Tag Archives: Tropicana Field

A Weird, Wonderful Welcome Home

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Tropicana Field

The rotunda at Tropicana Field is a bright, welcoming portal. It’s the front porch of the big, old, dusty (but always pleasant) dome.

Once again, I found myself at Tropicana Field on Tuesday afternoon, blinking away the memories. I thought it might get easier the more often I went, the more time and space I put between myself and my former self. But no. It’s not easier. It’s the same. Mostly.

Only …

This time, I didn’t gaze quite so often down toward the press box, trying to discern with my weakening eyes who was sitting in my seat. No. It’s not mine. Not anymore.

And …

I found myself more engaged in conversation with those around me in the Bobby Doerr Suite than enraptured by the action on the field. Make no mistake – I watched David Price pitch against the Orioles Tuesday, and I saw Evan Longoria make Gold Glove play after Gold Glove play. I saw, too, Jake McGee’s agony in a five-run Orioles seventh. When I did watch, my mind clicked back into the old habit of looking for every minute detail of every play, seeking the differentiator, the true turning point, looking beyond the obvious for the interesting and the eternal. When I wrote about baseball, I used to watch for those moments like a cat watches a bouncing feather tied to a stick – not mesmerized, exactly, but poised to snatch it and make that moment my own.

Tropicana Field

The view from the Bobby Doerr Suite at Tropicana Field.

But …

We left, my fellow parent blogger and I, in the eighth inning. We left bearing gifts after an enjoyable Opening Day afternoon. I was accompanied by Scotty Schrier, writer and publisher of DadsWhoChangeDiapers.com, and we were there as guests of the Tampa Bay Rays. Which also was … odd … for me. Odd, but pretty cool, too. And we left before the game was done, because we could, and because it was time for us to go. We came, we saw, we enjoyed, and we tried to beat the rush hour traffic across the Howard Frankland Bridge and home to our families.

So …

We come to it, the reason why it HAS to be different now for me, why my old way of thinking about this ball club and this stadium no longer applies. I used to cover this team for a newspaper. Now, thanks to an out-of-the-blue email from the Rays’ marketing department, I am one of several Tampa Bay area bloggers who are part of something entirely new in Major League Baseball – a local blogger outreach program with an eye toward telling stories about the fan experience at Tropicana Field, as well as the emotional connection the fans share with the team.

Tropicana Field

The Rays touch tank, just beyond the right-center field fence.

It starts with this year’s theme: Welcome Home. I understood the idea behind it the minute I saw the campaign reported in the Tampa Bay Times. Remember, this was a team that finished last in attendance in 2012, but finished eighth in MLB in terms of TV viewership. There is an obvious connection between the Rays and their fans, a connection that never has been reflected in the average attendance. The Rays, beginning their 16th season, now feel like the home team. A generation of kids have grown up with them. To those kids, no matter where life takes them, the Rays will always mean home.

It has taken a while for that to happen. I was there in the bad old days, when a “crowd” of 4,000 people was announced as 8,500 routinely. When 100-loss seasons were routine. When you could sit on press row and distinctly make out spoken conversations between fans sitting behind either dugout. When the Devil was in details of the organization, as well as in the name.

David Price

2012 AL Cy Young Award winner David Price celebrates after a strikeout. The first 20,000 fans at Saturday’s game between the Rays and the Indians receive a pretty cool figurine based on this photo. (Image courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays)

I also was there for the early days of the Stu Sternberg-Matt Silverman-Andrew Friedman-Joe Maddon transition. I had a lot of conversations with all four of them back then about how they intended to fix what they had inherited. I didn’t always share their vision. But then … I’m me – a laid-off baseball scribe working now in Internet marketing – and they are the Fantastic Four who shaped what has become the most respected organization in baseball.

And … this: I guess some might call me a shill. I did accept the team’s invitation, after all, to spend the afternoon in the Bobby Doerr Suite. To partake of their chicken fingers and diet soda. To grab the bag of April giveaways on my way out.

Doesn’t matter. I know where I stand now. It might always be weird for me to go back to the Trop. But I wonder. When is it not a little weird going back to the old places? When are the ghosts ever exorcised?

David Price

Joe Maddon gnome, Price figurine, Astro bobblehead dog. Guess which one my sons want to break … I mean, play with first? Once again, Cy Price is overshadowed by the dog.

I’m pretty sure now that’ll never happen for me, not completely. I can never be a fan, really, because I spent too many years zealously honing and guarding my objectivity. It’s ingrained now. I could no more root for the Rays than I could hit Price’s fastball. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what the Rays have become. In fact, it might even strengthen any argument I might make in favor of the experience of being a Rays fan — if I say it or write it, you know I mean it. I never pulled punches when I covered the team, and I don’t intend to start now.

