This morning while I was racing through my emails, I received a request from The Tampa Bay Rays to cast my vote for James Shield for the Roberto Clemente humanitarian Award. In addition to being an ace pitcher, James does a lot of great work for the Tampa Bay community, and I was eager to cast my vote his way.
Of course MLB needed my information, my name, address, phone number, email address, stopping short at my social security number and my bank account number. I filled everything out, and when I came to the two questions: Do I want to receive information from Chevrolet or from MLB? I checked the no boxes. I have a 1995 BMW 530i, which has been good to me, and I already get plenty of messages from MLB, so I don’t need the info a second time.
I looked over all the candidates, and I voted for Big Game James, as we like to call him, and I pressed VOTE. Instead of learning I had successfully voted, I got the message: Before you can vote, you have to tell us which Chevrolet model you’d like to get more information about. It’s like going to your local polling place and being told that before you can vote for the President of the United States, you have to pick which oil company you want to get more information about. I was so disgusted, I wrote an email to MLB.com telling them how dispicable this was. It’s bad enough the Citizens United case will now allow corporations to fund the congressional candidates to their hearts content. But now we have to bow to corporate sponsors if we want to vote for something as idealistic as the Roberto Clemente Award? Our country is in the grip of Republican politicians who aim to bankrupt us so they can become very rich. This is just one more manifestation of what’s to come. Heaven help us all.

The Upton Watch – It’s One O’Clock in the Afternoon.
Do You Know Where Your Centerfielder Is?

