University. The team earmarked millions of dollars for a 13-county community outreach program that included renovation of Little League fields and paying for local teachers to go as far as the Antarctica on study projects.

"You feel the energy," Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon said. ``We're trying to change the culture here. And part of that is changing the way the fans view us.

"[But] everything starts at the top. Don't be deceived ever. It starts there."

And clearly things at the top have come a long way since the days when Namoli tried to get the national anthem singers to pay their way into the ballpark. The change doesn't include what has happened on the field, where Sternberg has raised payroll 20 percent to nearly $36 million, partly by pushing through multiyear deals for outfielders Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli.

'MORE POSITIVE'

"This is the most positive it's been around here since 1996," said one team vice president, who started with the Devil Rays nearly two years before the team's first game.

"Things have been different," Crawford said. "They're trying to create a more positive atmosphere. We actually feel like we can turn things around."

Turning them around on the field, however, will take time. Tampa, which began the weekend at the bottom of the American League East, never has posted a winning record and has finished out of the division cellar just once, in 2004 when the Rays won a franchise-best 70 games. The St. Louis Cardinals had won that many by the first week of August last season.

But Sternberg, a lifelong baseball fan who named his first-born son after Sandy Koufax, said the Rays can't have on-field success until they first win back the fans.

"It's a bit of the chicken and the egg," said Sternberg, who personally welcomed fans to Tropicana Field on Opening Day. "We need to have better players to win more consistently in order to create revenue to keep those players. It's a cycle. A spiraling-up cycle."

And there are signs Sternberg's vision already is paying off. Attendance is up more than 2,000 a game through the team's first two homestands, and the team is on pace for its best year at the gate since 2000.

LASTING IMPRESSION?

However, now that fans have parked for free, taken their kids to the new interactive midway behind the left-field wall and experienced Tropicana Field's new ambience, will they come back? Cook thinks they will.

"It's a big difference," he said, wearing a white Devil Rays home jersey and enjoying a pregame concert in the parking lot, another Sternberg addition. "You actually feel like you're at a game. It really feels like you're welcome here now."

The team has already won over one new fan.

"When you end up buying a team, it's amazing how fast your allegiances change," said Sternberg, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up rooting for the Mets. "I am very much a Devil Ray fan."

As Kazmir and the other pitchers mature, if they can keep the lineup intact, this is going to become a very good ball club; their offense, while largely unknown, is a solid one that can mash the baseball. I love to see underdogs rise up ... GO RAYS!

quote:

Originally posted by BC in Newberg:
As Kazmir and the other pitchers mature, if they can keep the lineup intact, this is going to become a very good ball club; their offense, while largely unknown, is a solid one that can mash the baseball. I love to see underdogs rise up ... GO RAYS!

Ya I also like the underdogs Blair. It is a shame they have to play in a joke of a stadium.
I havent followed them in years. Do they still draw tiny crowds?

Depends on who they are playing. The Yankees and Red Sox always draw well there, but then the Tampa Bay area has a lot of transplanted Northerners. It will probably take a generation or so to develop a true D-Rays' legion of followers.

As for the stadium, it is actually nicer than most people give it credit for. The colors inside are very pleasing to the eye, sort of a sea-foam green, and the dome lights up orange at night when the Rays win. Free parking, too, and all the entrances are at ground level. They probably would have been better served by building it closer to downtown Tampa, though - the old "central location" argument again.