A Letter From Longtime Baseball Fan to Ignorant Writer
Originally Published on September 24th, 2019 on my Wordpress blog Florida Sports Report
Dear Josh Tolentino,
You have blocked me from Twitter last night because of my responses to your tweet about the Rays, Tropicana Field, and the fanbase. Let’s start by saying that you have every right to block me on Twitter. You don’t have to read my tweets, you have the leeway to choose to prevent me from engaging in any discussions with you and your fellow followers on the website. This is not a demand to unblock me.
However…..
We can discuss the tweet that prompted my harsh criticism towards you. You took a picture of the typical empty stands in Tropicana Field and decided to shame the fanbase for not showing up to watch an exciting team in the thicket of a playoff race. You decided to follow that same tiring storyline that has been plaguing the Rays fans for the past few years. And I’ll admit I was disappointed from time to time with the lack of fans showing up to the Trop many years ago as we began to shed off those Devil Rays years, changed colors, and became a consistent playoff chaser. But this is before seeing and understanding the big picture about the Rays, about the fanbase, its location, and the area’s relationship with the ownership group. I am now awake about the realities. This is the big picture that you and most of Tampa Bay media continues to avoid.
Before making that tiring statement that led to me, a paying Athletic customer, being blocked on Twitter by you as opposed to starting a debate, you ignore a plethora of details that contributes greatly to the current situation. And it should not be up to me to point this all out, after all, you are the beat writer, you are the one employed by The Athletic, it is up to you to uncover the truth and explore the reasons why a team that (and you fail to mention this constantly) has good numbers in social media, radio, and especially television. But now that we are here and I am tossing all the verbal haymakers to arrive at my point, here are the missed details:
Florida is a notorious hotbed of people originally from other states especially in the Northeast, bringing with them their fandom of other squads like the Red Sox, Phillies, Yankees, and Mets. Florida is also the home to Spring Training, which allows for teams like the Pirates, Phillies, and especially the Yankees to find/keep fans within the same area codes as the Rays.
Tampa Bay is one of the youngest areas in terms of median age in the entire country, which brings in a plethora of things to do ranging from arts to entertainment to nightlife to dining and of course there’s also the miles of award-winning beaches complimented by (mostly) wonderful weather. Being away from all the increased activity and rapid growth as well as being far from all the fast-growing universities (as well as the beaches) definitely doesn’t help.
The Rays constantly rank on the lower-third in terms of payroll. This means in order to maintain a competitive nature, players are constantly leaving, constantly being traded, and even fan favorites like Evan Longoria aren’t spared. Players sell tickets, not teams. This is why the Dodgers, Phillies, Padres, and White Sox saw great increases in their attendance regardless of record: they have players whose names are known, they have big and rising stars.
The history of the Rays dictates that we will someday lose Kiermaier, we will lose Blake Snell, and if the price is right even Ji-Man Choi will head elsewhere in the near future. I can’t blame them, we saw a Mike Trout earn a stellar $400 million extension not too long ago. Blake Snell’s 2019 earnings? $1 million. Yes, the Cy Young winner is making just a measly million. Remember the David Price trade in the middle of a pennant chase that led to Joe Maddon leaving for Chicago? These are things that deflates excitement to go see a team, knowing in the back of your mind that your favorite might be in the trading block because the Rays payroll budget doesn’t support keeping him around longer. The payroll dropped from $80 million down to $50 million, which is the lowest since 2008. So even if we are performing above expectations, what good is that if we can’t keep the great talent we’ve acquired?
Try watching a television show that changes its cast of characters every single season.
Tropicana Field is the seventh-oldest baseball park, the lowest-rated, the only one with a fixed roof, and (this bears repeating) the most inconveniently located ballpark in the entire country. Oh yea there’s also that no-cash and no-backpack nonsense. Tropicana Field remains the stadium that has the fewest surrounding households in all of Major League Baseball. Tropicana Field’s market is 3 million but a majority of the fans don’t even live in the same city. So, an old, broken, cold stadium far from the social life and the beach isn’t doing well and you are surprised?
