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Editorial
Baseball euphoria
Article published on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008 |
As former NBC News anchor David Brinkley once said, “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”
The phrase fits perfectly for the Tampa Bay Rays. For more than 10 years they were baseball’s whipping post, and the subject of jokes both locally and nationally.
But that’s in the past now. Thanks to the guidance of majority owner Stu Sternberg and the on-field leadership of Manager Joe Maddon, the Rays have burst onto the national sports scene as one of the best feel-good stories in some time.
America loves warm and fuzzy stuff. And the Rays’ story of worst to first in 2008 couldn’t be any warmer or fuzzier.
This is a baseball franchise that six years ago struggled to win 55 games, but under the guidance of Sternberg, and a well-oiled front office staff shocked the baseball world this year with a dramatic turnaround.
Forget the results of this postseason. The story is what has been accomplished in such a short amount of time and what baseball fans in the Tampa Bay area have to look forward to in years to come.
Many respected national baseball observers say the franchise is stocked with enough quality minor league talent, that the on-field product will likely get even better.
For us, the residents of the Tampa Bay area, the Rays’ resurgence this season is yet another reason why the quality of life is so good here.
We not only have a strong arts and music culture here but also a strong professional sports culture.
Although the Rays have yet to win a World Series, we can now put them in the same category as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tampa Bay Lightning, who have reached the pinnacle in their respective sports.
In this day and age of tough economic decisions by our government leaders, some may argue that sports is something we can live without. It’s not a necessity, some may say. While that may be somewhat true, if you look at the great cities in this country and the world, sports is an important part of the equation that results in a high quality of life.
We’re excited to see the outpouring of enthusiasm and support for the Rays this season and as the chilling voice in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” stated, “If you build it, they will come.”
Sternberg and his staff have done just that and we applaud their success.
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Article published on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008
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