What's in a name?

If you’re a sports fan like I am, over the course of a season you develop an affection for the players on your favorite team so much that you give them nicknames to prove to everyone that you are, indeed, a die-hard fan. I’ve developed so many nicknames this season that I halfway expect these shortened identities to show up on the back of everyone’s jerseys. This hasn’t happened yet, but as I sit here and hope to God that the Rays can pull out a victory over the Indians, I would like to share with the world what everyone should be called. These nicknames are combinations of Joe Maddon’s overly-friendly monikers, the (sometimes depreciating) names that have evolved over at the forums of raysbb.com, and the nicknames developed over the course of the season by me and my friends. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you nicknames for everyone on the current Rays’ 25 man roster:

Akinori “Aki” Iwamura
Al “El Asasino” Reyes
Andy “Sonny” Sonnenstine
B.J. “Bossman” Upton
Brendan “B-Har” Harris
Brian “Stokesy” Stokes
Carl “C.C.” Crawford
Carlos “C-Pain” Pena
Dan “The Man” Wheeler
Delmon “Delmonster” Young
Dioner “Navi” Navarro
Edwin “EJax” Jackson
Gary “G-Lover” Glover
Grant “Ball Four” Balfour
Greg “Norty” Norton
James “Shieldsy” Shields
Jason “Hammy” Hammel
Joel “Manchild” Guzman
Josh “J.P.” Paul
Josh “J Dub” Wilson
Jon “Switz” Switzer
Jonny “Gomer” Gomes
Juan “The Juice” Salas
Scott “Dohmannator” Dohmann
Scott “Kaz” Kazmir

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I'll be glad to tender my services when we make the playoffs, too

Well, after 10 years of Devil Rays fandom, my allegiance was rewarded the other night, as I ventured out to the Trop with James, Angus, and Mikey to watch my beloved team fall to the Mariners of Seattle by four runs. The game itself was no picnic, though. The St. Petersburg Nine (as my least favorite post game announcer Rich Herrera so affectionately calls them) were able to squeak by with a B.J. Upton leadoff homer and eight subsequent innings of baseball rape. However, I’ve come to expect this from my team. At this point, going to the game is more for the experience. After all, where else can you go and enjoy a professional sporting event so cheap and close to home?

Anyhow, thank you kindly to the Rays employee who approached James on the main concourse prior to game time and offered to upgrade our seats in row X of section 133 (mediocre outfield seats at best) to suite 23 in exchange for our services as professional survey filler-outers. While the game was not great, sitting in cushioned seats in the front row of our well-stocked suite was most excellent.

I’m just throwing this out there: I am officially offering my services for every game for the remainder of the season. Except now I demand seats in the Kanes Club for my most comprehensive questionnaire-taking skills.

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Not meant to be funny, this is my gripe of the day

The Devil Rays, in an attempt to expand their regional fan base, relocated their series this week with the Rangers of Texas to Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando. This distresses me, partly because I likely would have been in attendance to at least one of these games had they taken place at the Trop in St. Pete. But this isn’t really what annoys me about this series.

The front office says they want to increase their fan base across the state by bringing in the Rays, in sort of a traveling circus type atmosphere, to everywhere they need some television viewers, merchandise buyers, and bad bullpen lovers. This is all well and good, since I’d love to see more and more people live and die with this team like I do, but I think a rational move before actually temporarily relocating the team would be o give fans across the state access to TV broadcasts of every game.

In Gainesville, for example, I get to see about a third of all the games. Luckily for me, I’ve come home to eat my parents’ food for the summer, but had I stayed in Gainesville, I would be up the creek without a paddle. Or a bullpen.

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The Obligatory Hope

There are few things in the world that affect me mentally like professional sports. Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m some sort of jock type that cares only about beating the other guy to a pulp. If you know me, you know that I’m far from a jock. And if you know of my favorite teams, you know that beating anything to a pulp is far from what they are capable.

No, I love my sports teams because they give me an outlet for my emotion. I love my sports teams because, as Humphrey Bogart once said, a hot dog at the ball park is better than a steak at the Ritz. I love my sports teams because they let me forget about the world and lose myself in a vast expanse of competition, if only for three hours.

Folks, baseball season is here. I was never a serious baseball fan until a few years ago. But now, in spite of my love for the worst team in the league, it is here. And, at the beginning of a season, one is incapable of feeling anything but extreme optimism.

So, this is it: this is my post of extreme optimism. I think we will shock the world this year. I think we will leave the mouths of the Fenway faithful agape. I think we will blow away the Bronx Bombers. I say it right here and now. Our pitching will make nothing short of a monumental turnaround and come October, we will still be playing.

Because, after all, you have to have hope, right?

I only write these absurd thoughts because during this upcoming year, when we’re approaching 90 losses, I’d like to be able to look back on this post and remember why I come back. I want to remember that in spite of their lack of talent, the Rays have a whole lot of heart.

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The Rays should retire the number 10

A few days ago, I went to a Devil Rays game with Angus. We played the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from California within the United States but not Necessarily From the Actual City Proper of Los Angeles. At least, I think that’s what we’re calling them nowadays. They’re changing it every other day.

