Monday Musings
Monday, February 2nd, 2009For most people, the seasons are changing from winter into spring. For sports fans it is a different kind of season change. This is the time of year that my Buccaneers shirts are now demoted to the second team and my Rays hat and shirt are officially promoted to the first team. It’s in the air, everywhere. You can smell it (unless that is the chicken wings and cheesecake from last night) as last second touchdowns transform into walk off grand slams. Just as we start to lament the end (come on, is the pro bowl really relevant, EVER?) of all things football, there is hope. We see the Rays Of Light, poking their heads over the clouds saying, ” Baseball is almost here!”
We have a long journey before opening day and the first pitch. There is the World Baseball Classic (which looks better this year then last), the Yankees off-season shopping spree (we’ll get to that in a separate article as it is worth of an article of it’s own), the RedSox got scarier with their pitching and the Rays made some moves of their own to actually get some bats. And before the WBC, we’ll get the Barry Bonds Court TV Show, 24/7. That will be good, hopefully Barry will get his just deserts. You get tired of people wondering if he did anything wrong and all you have to do is look at his head! Which player in baseball will out do Plaxico Burress from the New York Football Giants? That will be an award I will hand out at the end of the baseball season. I will give the first official Plaxico Burress award to some lucky player in Major League Baseball for off the field stupidity. Elijah Dukes, formerly (thank goodness) of the Rays, would have been the front runner for 2008.
Last year was one of the few times in a franchise history that a loss could have been a win. While it was frustrating to see the Rays fall just short of winning the World Series, just the mere fact that they got there was a miracle! This was defiantly the year of miracles, the Cardinals lost in the Superbowl and the Rays lost in the World Series. Maybe if we had some of those magic Doritos from last nights ad, we could have taken care of the Rays World Series batting slump and that nasty weather. This is historic in Tampa this year that anyone in Tampa (besides the Rays front office) will actually have post-season exceptions for these Rays! One bonus as far as radio coverage goes for the Rays radio play by play, this year the Rays flagship station will be 620 WDAE, which means we’ll have a MUCH stronger signal for quality AM baseball listening this year. There is nothing quite as good as relaxing a few hours with the radio on and the Rays up to bat!
I’m going to be covering the Rays hitting lineup this year for the Rays Of Light, plus I’ll also be looking at the AL East (mainly the BoSox and Yankees but the other teams also when they are actually relevant) and I’ll be writing this column as well, Monday Musings, which will sort of be a what ever happens to be on my mind at the time as far as the sports world is concerned. We might go “off the board” from time to time as my mind wanders quite often. I’m looking forward to baseball, this year…and we hope the AL East…feels the heat! GO RAYS!
