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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy is in his 36th year of covering the Cincinnati Reds, the longest tenure for any active writer covering one team. Counting spring training and postseason games, McCoy has covered more than 7,000 major-league baseball games, written close to 18,000 baseball stories and eaten enough hot dogs to give Babe Ruth indigestion.Home > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > October > 14 > Entry
Tampa Bay - no ghosts on this roster
Are you believers yet in the Tampa Bay mystique? I am.
Hey, like everybody else, I was a guy who made fun of the Tampa Bay Rays, right up through last year when they were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and I called them the Tampa Bay Deviled Eggs.
I mean, why not? This team finished last so often in the American League East that when they decided to eliminate ‘Devil’ from their nickname I thought they might rename them the Tampa Bay Last Placers.
Now they are on the precipice of playing in the World Series, one victory away, one victory over the Boston Red Sox, who are now the Boston Red because the Rays have knocked their Sox off.
Since getting shut out in Game One, the Rays have won three straight, outscoring the Bosox 31-13, getting 39 hits in those three games. They’ve beaten Boston 9-1 and 13-4 in Fenway Park. Talk about a Boston Massacre.
A little bit of history as I remember it.
Tampa Bay begged for a franchise in the late 1980s and 1990s and other franchises played them like an old fiddle.
First it was Seattle. Owner Jeff Smulyan negotiated for at least two years to move his franchise to Tampa Bay. Didn’t happen. He sold out to a Japanese group and the Mariners stayed in Seattle.
The San Francisco Giants wanted out of Candelstick Park, wanted to move from one Bay to another Bay. It was so cold at night in Candlestick in mid-summer that fans who stayed for an entire game were awarded medals of honor. True story.
Well, when it seemed the Giants might move to Tampa Bay, they got themselves that beautiful new park downtown, one of baseball’s best venues. And they stayed, Tampa Bay lost again.
Then it was the Chicago White Sox, talking to Tampa Bay about shifting the White Sox to Florida. Then the White Sox got a new stadium and Tampa Bay was left holding an empty stadium again.
An empty stadium?
Oh, yeah. Tampa Bay took the attitude, “Build it and they will come.” Well, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago showed them they were wrong.
With the strong backing of former St. Petersburg Times columnist Hubert Mizell, they built a stadium in St. Pete, the ugly monster with the lopsided roof that sits just off I275. Heck, they even built the place in the wrong place, on the wrong side of the bay. The population base is in Tampa, but the stadium was built in St. Petersburg.
For years, I made fun of that, too, as the park sat mostly empty except for some tractor pulls, motorcycle races and a year or two as the home to the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning while the Ice Palace was built in Tampa.
As a takeoff on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, I called the Tampa Bay park the Hubert Mizell Emptydome.
Finally, baseball gave Tampa Bay an expansion franchise and they immediately established squatter’s rights on last place. Fans didn’t come. Would you? To watch a last place team every year?
The only time they drew more than 10,000 fans was when the Red Sox or Yankees were in town and the transplanted snowbirds from New England and the east coast showed up to cheer for Boston and New York.
Sort of like how Cubs fans outnumber Reds fans in Great American Ball Park.
Three years ago, the Reds played in Tampa Bay, a three-game interleague series. The only thing the Reds worried about was that their hotel a few blocks from the ball park, The Vinoy, supposedly is haunted. Pitcher Scott Williamson swears he woke up and saw a ghost standing at the end of his bed - but some folks thought he was dreaming about opposing hitters who knocked him around.
It changed this year as the Rays emerged as an outstanding team. No more last. No more Deviled Eggs. No more fans from New England and the east coast outnumbering Rays fans.
All this is another reason I’m a Rays fan this postseason. Their fans were teased and taunted for years, ready to accept the Mariners, ready to accept the Giants, ready to accept the White Sox, only to have it yanked from their grasp at the last moment.
Now I get a kick out of watching noted Red Sox fan\author Stephen King sitting in Fenway watching his team get their pants jerked down around their ankles. No doubt there will be a black-hearted novel come out of this.
Did you see pitcher Edwin Jackson, a 14-game winner this year who is now relegated to the bullpen, finish Tuesday night’s game.