By Peter Golenbock

I’m sitting at my desk checking ESPN.com to see whether the Rays have traded centerfielder B.J. Upton. There are a couple reasons why I care. The first is that now that the Rays have brought up phenom Desmond Jennings to play left field, the team now has one more hitter than it had before. Though Upton is only hitting .233, he is a team leader in home runs and runs batted in.
He’s also one of the leaders of the Veecks, my Rotisserie baseball team in the American Dreams League. If Upton gets traded to the National League, I have to sit shiva for him for a week.
But the question remains: why should I have to sit and worry about whether Upton gets traded? The reason, I am told, is that the Rays can’t afford a payroll any higher than $50 million a year because of our poor attendance and our lousy ballpark. It kinda goes along with the Republicans’ argument that we need to cut $3 billion from our budget because we can no longer afford to pay for social security, Medicare, and Meals on Wheels in St. Petersburg.
Both arguments are red herrings and make me sick.
There is a major schism in major league baseball between the haves – the big market teams – and the have nots, the small market teams of which the Tampa Bay Rays apparently are one. During the bad old days when Vince Namoli owned the Rays, major league baseball decided to do something about the disparity in payroll between say, the Yankees, who under George Steinbrenner was spending $200 million a year for payroll, and the Devil Rays, who spent that same $50 million that we are spending now. To give the Rays, the Kansas City Royals, the Florida Marlins, the Seattle Mariners, and several other small market teams a better opportunity to compete, baseball made an agreement with the players association for the big market teams to pay a tax to the small market teams for every dollar a big market team spent over $150 million. The teams affected most by this rule were the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Steinbrenner being Steinbrenner ignored the luxury tax as though it didn’t exist. What did he care? The YES network earned him between $300 million and $400 million a year in income, a fraction of which he could afford to piss away on the luxury tax.
What Bud Selig, the owners’ commissioner, failed to include in the new luxury tax regulations was a rule forcing the small market owners to spend their luxury tax largesse on players to improve their team. As a result, Vince Naimoli took the approximately $30 million a year he received from the Yankees and the Red Sox, and he put that money in his pocket. No baseball owner made more money year after year, a period when the Devil Rays were a laughing stock.
Naimoli was channeling the practice of another of Tampa Bay’s rapscalian owner, the Buccanneers’ Hugh Culverhouse, who released his best players year after year rather than pay them. Culverhouse also made more money year after year than just about any other owner. Why anyone bought season tickets while Culverhouse owned the Bucs is a mystery, but if you loved the Bucs, what choice did you have?
And so it was with the Devil Rays under Naimoli. Why did we go all those years to watch over-the-hill vets like Greg Vaughn, Vinnie Castilla (Cash Stealer), and my personal favorite, reliever Esteban Yan, who sweated through his uniform after only one inning of work and who threw pitches that hitters like Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez would hit over the moon in the Trop? Because we love the game of baseball, and we loved the Devil Rays, win or lose. USF Professor Ray Arcenault and I would go to game after game because we never knew what might happen – Ben Grieve might strike out swinging instead of looking; Jose Canseco might hit the catwalk; Aaron Ledesma might get in the game — and in two out of five games, the Devil Rays would conspire to win in the wackiest of ways.
Glad to say, those days are gone, and the Naimoli regime has been replaced with the Stuart Sternberg, Andrew Friedman, Matt Silverman troika of smart, serious, and dedicated owners and executives.
The Sternberg team, renamed the Rays, won the American League pennant in 2008 and won the American League East in 2010, and they did it with a payroll significantly lower than the Yankees and the Red Sox. They did it because they were smarter than anyone else. They spent Stu’s money on pitching and defense, and until now, it was enough.
Unfortunately, the game has changed for the Rays. The Yankees and the Red Sox have caught on to what the Rays have been doing. They’ve emulated the strategy but boast better players. Those teams can hit. We can’t – or don’t.
To get to the playoffs the Rays need to beat out either the Yankees or the Red Sox. In the past beating the Yankees was possible because under owner George Steinbrenner, the Yankees would spend millions of dollars on over- the-hill players who got hurt or couldn’t pitch in New York. Steinbrenner gave Carl Pavano a four-year, $40 million dollar deal. Pavano won exactly 9 games. He paid Japanese import Kei Igawa $46 million. Igawa pitched exactly sixteen games in the majors. Igawa is currently toiling in the minors for his $4 million a year. In 2007 he paid Roger Clemens $18.5 million for six wins. All because George was sure he knew better than general manager Brian Cashman.
For years George’s ego and incompetence was the Rays’ biggest advantage.
It’s an advantage that no longer exists. George is in heaven firing angels, and on the ground the Yankees under Cashman are running an intelligent, solid organization that has signed some of the best players money can buy including All Star Mark Teixeira ($23,125,000 a year) at first base and centerfielder Curtis Granderson,($8,250,000 a year) a charismatic, talented player who is taking New York City by storm. Led by veteran pitchers C.C. Sabathia ($24,285,714 a year), A.J. Burnett ($16,500,000 a year), and closer deluxe Mariano Rivera ($14,911,701 a year), the Yankees are going to win 100 games this year.
The Boston Red Sox may win even more. Boston, led by wonderkind GM Cleo Epstein and backed by stats guru Bill James, does exactly what the Rays do. They study the myriad numbers that their computer geeks spit out for them. The only difference is that the Red Sox can afford to pay left fielder Carl Crawford ($14,857,143 a year) and the Rays cannot – or would not. After snagging Crawford, the best player in Rays history, Boston also acquired San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez ($6 million a year), one of the ten best players in baseball, to play first base.
This year the Yankee payroll is $196,854,630 and the Red Sox payroll is $160,000,000. In comparison, the Rays are playing their players $41,932,171, about what Alex Rodriguez ($25,000,000 a year) and Derek Jeter ($14,729,365 a year) combined are making. This is about as unfair as the push by the Republicans to cut services to the poor and to end the security net of social security for the elderly while refusing to raise taxes on billionaires.
I am constantly amazed that none of our politicians – or our baseball officials – seem to care any more about fairness.
In baseball, Rays fans could feel better about their team if Commissioner Selig did what the football team owners just did – pass a rule saying each club has to spend a minimum amount of money on salary. In 2009 NFL teams spent an average of $103 million per team on players. In baseball that sounds about right.
There now are 600 billionaires controlling 10 percent of our wealth. Stu Sternberg is one of them. Stu has a net worth of $3 billion. Stu has the money to spend $100 million a year on players. Unlike Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik, who’s spending $25 million of his own money to fix up the St. Pete Times Forum, Stu just won’t spend it if it affects the bottom line. But if he and all the other owners were forced to spend a minimum of $100 million a year on players, we wouldn’t have this big market, little market problem.
Can’t afford it? I know a couple of guys who can. The Koch brothers hate to lose and aren’t afraid to put their money where their mouths are. I guarantee you, with those guys in charge B.J. Upton won’t go anywhere, and neither will the rest of the Rays stars. The only question then will be whether the rest of us will be able to afford the tickets.

