Tampa Bay Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in the Tampa Bay area. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. They are one of two major league clubs based in Florida, alongside the National League (NL)’s Miami Marlins. Since its inception, the team's home ballpark has been Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Tampa Bay Rays
Following nearly three decades of unsuccessfully trying to gain an expansion franchise or enticing existing teams to relocate to the Tampa Bay area, an ownership group led by Vince Naimoli was approved on March 9, 1995. The team began play as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 1998 Major League Baseball season.
The team's first decade of play was marked by futility; they finished in last place in the AL East in all but the 2004 season, when they finished second to last.[4] Following the 2007 season, Stuart Sternberg, who had purchased controlling interest in the team from Vince Naimoli two years earlier,[5] changed the team's name from "Devil Rays" to "Rays", now meaning both manta rays and rays of sunshine;[1][6] a manta ray logo appears on the uniform sleeves while a sunburst appears on the uniform front. The 2008 season saw the Rays post their first winning season, their first AL East championship, and their first American League pennant (defeating the rival Boston Red Sox in the ALCS), though they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in that year's World Series. Since then, the Rays have played in the postseason eight more times, winning the American League pennant again in 2020 and losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in that year's World Series.
The Tampa Bay Rays' chief rivals are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, which also play in the AL East. Regarding the former, there have been several notable on-field incidents.[7] The Rays also have an in-state interleague rivalry with the National League (NL)'s Miami Marlins (originally the Florida Marlins).
Through 2023, the Rays' all-time record is 2,011–2,097 (.490).[8]
Rivals[edit]
AL East[edit]
Tampa Bay's primary rivals are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.[47]
Team media[edit]
Radio[edit]
WDAE (620 AM) has been the flagship station of the Rays radio network since 2009. The play-by-play announcers are Andy Freed and Neil Solondz. Dave Wills served as a play-by-play announcer for 18 seasons before his death in March 2023.[99] Rich Herrera served as the host during pre- and post-game shows for the Tampa Rays Baseball Radio Network from 2005 to 2011.[100] The (Devil) Rays original radio team consisted of Paul Olden and Charlie Slowes, who broadcast games from 1998 to 2005. Slowes went to the Washington Nationals, where he is now lead announcer, while Olden pursued a photography career before replacing Bob Sheppard as the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium in 2008.[101]
Television[edit]
Bally Sports Sun, previously known as Fox Sports Sun, broadcasts the Rays' games on television. Through the 2008 season, many games also aired on Ion Television affiliate broadcast stations throughout the state of Florida, with WXPX-TV in Tampa as the flagship. However, after the 2008 season, Fox Sports signed an agreement to become the exclusive local broadcaster of the Rays, and will air 155 games per year through 2016.[102]
Dewayne Staats (play-by-play) and former MLB pitcher Brian Anderson (color commentary) are the TV voices of the Rays. For the first 11 seasons of the franchise, Staats teamed with former MLB pitcher Joe Magrane on the Rays' TV broadcasts. Magrane departed after conclusion of the 2008 season to take a position at the MLB Network. Former minors catcher and MLB manager Kevin Kennedy then served as the primary color commentator in 2009 and 2010, with Brian Anderson filling in on some road trips, after which Anderson took over as the everyday commentator from 2011.[103]
Awards[edit]
Staats, Magrane, Wills, Olden and Slowes have all been nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award, the broadcasters' path to the Baseball Hall of Fame.[104]
The Rookie[edit]
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were featured in the movie The Rookie, a 2002 drama directed by John Lee Hancock. It is based on the true story of pitcher Jim Morris, who had a brief but famous Major League Baseball career with the team.[105] Morris spent parts of two seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a reliever, pitching 15 innings in 21 games, with an earned run average of 4.80 and no decisions.[106]