It’s A Great Time To Be A Sports Fan In Tampa Bay!

First I need to clarify where Tampa Bay is and why this is a sore subject with some folks living in the Tampa area. The city of Tampa is actually a peninsula surrounded by two bodies of water, McKay Bay and Tampa Bay. Over the years, with the establishment of a professional football team, professional arena football team, professional ice hockey team and professional baseball team there has been a great deal of in-fighting among the local big wigs as to where these teams should have stadiums. At times it became quite contentious as to even what the real team name should be as well. The Lightening actually started playing in St. Petersburg but now have a beautiful arena in Tampa. The Rays (formally Devil Rays) are called the Tampa Bay Rays but play in a dome located in St. Petersburg. Because the Buccaneers (football), Storm (arena football), Lightning (hockey) and Rays (baseball) play in different cities within the greater Tampa Bay area, they are known as the Tampa Bay (fill in the blanks), thus giving some viewers on television who have never visited the area or looked at a map the idea that Tampa’s name is, indeed, Tampa Bay. OK, enough about geography.

As I have previously written, I am watching in complete awe, a baseball team stay in first place in its division for most of this season after finishing in last place every year since it began playing here eleven years ago. The team has just lost three of its best players and still continues to win. Last night the game went into extra innings and I think every player on the team had to play at some point due to the strain on the line-up. I have previously predicted Evan Longeria, the phenomenal rookie third baseman would be named Rookie Of The Year, however he was recently hit by a pitch and the ball broke a bone in one of his wrists. He his expected to return before the season is over but when he left he was leading the team in home runs, runs batted in, batting average, and I don’t know what else. I don’t know what the rules are in professional baseball when your statistics are negatively affected due to an injury and a shortened season but I am hoping he can return to the line-up soon and that his injury will not keep him from continuing his great play on the field. Either way, I have a new prediction. Based upon the fact it is only the middle of August and this team has already broken every previous team record and won more games than in any previous year I am predicting the Rays manager will be named Manager Of The Year.

If you have never seen his photo everyone makes fun of Madden because of his 1950s eyeglass frames. And it is fun to watch the Rays, who play all home games in a dome, go to some city where they have to play a day game in bright sunlight. They hate it. Even the manager wears matching 1950s sunglasses. Conversely, the teams that play the Rays hate playing in the Tropicana dome in St. Petersburg due to its quirky construction, which is kind of like playing inside a big circus tent. The ceiling is suspended by rings connected to – I don’t know what. But the rings actually hang over parts of the field and can be hit by high fly balls. Major League Baseball had to make up new rules covering what happens when certain rings are hit by fly balls. The batter could get a single, double or even a home run depending upon which ring he hits. Nuts? You bet. But fun nuts.

I really wanted to write today to get out the great story of what is going on in Little League Baseball. The Little League Baseball World Series started play yesterday in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Why is this important to Tampa Bay this year? Because Tampa Bay (here we go again) has a team in the World Series! The city of Tampa is rather small but is surrounded by a lot of small communities that are not incorporated. You may have heard of Carrollwood or Northdale. We used to live in Carrollwood Village then Citrus Park and now we live in Lutz, all of which are really post office address names in unincorporated Hillsborough County. A little league baseball team that plays in Citrus Park has done well enough this year to get into and through the regional playoffs and make it all the way to the Little League World Series. Their uniforms are a great looking green and gold. I mention this because I actually turned on the TV yesterday afternoon to watch this team play live on ESPN. I was disappointed as soon as I turned on my TV because one team was wearing blue uniforms the other team was wearing some caca meme yellow and reddish orange colors. And the logo on the yellow uniforms said Southeast. But then one of the announcers referred to Tampa doing really well early in the game so I started to pay closer attention. Here’s the actual run down. Nobody knows where the heck Citrus Park is nor do they care. The team from Citrus Park is now being recognized in the World Series as a team from Tampa. That’s fine. But this team does not just represent Tampa. Nor does it just represent the State of Florida. They represent the Southeast United States! Of course our headline in the sports page today was “Easy Opener For Citrus Park”.

There are only eight teams from the United States in the World Series and another eight teams from elsewhere in the world, sixteen in all. And, oh by the way, in yesterday’s opening game with Citrus Park / Tampa wearing the uniforms of the Southeast Little League Champions playing the Midwest Champions from South Dakota the game was stopped after only four endings because the score was 10-0, Tampa / Citrus Park / Southeast / whatever. In little league baseball there is a “mercy” rule. If either team is ahead by 10 or more runs after four full innings they stop the game. Check your local ESPN listings as the playoffs continue for the next two weeks. These kids play as well as the pros and are fun to watch.

Yes, it’s a good time to be a sports fan in – anywhere close to Tampa! Only fish live in Tampa Bay and I don’t think they enjoy getting hooked on or by sports…..