Anyhow, while at the Trop, I picked up and filled out an application for the Devil Rays Fan Hall of Fame. Apparently, they’re picking some select fans to enshrine for all of antiquity in plaque form at some permanent display at Tropicana Field. I must say, I am overqualified – I’m a small part of the team’s young and troubled history, after all – but the application had a word limit of 25 words. What this team has meant to me since 1998 cannot be fit into the cramped space intended for do few words; hence, this is my explanation of why I am an obvious candidate for the Rays’ Fan Hall of Fame:

Where to begin? Well, I was there since the very beginning, March 31, 1998, when we lost to the Tigers. But what’s so special about that? I mean, 45,368 other people were there. What’s so special is the fact that despite the loss that may have been a precursor of the painful decade to come, I continued to watch the Rays. I was 10 years old at the time, and to have a baseball team to call my own after not caring about the sport for the first stages of my childhood for lack of a home team was a special privilege. Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, Larry Rothschild, I remember them all. Heck, I even remember sitting in the stands and wondering what nationality Rolando Arrojo could possibly be. I was young and quizzical, what can I say? To this day, I still have all of my inaugural season souvenirs: The three-baseball set I got exclusively with my breakfast meals at McDonald’s (signed by such crowd favorites as Vince Namoli, no doubt), the inaugural season gift calendar I picked up before 1999, and, of course, the tacky purple seat cushion given away at game number one:

And that was 1998. In 1999, we were promised a Hit Show! I can still sing you the whole promotional song, but I will spare you the pain of reading about all the promises that never panned out. Vinny Castilla, Jose Canseco, and Greg Vaughn may not have delivered that year, but it was especially memorable for yours truly. During a game, the roving cameramen in the stadium searched out the fattest and cheekiest kid in the vicinity. Of course, back then I was a portly young lad. Hence, they videotaped me. This footage, incidentally, was used in every single Rays commercial that year. I was a celebrity, so to speak, and soon people would recognize me in public. This footage was also used in a Rays music video by Sequel, though I have never seen it except for at the Trop that year and on the tape the PR department sent me. If you’re from the area and you need something to jog your memory, give this screencap a look:

Ah, those were good days. They got better, too. At another game with none other than Angus, I imagine their guest vocalist got stuck in traffic, which caused the cutest little girl from upstairs came down and asked me sing for the 7th inning stretch. Now, I had no prior vocal training, but I figured that it would be fun enough, so I agreed. I blew them away, too:

But that wasn’t it. They weren’t content with my tear jerking performance of “Take me Out to the Ballgame,” so they asked me to do a little jig to the tune of “Love Shack.” Now, as a fat little Irish boy, I’m well-accustomed to doing little jigs, but in front of 15,000 people? I was mildly nervous, but a few pelvic thrusts later, I was right at home; I was definitely a crowd favorite.

I was a Rays’ favorite, too. Because a few days later, I got a phone call from the guy who was in charge of Rays Vision at the time, asking me to star in a between-inning video segment where I would ask players pop culture questions (you know, silly things like their favorite movies, and so on and so forth). They had me do a lot of stuff: I dressed up (and impersonated!) Dick Vitale, who goes to many games and sits just to the left of the third base dugout; I impersonated a flying Superman who was curious about the players’ favorite bands; I even sported a beard that, apparently, made me look like a Rabbi. Oddly enough, only my Jewish friend Doug recalls that last one. Either way, I was big, and it was all because of me being lovable like this:

After the 1999 season, the Rays’ interests in me tapered off, probably because the players were in no mood to talk and because I was quickly growing out of my cute stages. It’s like when Beaver hit puberty and just became pathetic, asking Wally about things he should already know.

Anyway, I still followed the team. I remember Wade Boggs’ 3000th hit, a beautiful homer into right field. To this day, the seat where it hit is painted yellow, which contrasts the plastic blue of the rest of the stadium very well. I remember the crack of Tony Saunders’ arm. I remember the players that have come. More so, I remember the players that have gone.

Roberto Hernandez. Dave Martinez. Jesus Colome. These are only a few.

I remember seeing Hal McRae come in during the middle of a season, not knowing the atrocities he’d inherited. I’ve seen manager after manager. And, interestingly enough, I am content with the team’s management as it is now.

I’ve also co-founded the largest Devil Rays group on Facebook. It’s called Scotty Kaz Owns You. And he does.

With the sale of the team to new owners, the inception of Joe Maddon, the signing of Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli to long-term contracts, and with the new outlook on baseball that the new management brings, I’ve begun to become more entwined in this world of Tampa Bay Baseball. I’ve admired (perhaps a little too much) Travis Lee, fist baseman extraordinaire since the beginning of the season. I now sit in the beach, where I can be as loud as I want for the team at a low price. I live with a real, live Ray Team member. Baseball is as big in the Peterson household as it ever has been, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I will leave you with a picture from my latest journey to the Beach in the Trop, with my Ray Team sister Stefanie and two Russian girls to whom I tried to teach baseball (I was unsuccessful.):

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I'm President of the Fan Club

If you’ve been around me for the past couple of months, you already know this. But if you’ve been living under a rock and you aren’t aware of the simple fact that Travis Lee is the best baseball player to ever play the game, this is your heads up.

Lee’s fielding percentage is .997, which is the highest active percentage in the league among first basemen. He is as tall as the Empire State Building; he is as mighty as a lion; he is as nimble as a kitten; he is as powerful as a locomotive.

Notice that locomotives do not have opposable thumbs. Hence, they cannot hold baseball bats. And because they cannot hold baseball bats, their batting averages are not very high.

But did Jesus ever rub pine tar on a Louisville Slugger? Did Mohammed have a good batting average? Could Moses crank a ball over the centerfield wall? Collective answer? No. Collective moral? You can go ahead and disregard Travis Lee’s batting average. Pay attention to the obvious: he is easily the greatest first baseman in the league and he is possibly the greatest human being to walk the earth in 2000 years.

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