Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

I'm part of the Rays bad fan base. I live 10 minutes from Tropicana Field. I've seen over 20 games a season since the Devil Rays started, until this season. I didn't shake my fist and say "I'll never go to another game again!" when Stu started his whining. But when your salary gets cut by 10% and you're told you are a bad fan by an owner who feels he deserves your money, it makes it real easy to say, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." If it's so bad here, buy out your lease and trick some other city into building you a stadium.

 

Actually, Arizona's ballpark was something like 2/3 publicly financed, even though there was a law prohibiting public financing of stadiums that was approved by a referendum in 1989. The pro-stadium people did an end-around:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Field

 

That wasn't my point. The point is that just building a stadium does not guarantee you're going to pack it.

 

Chase Field is cold and charmless.

 

But enough about the swimming pool ...

 

Bob Nightengale is reporting there's no chance Showalter becomes GM in Baltimore, as some had thought he would engineer that kind of power grab.

 

I love how Charlie Manuel has to end so many of his rambling answers in a presser with the phrase, "If that makes any sense."

 

Was the idea that he would be the GM and manage? Who's the last person to do that? I know (or at least think) it's been a while.

I can't imagine Buck would rather be upstairs than on the field.

 

The O's should just go ahead and fire him now so they can start their get-to-the-World-Series clock.

 

Well played.

 

Leyland's opening in his presser was hysterical.

 

The White Sox, hoping to reclaim past glory, have named their new manager:



Per @mlb