Last night in Detroit, Rays outfielder Justin Ruggiano came flying around third and slid hard into home plate, avoiding the sweep tag of Detroit Tigers catcher Oliva. Ruggiano slid past the plate, spun around and nail the plate with his foot just before Oliva went to tag him again. (The second tag was further proof Oliva missed him the first time around.) Ruggiano arose, pleased he had tied the score at 1-1, only to see the home plate umpire call him out.
Rays manager Joe Maddon, having been the victim of too many bad calls lately, rushed out of the dugout to inform the ump he was “fucking wrong.” The third time he said it, Maddon got the heave ho. It was the third time this season Maddon’s been tossed after arguing an important (and wrong) call.
For us viewers at home, the TV crew showed us the play every which way but sideways, and from every angle it was crystal clear that Ruggiano was safe. But baseball commissioner Bud Selig, a stickler for tradition and for championing the “human element” in baseball, refuses to allow instant replay to correct calls, with the exception of judging whether a ball goes over the fence or not, or whether the ball is fair or foul when it passes the pole. The reasoning is that it’s important to get the call right, but only in those situations.
Well, getting the call right surely was important for the Rays against the Tigers last night. All that call did was cost Tampa Bay the game, and now the Rays have to play three in a row against the red-hot Red Sox.
Trumpets should blare throughout the land: in a world of Blackberrys and IPods and revolutionary electronics, it’s time for baseball to drag itself into the 21st Century. Give each manager two shots at challenging a call, the way it’s done in professional football. If he throws the red flag and he’s right, he gets his second shot. If he throws the red flag and he’s wrong, that’s it for the game. The goal here is to make sure the most important plays of the game are called correctly. This is something that can be accomplished right now — today. It’s something baseball ought to do — today.

Budweiser beer, a major sponsor of the Tampa Bay Rays, has a commercial running at the Trop that I and a number of friends find really offensive. Whenever a company (or a political party) wants to curry favor with “American citizens,” it makes a big show of saluting the troops. No team salutes the troops more than the Rays do, but that’s appropriate here, because McDill Air Force base is in Tampa, and the Rays have local boys who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s only right that the team salutes them. But then Budweiser rears its ugly head. The spot calls for the fans sitting in the stands at Tropicana Field to raise their chilled, golden glass of Budweiser beer in tribute to the troops, and as it asks the fans to do so, the cameraman in the Trop seeks out the boozers in the crowd willing to do so. I just shake my head, and I know some of the fans sitting with me feel the same way. Glorifying beer drinking isn’t what the Rays ought to be doing, even though beer sales are an important revenue source. What’s next: “Hey Rays fans, raise your glasses of Budweiser as we salute all the high school graduates.” This is a promotion that has got to go.

Last September, in the middle of the pennant race, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg announced he was going to get rid of half his players so he could save $40 million dollars or so. Considering that he’s worth $3 billion, he really pissed off a lot of Rays fans. After the 2010 season in which the Rays surprised everyone by winning the American League East, Sternberg was true to his word: he let go Carl Crawford, an All Star outfielder, Rafael Soriano, an All Star closer; solid shortstop Jason Bartlett; slick-fielding first baseman Carlos Pena and his 28 home runs and fifteen-game winner Matt Garza; and three solid relievers Joaquin Benoit, Grant Balfour, and Dan Wheeler, all of whom signed lucrative contracts elsewhere. He saved a pile of dough and lost a chunk of his fan base in doing so.
To replace them, the Rays bought free agents Johnny Damon, thought by many at age 37 to be over the hill, and Manny Ramirez, who at age 40 had been suspended fifty games for taking steroids the year before. He also was injury prone. At best, Rays fans were skeptical about Manny, even though I did go out and buy a Manny wig. They also got a bunch of unknowns from the trades of Garza and Bartlett.
After a desultory spring, the Rays started the 2011 season with returners Ben Zobrist, who in 2010 had a down year, B.J. Upton, who hit .230 last year, and All Star Evan Longoria, the star of the team and its big drawing card.
With Damon batting second, Longoria third and Manny fourth, the Rays began the season a dreadful 1-8. Longoria pulled a leg muscle and disappeared and after only five games Manny, who hit 1 for 17, got caught juicing again, and he quit baseball altogether. My wig still sits in my closet. Too bad the Rays refuse to hold an Old Timer’s Day.
The Rays fans, disgusted by Sternberg’s actions and by the dreadful play of the team, stayed away in droves. The starting pitching was lousy, the defense worse, and on offense the Rays like last year held to their snoozy philosophy of taking a zillion pitches, which led to them either walking or taking third strikes with regularity. In the first nine games the team hit .163 and scored about a run a game. The new no-name relief corps was solid, but after getting creamed by Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Chicago, none powerhouses, I would have bet my last nickel that the Rays were going to finish dead last in the AL East.
A blogger in the Tampa Tribune described perfectly just how bad the Rays were playing. “This horse has been beaten, slaughtered, buried, dug up, beaten some more then turned into dog food,” he wrote. “It now sits in a big steaming pile in my backyard.”

