Taking a break from fuming over the Lightning for a minute, I got a nifty little email this afternoon from one of the upteen PR firms that contact me from time to time with various sport inanities that are you there. This may be a Tampa Bay Lightning blog (that also covers Tampa Bay sports and sometimes national sports news), but at any given time I'll get emailed marketing for rival franchises (Panthers) or uninteresting videos that PR firms hope to make viral....

In this case, I got a Baseball marketing attempt. This set off my cynic alarm:

Fans who want to rub elbows with the 24 greatest home run hitters of all time should check out http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/500-Home-Run-Club-LLC/63511284320?ref=ts

It's the timing that really makes me cynical about this. Yes, it's Spring Training and hope springs eternal. This is when MLB has it's annual renewal...

But then again? This is also the time that is plagued by scandals to no end with thanks to some of these aforementioned "24 greatest home run hitters of all time". How many of those players used the Juice to get where they are? How many are suspected to have used performance enhancing drugs to reach that plateau?

Hope springs eternal... but cynicism prevails while the ugliness of the 'Roid era continues to hang over MLB. "24 greatest home run hitters" at this point in time is subjective at best, no matter what the stats say.

Taking a break from my attacks on Lightning management, I'll redirect my efforts now toward the city of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Previously known as "God's Waiting Room" (just had to dust that one off), St. Petersburg has turned into a happening place over the last decade. Nightlife thrives, there's a happening residential community both downtown and elsewhere in the city... Things aren't all rosie there, however with economic disparity and racial/social issues, but it's a far cry from the void that it was for so long.

Oh, lest I forget, there's a little baseball team down there that's got a bit of a following now. Which brings me to the point of this post.

You see, the Tampa Bay Rays announced their desires to have a new baseball stadium (just as the economic climate was turning sour in December 2007) built on the site of Al Lang Field. While the design and funding concept was outside the box, there were too many issues (economics, logistics, NIMBY's, etc) that put a halt to the plans for Tropicana Field's replacement.

But the team is still exploring options and places around Pinellas County...

Which has St. Petersburg crying foul because the team's lease at Tropicana Field and with the city of St. Petersburg does not expire until 2027, and they don't want the Rays to go anyplace outside the city. Oh, and they're not sure if they even want a new stadium for the Rays...

But they demand the Rays be their own personal Rays. Forget the region concept that is the name "Tampa Bay" -- the thought debate on a new stadium has hinged (supposedly) in the past on the Rays ballclub being renamed the St. Petersburg Rays.

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An internal study the Rays had conducted in 2007 (before they came public with plans for a waterfront ballpark in downtown St. Petersburg) showed that St. Pete was actually the worst place the team could be, due to logistical reasons. Downtown St. Petersburg (where the current team home, Tropicana Field, and the since-retracted new stadium proposal are located) is at the southern tip of the Pinellas County peninsula. While an interstate connection is on site, the majority of the local population (as well as ex-burb residents outside the immediate area) don't have an easy journey to St. Pete.

Locations of the three major sport venues in the Tampa Bay area.

An NFL stadium that houses a game one day a week for 8 weeks a season (not including pre season and potential playoff games). Their fans flock in from far and wide and transit to the game needs to meet long-haul commuters and short haul commuters alike. That's not a problem. NHL and NBA teams have to draw 41 times a year at home while their venues are usually inside an immediate urban area. Drawing 20,000 a night is simply dependent on the quality of the product in most cases. The immediate exception that comes to mind is the New Jersey Nets NBA team (and previously the New Jersey Devils) who play home games at the Meadowlands sports complex and fail to draw - well outside of New York city or Newark, New Jersey.

A venue for a major league baseball team, in contrast, needs to be located in an area where it can draw from a large swath of the regional population for 81 home dates. This is not a problem for major metro areas (note that, areas) due to large populations... Smaller markets need to draw from a wider area than their immediate city limits.