He almost was a Red. A few years ago, when he was the No. 1 prospect for the LA Dodgers, the Reds and LA nearly made a trade. The Dodgers wanted Adam Dunn. The Reds wanted Edwin Jackson. The Dodgers said no.
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Comments
By HuberTucky
October 16, 2008 2:48 AM | Link to this
Stephen King was working on his latest horror story and it’s about how his beloved Sox get creamed by the Ray’s Devils. It’s a hellish tale, or so I hear. I met him in Boulder when he was involved in filming the TV movie version of The Shining. Very nice and unassuming man. I remember as a young guy reading his stories in Cavalier (a mens magazine) when he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Cool guy.By Deaner
October 15, 2008 11:28 PM | Link to this
At one point last night, the tv camera caught Stephen King reading a book at his seat.By Y-City Jim
October 15, 2008 10:01 PM | Link to this
The guy is legally blind. It is hard enough for me to be sure I am writing down things correctly with my eyes. I cannot imagine how much more difficult it must be for Hal.By BrarHopper
October 15, 2008 6:24 PM | Link to this
Justin, an idiot, sounds eerily like Matt, a fool.By Redfuture
October 15, 2008 1:11 PM | Link to this
Yesterday the “Ask Hal” link was to Sept 14th, today it is to one of the June versions. What’s up with that?By Diamond Dave
October 15, 2008 12:59 PM | Link to this
Justin, I think I speak for the entire congregation when I say, “Shut up.” Please meditate on the following: 1) If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. 2) It is more prudent to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. 3) If you want Hal’s job, dissing him in a blog comments section ain’t the way to get it done.By Roho Radio
October 15, 2008 12:57 PM | Link to this
Justin, your failure to spell check is “amazing”. These are “fundamental” words you should know. We see why you’re not paid to write a baseball “column”.By Justin
October 15, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this
Hal, Once again your failure to fact check is amazeing. I find the most fundalmental errors in your collumns and blogs. A week or two ago you made a mistake about Cueto’s first start, and today you made another error, the Reds played in Tampa 5 years ago (2003), not 3 years ago. Please stop being so sloppy. I know these things and I am not even paid to write about baseball.By Justin
October 15, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this
Hal, Once again your failure to fact check is amazeing. I find the most fundalmental errors in your collumns and blogs. A week or two ago you made a mistake about Cueto’s first start, and today you made another error, the Reds played in Tampa 5 years ago (2003), not 3 years ago. Please stop being so sloppy. I know these things and I am not even paid to write about baseball.By Justin
October 15, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this
Hal, Once again your failure to fact check is amazeing. I find the most fundalmental errors in your collumns and blogs. A week or two ago you made a mistake about Cueto’s first start, and today you made another error, the Reds played in Tampa 5 years ago (2003), not 3 years ago. Please stop being so sloppy. I know these things and I am not even paid to write about baseball.By Steven Ross
October 15, 2008 10:06 AM | Link to this
Rays also have a good manager. Reds will have to fire Baker before we’ll even sniff the playoffs. Any manager who insisted on using Griffey, Patterson and Bako should be let go for stupidity alone.By Cait
October 15, 2008 10:02 AM | Link to this
The Red Sox became my favorite AL team in 1975 when as a child I watched that fabulous World Series. But I’m rooting for the Rays here, too. Maybe the Reds can take a page out of their book?By Kevin
October 15, 2008 7:33 AM | Link to this
Great things can happen when an organization is on the same page from top to bottom. They actually start to believe in themselves and thier ability to WIN(no matter what the payroll is)! Anyone from the Reds organization paying attention?!!By HuberTucky
October 15, 2008 3:55 AM | Link to this
I’m diggin’ watching the Rays. They are the team I wish the Reds could be… gutsy, confident, fearless. The Reds lack so much of that. The Rays never give up and believe in themselves. The announcer said that it has taken 10 years for the Rays franchise to get to this point through player development, a strong farm system, and lots of great draft choices. (Any one in the Reds organization listening?) And a question for those of you who contend that the manager ha slittle influence over the performance of a club and is only responsible for a few victories over the course of a season…I wonder where the Rays would be this year if Dusty was their manager. Yeah, and imagine Corey Patterson in centerfield in the playoffs.