It’s early May, and as I type this the Rays’ record is 15-13, which means the Rays have gone an incredible 14-5 since April 11. They are winning with solid pitching, exciting defense, and a renewed offense that has at times been knocking the other team out in the early innings. I know most sports fans are blasé, but let me tell you, this type of turnaround comes along — never. Decimated teams that start out lousy usually stay lousy. We were sure this was to be one of those dreaded “rebuilding” years, but it hasn’t turned out that way at all. Right now the Rays appear to be among the class of not only the AL East but all of baseball. Who’s better? The Cleveland Indians have won more games, but no one believes that will last. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are as tough as anybody. They and the Rays are spitting images of each other, though the Angels have bigger names – Elvis Andrus, Torii Hunter, and Vernon Wells are among their stars. The Yankees and Red Sox are stacked but have pitching woes. Retreads Bartolo Colon and Freddie Garcia start for the Yankees, for crying out loud. The Red Sox pitchers have been mediocre and started poorly, but the Sox are a powerful, veteran ballclub. The Rangers are strong, but lost Josh Hamilton and Nefti Perez for a month. No one else comes appears as strong as these clubs.

Exactly who are the players who replaced all the guys we lost? There’s a bunch of no-name starters: at shortstop Reid Brignac is settling in and has become dependable, though we don’t know yet if he can hit. Rodriguez appears to be an all star on defense whether at second or third. The big question: Where’s he going to play? Zobrist plays second and Longoria third. Kotchman has always been an excellent first baseman, and Joyce is starting to show his skills both in the field and at bat. The one move few of us Rays fans can figure out is why Joe Maddon ever plays Dan Johnson at first. Johnson hasn’t hit and is a mediocre-at-best fielder, and if anyone else but Maddon were manager, Dandy Dan would have been released.
Matt Joyce, whose career is about to take off, is in right, and in left is this guy Sam Fuld, a Cub reject whose play the first two weeks was so spectacular that he made Rays fans forget Carl Crawford. Lately he’s stopped hitting, but Fuld’s contributions in April were what sparked the team to its return to respectability. The Rays owe Super Sam their season. Fuld’s defensive excellent moved Johnny Damon to the DH spot, and Damon not only has been a veteran leader in the clubhouse, he has proved he can still hit in the clutch. Damon and his 2004 World Championship Red Sox were called “Idiots.” If the Rays win the pennant again, it’ll be interesting to see what Damon labels this bunch.
What all these new players have in common is an excellence on defense. The outfield now boasts Fuld, the human highlight reel, BJ Upton, and Joyce, three excellent ball chasers, and in the infield the linep will boast Longoria at third, Brignac or Rodriguez at short, Ben Zobrist or Rodriguez at second, and Kotchman at first. Except for Johnson, these guys can pick it.
If the team has a weakness it’s at catcher. John Jaso can hit but needs to improve behind the plate, and Kelly Shoppach is fine defensively but can’t hit a lick. The starting rotation of David Price, James Shields, Wade Davis, Jeremy Hellickson, and Jeff Niemann is as good as anyone’s, especially now that Shields has turned back into an ace.
Who is the Rays’ star so far this year? Once again it’s general manager Andrew Friedman. Did I mention he magically replaced an all-star bullpen with another crop of lights out performers: Juan Cruz, Adam Russell, Cesar Ramos, Adam Russell, Joel Peralta, and Kyle Farnsworth have been superb. And J.P. Howell will join them soon. Meanwhile, the old guard, Rafael Soriano, Joaquin Benoit, and Dan Wheeler have been stinking up the joint in their new uniforms. Andrew, I bow to your baseball smarts. I am humbled by what you have done.

