The Rays Tank: Foster-Sternberg Aftermath

BJ Upton? Really? He makes it sound like BJ is a burden at his price and that the Rays haven’t traded him because no one wants him.

If he’s aloud to explore all areas of Tama Bay and all efforts for a new stadium here fail, then he’s forced to consider other areas. MLB and Sternberg aren’t about to give up on such a huge market like Tampa/Orlando before exhausting all measures

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2010/graphics/rays-timeline/

That’s where we are at. We’re now in the medium risk zone of no action

And personally, I think it reveals pretty clearly that the “you had to be there line” and “greatest ever” debates are all about hype, and much less about personal experience. It seems to me like a majority of people just went down the list and chose one person from each sport:

Babe Ruth
Jim Brown/Jerry Rice
Michael Jordan
Wayne Gretzky
Pele

Did 44% of all voters really see Pele in his prime? Did 44% of all voters care? How many of them even know who Cruyff is, or know Zidane other than his headbutt? I doubt very many.

I’d like to see this poll done overall, and then done where people can only choose one sport that they really care about and then vote for 5 in it. I think it would tell us something about hype and fandom.

1. It’s in Foster’s best interest to play the card that to show that Tampa Bay is a viable area for MLB, fans need to attend the games NOW in the Trop.

“If the region wants the Rays to stay in the region, then Tampa Bay needs to support this team this year by putting their backsides in the seat and going to the game,” Foster said.

2. If you want to believe that Stu is trying to move the team to Tampa, what better way is there to do that than to express concern about the viability of the region as a whole. This forces Foster to open up the possibility of Hillsborough county or try and stand on Pinellas county’s track record.

I tend to believe that point two is/was Stu’s endgame.

(this was mentioned a bit above, but here’s my take)
They said to Foster, essentially:
If we can’t get a viable option here, we’ll walk – we’ll walk tomorrow. People will be mad at us for leaving, but they’ll be mad at you, too. We’ll still have a baseball team; will you still have a job?
What choice does Foster have but to work to make the area viable? Rays in St. Pete is still Foster’s favorite option, but having the Rays in Tampa instead looks a lot less bad than the political disaster of having them leave the area entirely.

For Buckhorn, he sees that making the Rays work in St. Pete in the short term (therefore Tampa/St. Pete in the long term) is an important goal – if the Rays leave the area entirely, it doesn’t matter if he’s got some great plan cooking for 2027.

Is it a bluff? Would the Rays leave for another city at the drop of a hat? Could they (would another city and/or the Rays pay enough to buy out the Trop contract)? At least publicly, Foster seems to believe it, which makes it look like some top notch negotiating by Sternberg.