Rays of Light

If you sing it, they will come?

Kevin “Mr. Baseball Movie” Costner has made an anthem to salute the Rays.

Actor and director Kevin Costner and his band, Modern West, have recorded a song, “It’s All Up to You,” as a salute to the American League Eastern Division champion Tampa Bay Rays.

The song, with a tune and beat reminiscent of John Mellencamp, features lyrics about overcoming adversity. It also includes some Rays radio highlights, including a walk-off home run by Cliff Floyd against the Chicago White Sox.

The Rays should know tonight whether they will face the White Sox or Minnesota Twins in the American League Division Series. The White Sox and Twins play a tiebreaker tonight to determine the AL Central Division champion.

Game 1 of the best-of-five ALDS starts at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in St. Petersburg.

Costner, whose movie credits include “Bull Durham,” “Field of Dreams” and “For the Love of the Game,” helped the Rays introduce their new uniforms, colors and logos last October.

He also recorded a promotional video for the Rays when team officials tried to rally public support for their since-postponed downtown St. Petersburg stadium proposal. He offered to help the team as a favor to Rays owner Stuart Sternberg after the two met.

Here are the lyrics to part of the song’s chorus:

“You got to swing for the fence, give a hundred percent,

“Dust yourself off, get up and do it again.

“You’re the only one that can make your dreams come true.

“You’re the only one, it’s all up to you.”

 Here is the link to the song, since it starts automatically…  

(This will play the song in your own media player…)

Posted in Fun, General | 1 Comment »

Lunch Break - 3/6/08

So, as a follow-up to yesterday, I picked up MLB 08: The Show for PSP - great game, by the way - and have been treated to 2007 flashbacks in each of the three games I’ve played so far.

Game 1: Rays vs White Sox - Scott Kazmir goes 5 2/3 solid innings with 11 Ks (with WAY too many pitches) before finally giving way to the bullpen. Rays up 4-3 in the 7th before Dan Wheeler, Gary Glover, Trever Miller, and Al Reyes combine to allow 7 runs. We end up losing 11-4.

Game 2: Rays at Red Sox - James Shields is God-like for 7 innings, an a 2-RBI single by Evan Longoria has tied the game at 2-2. In the bottom of the 8th, Al Reyes gives up a 3-run home run to Sean Casey and the Rays lose 5-2.

Game 3:  Rays vs Rockies - We absolutely tattoo Ubaldo Jimenez and open up a 6-1 lead by the third inning. Matt Garza cruises along for 7, and by the time he exits, we’re up 9-2. Grant Balfour comes in, and I’m forced to go to Troy Percival in the 9th inning before holding on for a 9-7 win.

Let’s hope this ISN’T a sign of things to come…

Tags: MLB 08: The Show
Posted in Fun | 11 Comments »

Outrage! Scandal! Indignity! (Another Random Noun Here)!

The outrages I’ve suffered today will not be soon forgotten. I will not be forgetting those outrages, NO NO!! - Stewart Gilligan Griffin

You might recall that I came up shockingly short for the David Bloom Award earlier in the year, as the great political machine of corruption and greed did its best to keep a working man down. After weeks of therapy with Dr. Jack Daniels and and his associate Dr. Jim Beam, I’ve finally moved on and accepted that I was TOO good to win the award and that’s why they COULDN’T give it to me. I liken it to an election when there is an absolutely clear front-runner; I was so far out in front that all of my constituents stayed home and didn’t vote, costing me the election. It’s okay, though. I’ve moved on.

But here we go again. (Source)

It’s that time of year again, it seems. DRays Bay, once again, gets the opportunity to ask Rays Principal Owner Stu Sternberg a few questions. This year, however, I opened up the floor to a couple other people (Cork Gaines from “Rays Index” and EricSanSan from “Rays Anatomy”) and they both got a question in on it. I hope everyone enjoys it and hope the answers given solved a few burning questions for Rays fans.

OUTRAGEOUS! And not “Oh. My. Gawd! What an outrageous new haircut you’ve got!” This is more like OUTRAGE-ous. I see Cork’s name. I see Easy Eric’s name. But, um, I don’t see my name. Journalistic oversight? I think not. There’s no way you could overlook someone who puts up posts about the most juvenile names in sports or who pimps out what he does at work rather than providing new, Rays-related content.

No, it’s clearly not that. But I think I have figured out why I’ve been left out yet again: they are prejudiced against expectant fathers! There’s no other explanation! And really, who can blame them? With something as cute as this, I’d be jealous, too.

