DRB WC #7: The Hat

For most of the last decade and a half I couldn't have cared less about baseball. It's been so long since I went to an MLB game that four of the last five ballparks I've been to no longer exist: Veterans Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, and the Kingdome. I've never seen the Rays play live nor have I seen any Tampa Bay player, past or present, play live. Which is why it's amazing that for the past three seasons there have been very few Rays games that I didn't watch or at least listen to.  And it all started because I already had the hat.

I grew up outside of Philadelphia and was a Phillies fan from a young age. During the summer, I would fall asleep listening to Harry Kalas calling ball games on a crappy radio/alarm clock. I remember being frustrated when the Phillies had West Coast road trips because that meant that not only would I not get to listen to the games, but the newspapers would be a day behind in posting the scores. I went ‘wild' when they won the NLCS and I still harbor bad feelings against Joe Carter for Game 6.

Over the next few years, I paid less and less attention to baseball. Between the strike, the steroids and my family's move to Portland, Oregon, baseball just didn't have the same allure. When the league expanded for 1999, I bought a Devil Rays hat simply because I liked the logo. I spent the next nine years answering "might as well be" to the question "is that a minor league hat?" Yes, I was one of those jerks.

That all changed in 2008. I had just started a new job and some coworkers invited me to join their fantasy baseball league. I wanted to take it seriously so I started reading up on players and watching some spring training games. I took a closer look at the, now Devil-less, Rays because, hey why not? I mean I already had the hat. As spring training went on, I started to realize how good the Rays really were. They were a team of young players, but they kept winning. By the time the fantasy draft took place, I was a fan. During the draft, I even half-joking predicted a Rays/Phillies World series.

To me, the Rays were a secret that I had stumbled upon. They were the forgotten team in the league's toughest division. They were the team without a superstar and, essentially, the team without any hope of a post season. How could they compete if their entire payroll was less than what the Yankees were paying A-rod and Giambi? As the season went on, I loved watching the players and how they kept defying everyone's expectation game after game. As the regular season turned into the post season, I recaptured the same feelings I had in ‘93. Before the World Series, I was even trying to convince some relatives in Philadelphia that they should really root for the Rays. "No team has ever gone from the worst record to baseball to win the World Series the next season. How could anyone root against that?" Unfortunately, that World Series went against me as well.

Since then, my respect for the team has gone beyond just respect for the players to respect for the managers and, now, respect for the organization at large. I always tended to root for the underdog and, with their financial situation, they will always be an underdog in this division. Even with that, that's not why I love the Rays. I love the Rays because they play pure baseball. They do well by playing as a team. Pitching, defense, and smart baserunning are much more important than simply mashing homeruns. Joe Maddon has his own quirky style, but there is solid reasoning behind it. Watching the Rays, I get the feeling that I'm watching baseball as it was meant to be played.

The Rays have done something spectacular; they made me love baseball again. And it all started because I already had the hat.For most of the last decade and a half I couldn't have cared less about baseball. It's been so long since I went to an MLB game that four of the last five ballparks I've been to no longer exist: Veterans Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, and the Kingdome. I've never seen the Rays play live nor have I seen any Tampa Bay player, past or present, play live. Which is why it's amazing that for the past three seasons there have been very few Rays games that I didn't watch or at least listen to.  And it all started because I already had the hat.