By being provincially mindful about the Major League Baseball team awarded to the Tampa Bay market in 1995, St. Petersburg demands that it's 249,000+ residents are the ones to draw from over the marathon that is a MLB season. Forget Tampa, forget points north and east beyond the tip of the county.

Yeah, St. Petersburg could lose money without the Rays playing inside the city limits due to a drop in tax receipts from local businesses aided by the draw of the Rays. But then again, the entire area can lose out with continued small-minded, inferiority-complex driven egomania from St. Petersburg.

This isn't a St. Pete-versus-Tampa argument that seems to drive the St.Pete-or-nowhere decree from city officials. Fans should be pretty much aware all studied stadium locations that have been explored are in Pinellas County alone. Still, the city of St. Pete warning about stadium location seems as small minded as ever for a region that is held back by local provincialism over and over again.

(last edited on 1/15/2009 at 2:39 PM EST)

Very much off topic...

I grew up a Mets fan, living in a small village on Long Island in New York. I can remember, as a young kid, how everyone was going nutso for the Amazin's of 1986. I didn't truly grasp it, but in the following years I grew to love and cherish baseball -- in general and New York Mets baseball. It followed me to Tampa Bay through the early 1990's as I had access to WOR telecasts through local cable. All of this while I was drawn into the local quest for Major League Baseball.

So it doesn't come as a surprise that I've been aware of New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon's long sought Ebbets-Field inspired successor to Shea Stadium for more than a decade. My recollection may be wrong, but the first time in national print that I saw reference to the famed model of Shea's replacement, it was a Sports Illustrated article that focused on former Mets general manager Joe McLlvane and the building-with-youth Mets of 1995/96 or there abouts. Two years before it's public unveiling.

But the point of this post isn't supposed to be about the previous version of what is now known as CitiField, nor about CitiField itself which contains the "Ebbets-Field inspired" architecture and a uniqueness that I can't quite imagine.

That's partly because I hold fondness for Shea Stadium.

The above should be looked at as the most absurd statement someone can make about Major League Baseball. Yet having been a fan of the Mets and having read about and reveled in some of Shea's storied eccentricities and history (Yeah, yeah, yeah and so much more) I'm hurt and saddened about it's in-progress demise.

Yeah, in progress.

15 days after the last public event at William A. Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York, the deconstruction of the Mets home field has begun in earnest. Stadiumpage.com has a few snap shots and I am sure that there are more out there on the web.

It seems surreal to see Shea with all seating removed, with the lamps ringing the stadium removed. And imminently, it'll start being torn apart. 44 years of baseball (some of the worst and most miraculous in Major League history), of musical performances, of airplane derived annoyance and other landmarks and eccentricities will be coming down. And like many of the stadiums that have gone before it -- pulled down in order to make space for parking.

For more on the end of Shea, visit Mets.com / MLB.com.

Rays / Red Sox about to get underway on TBS (why the hell did MLB approve putting all playoff games in the first two rounds on basic cable?!) but I wanted to bring up MSNBC trying to milk everything out of Tim Wakefield's start tonight in an online column.

I've got loads of respect for Wakefield and can remember him from his early days with the Pittsburgh Pirates (when he wasn't just a knuckleballer but one that would throw it fast). Between longevity and tenure, he gets a nod from me...

But Joe Maddon brought up a great point in the milk-this-drama-to-the-max article:

"When (the knuckleball) is righteous and on, nobody hits it on any given day."

Nine innings of baseball... Don't get cocky, don't get complacent and don't get frustrated if the Knuckleball is on tonight, Rays fans. At least two more games -- starting right about now.

Update: 8:57 PM EDT: I stand corrected. Tim Wakefield chased after 3 innings. We go to the top of the fourth -- Rays lead 5-1.

I've gotten used to the New York Islanders pulling stuff like this and I've also gotten used to the Tampa Bay lack-of-Devil Rays pulling this on a cost effective platform in the past...