Well let me tell you something misters: expectant fathers have feelings, too! Moreover, expectant fathers have questions they want to ask Stu Sternberg! Here’s just a random sampling of some of the GREAT content we could’ve provided:

• What’s it like having such an alliterative name? That must be so totally awesome.
• Does Joe Maddon have a bike injury clause in his contract?
• If the moon were made of barbecue spare ribs, would you eat it? Yes or no? It’s a simple question!
• What’s scarier: Elijah Dukes with his Treo in hand or Shawn Camp with a baseball in his hand?
• Will you be my friend? Please?

And you mean to tell me that I’m not worthy of getting to ask a question to our fearless leader? Blasphemous! Well, when I’m up at 4AM feeding my daughter and changing her diapers in June, it’ll all be worth it. Stay jealous, and keep doing things that don’t involve me; I’m not bitter about it or anything.

Now, on to the links!

• The Rays announced their promotions schedule, and they will be giving away something to fans at no less than 42 of the 81 home games. We’re most looking forward to “Wrestling Night” in hopes that Hulk Hogan and Nasty Boy Knobs come out to try and take on Jonny Gomes. I like Gomer in that one. (TBO.com)
• MLB Trade Rumors is putting up a nifty list of all of the players who are out of Major League options, so kudos to them. Just to run down the Rays again: Edwin Jackson, Jason Hammel, Carlos Pena, Jonny Gomes, Gary Glover, Scott Dohmann, and Willy Aybar. Of those, Dohmann is the most likely to be waived in an attempt to send him to the minors. (MLBTradeRumors)
• Oh, snap! Delmon told you guys! “If they’re trying to blame us for the way they weren’t winning — if it was us two, we weren’t there from ‘98 to ‘06, so …” (TBO.com)
• David Price is like Francisco Liriano. I didn’t say it; Jason Bartlett did. And if comes out of the mouth of BSSE (Best Shortstop Ever), it must be true. (The Heater)
• Mitch Talbot has anger management issues. Kind of like me. When all the cool kids leave me out of something like questions for Andrew Friedman. But I’m not bitter. Though it’s good that Mitch knows what his problems are, is it such a good idea to go out and advertise them like that? It makes him look incapable of handling the pressure of the big leagues. (MLB.com)

Tags: Please don't take this post too seriously you crazy cat
Posted in Fun | 17 Comments »

Fantasy baseball spots

There’s still a few spots open on the Rays of Light side for the RoL-VFTB Baseball Challenge! Shoot me an e-mail and tell me why you should represent this side against Joe’s Wrigley Bunch in fantasy baseball!

Posted in Fun | 2 Comments »

Lunch Break - 2/11/08 - Fantasy Baseball Challenge!

The following communique comes from our fearless leader Joe Aiello over on View from the Bleachers:

Being the founder of two separate blogs (Rays of Light being the second), I’m constantly monitoring which site is doing better. That being said, I decided that it might be fun to see which site had the better fantasy baseball players and have come up with a contest to find out.

This year we will setup a league on MLB.com’s Fantasy Open. There are a few reasons why I chose this platform to host the league.

1. As a user of Yahoo for all of my fantasy play, I have grown frustrated with the fact that a user has to pay to have the live scoring be part of the league experience. MLB.com offers that as part of the free game.
2. I have always enjoyed Fantasy Football because the decisions for the week can be made on one day. Fantasy Baseball has always required daily lineup changes, which can become cumbersome. MLB.com’s league uses the weekly lineup setting.
3. I can’t stand how people constantly add/drop starting pitchers each day to rack up K’s and Wins. This isn’t much of a strategy if you ask me. In this setup, a team does not draft individual pitchers, but rather a full team’s staff. For example, if you draft the Cubs pitching staff, you get the whole lot of them that week. It’s similar to the system used in fantasy football with defense.

The Fantasy Challenge this year will work as follows:

• Rays of Light will be represented by Scott Caruso, the site’s editor. He will choose five of his readers to compete for the Rays of Light squad.
• View From The Bleachers will be represented by myself. I will choose five of my readers to compete for the VFTB squad.
• Each team member will manage their team with the goal of winning the league. Points will be given based on order of finish with 12 points going for first place and so on down to 1 point for last.
• At the end of the season, the standings points earned by each team will be totaled up to determine which blog won. The winning blog will see it’s readers receive a book of their choice from the prize library.
• The league will begin with a live draft on March 24th (my birthday) at 9pm EDT.

If you are interested in representing the Rays of Light team, send me an e-mail and we’ll discuss why you might be worthy. You can contact me at scottcaruso@gmail.com. Let’s beat those Cubbies! (Everyone else in the league does.)

Posted in Fun | 3 Comments »

Rays Trivia

Let’s have some fun this weekend with a trivia question.

