There Are A Few In Every Bunch

After playing

back-to-back games against the Tampa Bay Rays, it’s official.  Not a fan.  All because of a group of fans in Port Charlotte.

If you follow us on Twitter, you know that we now despise some of the fans of the Tampa Bay Rays.  To say that our visit to Port Charlotte on Saturday to watch the Pirates and Rays play was enjoyable would be wrong.  Really wrong.  Some Rays fans have a swagger that would make former Steeler Joey Porter blush.

At McKechnie Field on Sunday, the Rays fans showed up.  In a big way.  My hat’s off.  In the seventh inning, most were gone.  My hat’s back on.

Maybe we should attempt to explain.  Some of the Rays fans wear Pittsburgh Pirates hats.  Yeh, it’s confusing and at the same time, it makes perfect sense to them.  Uh, it’s called being a transplant fan they explained.  Oh, ok, sorry we tried to spark a conversation.

When we asked some of these fans why the team had difficulty in attendance, despite being such a dynamic franchise, the overwhelming answer was this:

"There is a lot to do in the summer down here.  All the tourists are gone."

During the Spring Training game in Port Charlotte several Rays fans began a few chants. Most had the typical rhythm of a chant..two notes followed by a pause and two notes.  Well, normally that makes a chant sound good.  So with the cadence set, let’s rank how well they did.

No never mind.  They all suck.

Con-tract Pitts-burgh!

You – lost – the – Super Bowl!

Your – quarterback – is a child molester!

Where – is – the – rapist?

We know.  It’s a baseball game.  A Spring Training game.  (We can envision Allen Iverson saying “We’re talking about Spring Training”)   The chants were over the line.  One was an attempt at being funny.  That’s cool.  One was a fact.  The other two were just wrong.  They had more that could be argued were worse, but let’s just let it go.

The bottom line?  It just sucked being a baseball fan yesterday.  Especially listening to a parent try to avoid explaining to their child what the word rapist meant.  After the game, three of us confronted the group of Rays fans, they tried to shake it off as they chuckled and slapped each other on the chest.   One of them even extended his druken hand to shake ours.  No thanks.

We will keep our Pirates hat on our head, our hands to ourselves, and the belief that all of the Rays fans can’t possibly be this bad.  Not with a young team this good.

Don’t even think about following us on Twitter