stdreb27
Active Member
You morons in the Tampa Bay area, you can't even get 12000 people to show up at your ball games? Longoria was right to critizise you. I wouldn't worry about the "cardinal rule of never critizising the fan base" after all they don't have a fan base.
Tampa Bay Rays stars call low attendance at home 'embarrassing'
By David Brown
The two best players on the Tampa Bay Rays, including the face of the franchise, called out the team's fans, complaining that low attendance at Tropicana Field on Monday night was "embarrassing."
Hoo boy.
Evan Longoria(notes) (to reporters) and David Price(notes) (on Twitter) probably meant well when they wondered aloud why only 12,446 fans — the fourth-smallest crowd of the season — turned up when the Rays could have clinched a playoff spot.
Longoria's take, Via the St. Petersburg Times:
No matter their good intentions, no matter their honesty, no matter if they have reason to be upset — even if they were 1000 percent correct — what Longoria (pictured right) and Price did was a mistake. /lib/ckeditor/images/spacer.gif?t=A39E
It's a cardinal rule: You don't criticize your fan base. It's stupid. It's ignorant. It won't get you what you want. It makes you look entitled, spoiled, narrow-minded and short-sighted.
The timing was poor, too, after losing 4-0 to the Baltimore Orioles. No matter how well you're doing — and the Rays are having a great season — nobody wants to hear how bad the attendance was on a night when your team is shut out. It's an obvious lack of perspective.
Longoria later said he was "just trying to rally the troops and get more people in here," which I believe.
Price already backtracked, saying, "If I offended anyone I apologize" — which is the classic non-apology apology. He's probably sorry, though, for one reason or another.
There are many reasons the Rays lag at 22nd overall in attendance. Start with: Bad stadium, bad location of stadium, bad economy. There's more. It's all irrelevant to Longoria and Price criticizing the fans.
It's just bad policy, scolding people for not paying their own money to watch you.
It's as if Longoria and Price are saying, "Well, I'd pay to watch us play. What's wrong with you?"
[Photos: to ownership, as this blog post suggests.
Tampa Bay Rays stars call low attendance at home 'embarrassing'
By David Brown
The two best players on the Tampa Bay Rays, including the face of the franchise, called out the team's fans, complaining that low attendance at Tropicana Field on Monday night was "embarrassing."
Hoo boy.
Evan Longoria(notes) (to reporters) and David Price(notes) (on Twitter) probably meant well when they wondered aloud why only 12,446 fans — the fourth-smallest crowd of the season — turned up when the Rays could have clinched a playoff spot.
Longoria's take, Via the St. Petersburg Times:
Jeez, what is it with Tampa Bay athletes who live in glass houses?
No matter their good intentions, no matter their honesty, no matter if they have reason to be upset — even if they were 1000 percent correct — what Longoria (pictured right) and Price did was a mistake. /lib/ckeditor/images/spacer.gif?t=A39E
It's a cardinal rule: You don't criticize your fan base. It's stupid. It's ignorant. It won't get you what you want. It makes you look entitled, spoiled, narrow-minded and short-sighted.
The timing was poor, too, after losing 4-0 to the Baltimore Orioles. No matter how well you're doing — and the Rays are having a great season — nobody wants to hear how bad the attendance was on a night when your team is shut out. It's an obvious lack of perspective.
Longoria later said he was "just trying to rally the troops and get more people in here," which I believe.
Price already backtracked, saying, "If I offended anyone I apologize" — which is the classic non-apology apology. He's probably sorry, though, for one reason or another.
There are many reasons the Rays lag at 22nd overall in attendance. Start with: Bad stadium, bad location of stadium, bad economy. There's more. It's all irrelevant to Longoria and Price criticizing the fans.
It's just bad policy, scolding people for not paying their own money to watch you.
It's as if Longoria and Price are saying, "Well, I'd pay to watch us play. What's wrong with you?"
[Photos: to ownership, as this blog post suggests.