 Q: Who is the only Ray in history to hit a homerun as a lefty and a righty in the same game and what year did it happen?

Leave your guesses in the comment section, but please refrain from web searches as that takes the fun out of playing.

Posted in Fun | 6 Comments »

Lunch Break - 1/25/08

I thought we’d have a little fun today to get everyone prepped for the weekend. There’s nothing wrong with lightening the mood a little, right?

There have been some downright hilarious names of professional athletes in the past - God Shammgod, Dick Trickle, Rusty Kuntz - so really, all I want is to hear what some of your favorites are. Is there an athlete name that makes you chuckle every time you hear it? Do you want to show off how smart you are and name every funny-named athlete you can think of? Have at it boys; let’s come up with a complete - and hilarious - list.

Here’s the kicker - this is going to turn into a contest as long as there are enough entries! I’m not going to tell you exactly how, but it won’t be just based off of naming a funny athlete. Feel free to choose as many as you want (but don’t just go and list like 20 of them so other people don’t get to participate). Also, feel free to respond and comment however you’d like with this one. Since some of these are likely to be a little on the silly side (c’mon, Dick Trickle!?), some of the more common rules of etiquette on the site will probably go out the window.

Most of all, though, have fun with it! I’ll announce the “contest” part of it a little bit later on.

Tags: A total waste of time, Did I really stop to read this crap?, Funny names
Posted in Discussion, Fun | 23 Comments »

Voting scandal update

Alas, we were unsuccessful in our attempt to crush the machine that has led to our being denied the exclusive David Bloom Award from DRays Bay, but that’s okay! We’ve decided to take up our attempts to win the REAL David Bloom Award instead!

The David Bloom Award was established by the Radio & Television Association in 2006 to honor excellence in enterprise reporting. ABC World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff received the award in its first year.

I’m pretty sure what I do can be classified as enterprise reporting, right?

Right?

Okay, maybe not. Let’s scrap that idea. Instead, I think I’m just going to sit here and continue to write ridiculous posts complaining about something as ridiculous as this is. Self-serving, isn’t it?

Hey! Maybe we could start our own award… Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering? More later…

Tags: David Bloom Award, hanging chads, rigged elections, voter fraud, voter intimidation
Posted in Fun | 8 Comments »

The fight goes on!

(Begin by imagining me walking up to a podium in front of a throng of screaming people. Come on. Do it.)

My fellow Rays of Lighters,

Your voices have been heard, and although the corrupt forces of statewide politics are working against allowing a third-party to become viable in this climate, I vow to continue the fight to win the David Bloom Award!

Not only are there dozens of uncounted absentee ballots out there, but I am in the process of starting my own investigation as it relates to reports of voting box tampering, voter intimidation, and - yes - even hanging chads. It is in my estimation that a recount may be required, and if so, we will follow it through to the fullest extent of the law.

You might be saying to yourself, “Scott, voting is already closed, and you’re like 30 percent behind. The award is going to be given out tomorrow. What else can we do?” That’s a very good question. Really, there’s not very much you have to do right now. You’ve stuck by me for this long - even though we were never informed that this vote was taking place - so all I am asking is that you stick by me just a little bit longer.

My message remains the same throughout this entire ordeal: it’s time for all voices to be heard! Too long have we been subject to a two-party system in which a pair of entities with special interest ties controls what you can read on the blogosphere. Too long have we been subjected to one party that wants to believe that you are stupid and that doesn’t believe it needs to use proper grammar to get its point across. Too long have we been subjected to a party that speaks only for itself and not for the voices of the people it is supposed to represent. The Rays of Light stand for change; we stand for the voices of all of those real fans that have never been heard. We stand for the values that the blogosphere was founded upon, and we will not rest until our message has been heard loud and clear!

Every great movement comes with resistance from the establishment. That’s never going to change. But what can change is the attitude that we as Rays fans have towards that establishment. Are you going to sit idly by while the monoliths of days gone by try to tell you what to think, or are you going to embrace the values that make the blogosphere special? In this election for the David Bloom Award, you should have had a choice but that choice was ripped away from you when our electorate was shockingly left out of the voting process without even a singular email, letter, or call to inform us that this voting was going on.

Again, I ask that you remain vigilant in your fight to get the word out about the Rays of Light movement while I remain vigilant in my fight to win the David Bloom Award. Thank you, Florida, and Raymond bless Tampa Bay!

(The above post - “speech” if you will - was done completely in jest. I don’t REALLY harbor deep resentment that there was a vote going on that we were never informed about (through a third-party, by the way) until the day before polling closed.)

Posted in Fun | 11 Comments »