But a nine year investment in a rookie? This takes things to new risk levels:

"This is obviously fairly unique," Friedman said. "But it was something both sides had interest in really exploring and talking about. And both sides had to make some concessions along the way to get to this point.

"... We have to stay open minded. The economics of the game and us being a low-revenue team, we have to think differently and take chances such as this to keep our nucleus in place as long as we can."

The salaries for the first six years of the agreement are guaranteed, with the team holding a one-year option for 2014 season and a subsequent two-year option for the 2015 and 2016 seasons. The contract guarantees $17.5 million. If the Rays exercise both options, Longoria would earn more than $44 million over the life of the nine-year agreement.

"Fairly Unique" does not begin to explain it. But Longoria was signed on the cheap considering what has has already accomplished and what he could command on an open market... IF he pans out (and even if not -- scrub players are getting obscene money in MLB in recent years).

I got sent a story last night from my friend here in Tampa. He's a Red Sox fan and this was about a Yankees fan... So I wasn't at all surprised when he told me "Why is this news?"

Yet this is news indeed:

Fred Slaven is convinced this makes him the victim of a hate crime. And after six years in Florida, he's going back to New York.

Yankees - and their fans - are generally welcome there.

The opposite may be true on Blackstone Drive in Embassy Hills, where Slaven lives. About a month ago, someone stole the Yankees vanity plate from his Chevy Malibu.

Then, on Wednesday morning, he walked outside and saw his limited-edition Yankees flag, complete with the dates of all 26 world championships. It was still hanging from the pole attached to his garage. But someone had burned a black hole in its center.

Where do you draw the line on discontent towards opposing opinions, ideas, principles and in this case, teams? I've heard stories like this with political candidates or political ideas/principles. I've dealt with the teens in my neighborhood, while growing up, giving my family a hard time by stealing things from my yard and such... But getting on a guy for being a proud fan of the Yankees?

Getting on a guy in the Tampa Bay area for being a proud Yankees fan? Tampa Bay, the home to thousands  of New York transplants and the Yankees second home?

Nothing wins over my sympathy easier than seeing someone -- an opposing teams fan -- getting a hard time from the local fans. I was apologizing profusely at Game Seven of the Stanley Cup in 2004 to Flames fans who were harassed by a drunken idiot sitting behind us (but those Flames fans were resolute -- they hollered back "It's just him, don't sweat it!"). Hearing stories of car windshields smashed in outside Raymond James Stadium at Buc games always gets me -- how much hate can you show an opposing team? And why, especially when your team turns out the victor?

My friend tried to justify whatever happened to Fred Slaven by saying he must have done something to piss off his neighbors... But honestly, there is nothing that can justify someone going to these lengths to harass a fan of an opposing team. Slaven likens what happened to him as a hate crime, and I'm of the same opinion. There is a line and that was crossed here. The battle is on the field, not with the fans personally.

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The St. Pete Times reported this morning in a short blurb on the cover of their print sports section that the D-Rays are sending out feelers for what fans would want in a new ballpark and where. Among some of the questions that are asked, reportedly, are about location (all locations provided keep the team in Pinellas County and close or in St. Petersburg), roof structures (retractable, partial or open-air) and other such things that this blogger does not know about at this time. There were also questions about improvements to Tropicana Field.

The questionnaire was sent to select residents and select season ticket holders. There was nothing provided about the method of selection or what not.

Tropicana Field is 16 years old, the stadium design itself was a relic of the 1970's to keep the building energy efficient. The location of the stadium (downtown St. Petersburg) and it's design have been debated and put into question time and time again over the course of the Rays existence. I found it interesting that of the sites offered in discussing a possible new venue -- Tampa was not a choice location. Gateway (Mid Pinellas, a suburban corporate office area), the St. Petersburg waterfront and the current location were the choices provided (meaning the Tropicana Field parking lot).

The Rays have no hope for a new venue as long as the team stays as pathetic as they have been since their inception. It's just noteworthy the team is putting it's toe in the pool regarding the stadium situation.