You Know We Have A Baseball Site Too, Right?

Look here, FWG readership I’m not going to tell you what to do, but you need to go visit our MLB site immediately.  I know I’m hilarious and so is “The Rook” (sporadic contributor to this site), but I’ve got a virtual stable of dynamite talent contributing over there, so go look immediately, here’s a taste:

As I sit on my couch and watch the Red Sox on the verge of a sweep in the airplane hanger that is Tropicana Field, it dawned on me. There is NO reason why both Yankees and Red Sox fans shouldn’t hate the Rays more than their traditional rival, especially this version.

Since I’ve already mentioned their terrible stadium, I might as well start with it. The problem is, I don’t even know where to begin. What’s worse? how dimly lit it is? How shitty the turf looks? The “Ray Tank” in the outfield (UGH!)??? The only ball-park feature that even touches how crappy that tank is, are the mountains the Angels have in center field (trust me, I could write an equally long article about how terrible the Angels are).

Of course, we also have “The Trop’s” ground rules. Dustin Pedroia popped out to the catcher the other night, or so I thought. Turns out the ball struck a speaker in foul territory before it came down, so he got to take another hack. Good this Andrew Friedman (Rays GM), was in the ESPN booth to clear up the confusion. You see, if a ball strikes any of the speakers or catwalks in foul territory it’s a dead ball, but if it
hits anything in fair territory it’s in play. However, that also depends on whether the ball falls into fair or foul territory when it comes down, it also depends on where it hits said object hanging from the ceiling, because it also could be a home run (you getting all this?). Jeez, I’m sorry, when baseballs are hit into the air aren’t they only supposed to hit, AIR? I’ll give the old Metrodome and Kingdome a pass here. The weather in Minneapolis and Seattle isn’t always conducive to playing ball outside, but we’re talking about a stadium in Tampa, Florida. I’ve heard the whether is normally pretty nice down there (Note: both the Twins and Mariners now play outside).

Reason number two, their “fans.” These people drive me nuts. First off, I’m still not totally convinced Rays fans actually exist. They are one of the best teams in baseball and currently rank 9 out of 14 in attendance in the American League, outdrawn by the
18-25 White Sox, 16-28 Mariners and 21-25 Angels. The performance they put on in the playoffs in 2008 was DISGUSTING (“Hey guys, we were just waiting for the Rays to be relevant to come out to the ballpark! BUT WE STILL DESERVE THIS!!!”). I’d like to not even get into the damned cowbells they ring, but those things just go to show how clueless people in Tampa are when it comes to baseball. Where the hell are they? A high
School football game? What’s next, empty milk jugs with pennies in them?

See this is exactly why I don’t bet on baseball, because somehow shithole fans like this will their mediocre clubs to victory. The NFL odds are far better than the baseball ones, based on this fact alone.

Read the rest at FWG-MLB