With the 0-6 start, the departure of Manny Ramirez, and the injury to Evan Longoria, Rays fans stayed away in droves for the opening two victories against the Minnesota Twins. Coupling all that with the dumping of salary and the constant drumbeat from owner Stuart Sternberg that the fans don’t deserve their baseball team, I can understand the steep drop in attendance. From what I’ve seen though, my prediction is that it won’t be too long before the fans come back. One reason is the play of Johnny Damon, a borderline Hall of Famer who hustles and scraps a la Pete Rose, and that of Superman Sam Fuld, the former Cubs farm hand who only got to play because Manny left. Fuld, who bats lead off, has become the team spark plug, and his popularity has grown so fast the Rays next month will be handing out Sam Fuld capes to the first 10,000 kids who want one.
Another reason for a Rays resurgence is that the no-name bullpen that Joe Maddon has assembled seems almost as solid as last year’s array, and that’s saying something. I don’t know where Andy Friendman found these guys, but each one of them has great stuff, especially Joel Peralta, Juan Cruz, and Detroit-Atlanta-Boston reject Kyle Farnsworth, who has been excellent.
And there’s another reason: Boston has started 2-10, and the Yankees starting rotation just lost number two arm Phil Hughes. The Orioles and Toronto have young, inexperienced arms, leaving the Rays an opportunity to climb back into the pennant race despite the horrendous start.
Like their ownership, the Rays have been a colorless group — skilled, but colorless. Fuld and Damon are trying to change that. If they succeed, the fans will be back, and the Rays will be in the hunt in September.

A couple of days ago a reporter by the name of Mike Ozanian reported in the Sports Money column of Forbes Magazine that contraction was “looming” for the Tampa Bay Rays. Who told him this? He refused to say. His first sentence was that a “groundswell” was “building in MLB to dumpt the Tampa Bay Rays. From what I’m hearing, I doubt there will be any baseball at Tropicana Field after 2014 even though the team’s least runs to 2027.” From what I’m hearing Mike Ozanian is going to be Michelle Bachman’s running mate in 2012. A groundswell is building for Ozanian to go back to My Weekly Reader, where he obviously began.
You might ask yourself: where did this drivel come from? Usually the source is Bud Selig, who conspires often with Rays owner Stu Sternberg to try to scare the bejesus out of Tampa Bayans so that the powers that be buy the Rays a new stadium. But Selig denied being the source of the “groundswell.” So who’s left? That would be our Stu, the only owner who constantly (and stupidly) berates his own fans for their lack of loyalty, passion, and commitment to his Rays.
Meanwhile, a groundswell is growing from Rays fans who are demanding that ownership commits to winning, not making money. In his expressed need to cut the salary in half, the Rays dumped half the players that helped them win the AL East in 2010. Now the team is 0-6, and it’s not all that surprising. All Star Carl Crawford is playing in Boston, and in Tampa Bay we have Sam Fuld. And Stu has his money.

The Rays, winners of the American League East last year, have started the season 0-5. No one should be surprised. Baseball is a game of continuity. Players have to be comfortable playing with each other. At the end of last season Rays owner Stu Sternberg announced he was going to cut the payroll drastically, and then he did just that. Even though he’s worth $3 billion, he says he is losing money, and so he allowed left fielder Carl Crawford, first baseman Carlos Pena, shortstop Jason Bartlett, relief aces Dan Wheeler, Grant Balfour, Joaquin Benoit, and closer Rafael Soriano go. Replacing them were two veterans long in the tooth, Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez, rookie shortstop Reid Brignac, and a bunch of talented relievers no one ever heard of. The relievers have been lights out, but the Rays’ hitting has been abominable. In five games they have scored seven runs. Damon already is complaining about the turf, Manny sat because he was upset at being booed, and Evan Longoria has a hurt leg and will be out three weeks. What a disaster! Whatever the excuses, it all goes back to Sternberg. If he can’t afford to own a baseball team, he should sell the team to someone who can. There are plenty of Wall Street crooks with billions of dollars who’d love to own the Rays. Find one who cares more about winning than money, and sell it to him.