Im Coming Out

The Rays fan base has seen a rather large jump this season. Higher attendance, better TV ratings, and merchandise sales are all evidence of this. Tampa Bay has become proud and excited about this team. All of this has led to national media, opposing team’s fans, and even lifelong Rays fans cry out about bandwagoners.

A bandwagon (band′wag′ən) fan is one that has been loosely defined throughout history by one or more of the following criteria: a) One who has no ethical, moral, or valuable reason to be alive. b) A human which had severe daddy issues as a child, is unable to make friends, and therefore follows a herding mentality that always shadows a winning team. And finally c) One who has direct ties and contributes to animal cruelty, starving children in Africa, and "premarital sex is evil" propaganda.

   These are the people who never went to a game before this year. The ones who would point and laugh when you walked into a bar with your green and blue rays t-shirt. These supposed "fans" were the ones so apathetic about this team just last year that they wouldn't have even noticed if the Rays packed up and moved to Las Vegas.

Hi. My name is Dino and I am a bandwagon fan.

   In my opinion, there are two types of bandwagon fans. The first are those who will stop cheering for the Rays whenever they return to mediocrity and/or fall from the national spotlight. The second type are those that previously just didn't care about baseball and/or the Rays and have fallen in love with this team. I’m sure many of you would agree that regardless of how fans become fans more is always better. Sure, we may not know much about previous Devil Ray's (besides that they mostly sucked), and we probably don’t even understand 25% of what is going on during a game. Still, a season like this can turn an average sports fan that appreciates success into a diehard Ray’s supporter for years to come.