Yet, I’m still learning how to do this. This is a different role for me. It’s enough for me to know now that I can look at this organization through a fresh set of eyes, the eyes of a father of two sons who already have begun to form an allegiance with this team that I’ll never enjoy, but will encourage in them with all of my might.

One day, maybe my sons will focus in on the game situation in a given moment, try to guess along with the batter, anticipate the hit-and-run, appreciate a well-executed sacrifice bunt, attempt to interpret the intricacies of the unwritten rules that govern player behavior on and off the field. Maybe they will love the game like I do.

Only, they’ll do so through the prism of Rays fanhood. That’s something I can absolutely get behind, and if they invite me back, I’ll surely go. It might feel weird, but then, isn’t it always when you go home again?

Tampa Bay Rays

Just a couple of Rays fans, excited about Opening Day.

Two Lives Collide at the Ball Park on Father’s Day

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Father’s Day at the Trop.

My two lives collided today when we took the boys to Tropicana Field for a game between the Rays and the Marlins. It’s still weird going back to that place.

Did you ever go back to your old high school for a visit in the years shortly after graduation? You feel like an interloper in a place that once was so familiar. Even though they might greet you with warm handshakes and smiles, you know it’s only for a minute because there are other, more-pressing demands at hand. You are no longer an integral part of the décor. Everyone has moved on without you.

It’s like that when I go back to the Trop, the place I used to call my office.

This was the AP version of Father’s Day for the DadScribe family: A near-sellout crowd saw the Rays defeat the Marlins, 3-0, on the strength of seven shutout innings for starting pitcher Alex Cobb and a leadoff home run for center fielder B.J. Upton.

The optional write-through would lead with Jay and Chris going off for an hour with MomScribe to play in the many kid-themed areas they’ve stuffed the Trop with over the years. Meanwhile, I popped into the press box for a quick chat with an old acquaintance or two. I didn’t bother the other writers, because they were busy. They had other, more-pressing matters at hand. I’m no longer an integral part of the décor.

So, we all went to the ball game. A co-worker has access to fantastic tickets in the lower bowl, slightly down the first-base line behind home plate and about 10 rows from the field. This was good, because there’s no way the boys would’ve been able to follow the game from the nosebleeds. Come to think of it, though, Chris could’ve done exactly what he did at those seats if we’d been in the upper deck – play round after round of Angry Birds on my old iPhone. At least Jay was a bit more engaged. When Upton hit his homer, he jumped out of his seat and pumped his fists. I’m sure it had as much to do with the general air of excitement around him as it did his actual reaction to the hit, but it was a great moment, nonetheless.

The best moment had nothing to do with the game. During the pregame circus at the Trop, dancing girls toss t-shirts and little foam baseballs into the stands (The ghosts of Branch Rickey and Kenesaw Mountain Landis are surely tormented by the fact that, in the 21st century, dancing girls throw t-shirts and little foam balls into the stands during pregame). One of the little foam balls landed at the feet of an elderly gentleman a few rows in front of us. He picked it up, made his way to our seats, smiled, and wordlessly handed the ball to Jay. We thanked him, and Jay immediately stood up and tossed me the ball. Then he held out his hands for me to throw it back to him. That’s right. Our first game of catch at an actual major-league stadium came courtesy of those dancing girls and that kindly old man. Another great moment in a day full of them.

Still … every now and then, I couldn’t help gazing over my left shoulder at the press box. Before the game, as they went through the usual loud and (frankly) obnoxious pregame preparations, I pointed out the press box to Jay.

“See all those guys sitting up there, buddy? That’s where I used to work. Right up there.”

He looked at the heads of the writers and broadcasters, just visible above the front lip of the press box. His question astonished me. Sometimes I have to remind myself he’s only 6.

“Daddy, do you wish you still worked up there and you were still a writer covering games?”

I didn’t even have to think about my answer.

“No way, Jaybird. If I still did that, I’d be on the road all the time. And even when I was home, I’d be here almost every night, and you’d almost never see me. I like it just the way it is right now.”

And I meant that. It’s never going to be “just a trip to the ball game” for me when I go to the Trop. Every nook and cranny of that place is absolutely stuffed with memories. I wrapped so much of my self-identity into my former profession, and visiting Tropicana Field reminds me of the guy I used to be. I didn’t always like that guy, and I wasn’t always happy in that profession. But man, it was glorious.

I don’t know. Maybe now that I’ve introduced the boys to that part of my former life, we’ll start to go to the Trop more often as a family. They certainly seemed to enjoy it. And who knows? Maybe the more I go with them, and the more I begin to see the Trop, and baseball, through their eyes, the less awkward it will feel for me to be there.

And one day, maybe we’ll sit in our seats and enjoy the game and the company and I won’t be tempted to gaze wistfully up at the press box. Instead, maybe I’ll think back to the time when we were there and Jay tossed me that little foam ball, and Chris sat quietly and played Angry Birds, and MomScribe and I smiled at each other and knew it was a good day.