Yet, in spite of this, in spite of the stadium woes, blurry future, and melting pot of allegiances, attendance had actually been increasing, which is the type of improvement that over a dozen teams in the league were not experiencing. The TV ratings were starting to break records, they were constantly the highest-rated programs and we were becoming more invested in this team.
You may have forgotten or choose to forget, but ownership and co. pretty much admitted that they weren’t going to invest more in a new stadium in actual Tampa, they weren’t going to seek a future in Tampa Bay entirely after the lease is up late next decade. They wanted us to pour money into a part-time baseball stadium for a team that will leave within the next decade. They wanted us to support the idea of seeing our team go to a completely different country and play out the rest of the season there. I notice you once covered the Packers. Go present the idea of moving the Packers to spend half their season in Mexico City and see how it sits with the fans in Wisconsin. You would need Witness Protection.
So with all this in mind: how dare you question the Rays fans and how dare you be upset from your press box to see empty seats after all we have witnessed and experienced this decade with this league.
How dare you be upset that we aren’t driving past merciless traffic jams, driving down the ONE main bridge that connects St. Petersburg’s Trop to the heartbeat of Rays fandom which is the greater Tampa area. How dare you be upset that we aren’t spending an hour total on the roads to pay $15-$20 for parking to enter a stadium built in the middle of nowhere during the 1980s that won’t even accept backpacks to help alleviate the expenses of visiting a team that already has one foot towards the relocation door with friends and/or family.
How dare you look the other way while the organization insults the entire area, collects the profits of a franchise that is now worth over a billion (and rising thanks to the upcoming TV deals), slashed payroll by nearly 40% yet won’t slash the prices of the food/parking/merchandise/overall experience, and recently tried to strong-arm the West Coast of Florida into getting a nice pretty new stadium without having to invest much of anything towards it. I guess you are part of their payroll with the way you choose to attack the fans and not what product the fans are supporting.
And you could have chosen to explain your side and prove to me that it remains unacceptable in spite of all the circumstances I have presented for Tropicana Field to have such few fans. But instead, it was much easier to block me on Twitter and continue spewing vitriol towards the slew of upset Rays fans that were also disappointed in your half-assed tweet. Once again, you have the right to block me and not have to debate me.
But, as a writer who is employed by an organization that claims they are the future of sports journalism, you have to do much much much better than neglect the events of the post-Joe Maddon Tampa Bay Rays—–that if they had their way would be the Montreal Rayxpos within the next couple years. You have to do way better than just forget what had transpired early in the season just everything had just kicked off and we were riding high with the fourth best record in the entire league.
These things matter, baseball fans are not stupid. Baseball fans in Tampa Bay see the rising prices, rising profits that don’t lead to increased payroll, they are seeing what happened in Marlins Park, they are seeing the big stars heading elsewhere to compete, they are seeing a refusal to open the pocketbooks to evolve the franchise into a success story that can inch closer towards the World Series. They saw the former Rays manager move to a place with better payroll and end a century-long curse. They saw former Rays executives in charge of talent move to another franchise with a much bigger willingness to spend and end up in back-to-back World Series.
There clearly is championship potential with our superb coaching, scouting, and creativity. But until ownership decides to take Tampa Bay and Florida seriously we will never see improvement. To some, the David Price trade was the last straw. To others, Joe Maddon leaving was the final straw. And to some this season, the Montreal idea was the final straw. Whatever the case, there are tons of moments in which a Rays fan has every right to just walk away and choose another team or stop watching baseball entirely. But you chose to ignore all this, sit on the press box, take a picture, and neglect all the events of the Post-Maddon Rays, and toss in the complaint, on a Monday night, with a traffic jam all but guaranteed looming in the I-4 background.
So, shame on you. I’m sure you are a good writer, but as of this week you have shown an extreme level of ignorance that should not be accepted by a prestigious website like The Athletic.
You can keep me blocked, but it’s not going to stop me from defending the Rays Republic, and won’t stop me from making this public. Shame on you, do better, screw the current ownership of the Rays, the fans and the players/coaches within the organization deserves better, and #RaysUp.
Sincerely,
Milton E. Malespin, longtime baseball fan and (unemployed) writer who actually knows what’s up.