Muslims in baseball and a past post

Way back in July 2007, I wrote a post on Sam Khalifa. Khalifa is the only Muslim to ever play professional baseball at the Major League level. Unfortunately, lack of ability cut short Khalifa's career at the big league level.

The death of his father to Islamic extremists cut short his career in baseball.

Recently, there have been a few more articles written about Sam Khalifa. In December of 2012, the trial began for the man accused of murdering Khalifa's father while Khalifa worked as a cabbie in Tucson, in March it was reported that he finally got back into baseball as a coach for his high school alma mater, and last week, Fangraphs.com writer Alex Remington asked why there haven't been more Muslims in baseball.

In my post, I asked what would have happened if he stayed in baseball. I wondered if he would have been an ambassador for the game in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001 and if Khalifa could have eased tensions between eastern and western culture.

Admittedly, that is a lot to ask of anyone. But perhaps, if he decides to get back into baseball, Khalifa could maybe one day find a spot as a coach for a World Baseball Tournament team and become if not a cultural ambassador, at least a baseball ambassador at the national level.

Personally, it is hard to believe I have been blogging for over six years. And not only do I remember when I write something like that, but I still take interest in the subject I wrote about long ago.

That's an interesting feeling.

Our Mortal Moment with Manny

For a brief moment in 2011, Manuel Aristides “Manny” Ramirez donned a Rays uniform. On January 31st of that year, while most players had long earlier known what uniform would be on their back, Manny signed a 1-year deal with the Rays for a hair over two million dollars.

During that spring, the Rays spoke highly of Manny. He was motivated. He was dedicated.

He was also using performance-enhancing drugs. At least that’s what the tests said.

Manny Ramirez “retired” from baseball a week into the 2011 regular season, having only played five games and getting only one hit in seventeen at-bats for the Rays. He walked away from the game a disgraced shell of the powerful slugger he was in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox. On the positive side for the Rays, Manny’s retirement only cost them $87,000 of his two million dollar salary.

But Manny Ramirez wasn’t happy. He knew he could still play and felt he could still contribute to a Major League team. He wasn’t about to be Rafael Palmiero or Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds – players forced out of baseball after solid seasons, untouchable and undesirable due to the plague of steroid accusations.

After sitting out the rest of 2011, Manny’s suspension was reduced to 50 games. On February 20th 2012, Manny signed a minor-league deal with the Oakland A’s, hoping to get back to the big leagues one more time. Manny played seventeen games for the A’s top minor league team, hitting .307. Despite the positive batting average and solid on-base percentage, the A’s released Manny on June 15th, 2012 after he asked for his release following the team’s claim they had no upcoming plans to promote him to the majors.

Despite the setback, Manny again thought he could still play. He wasn’t about to retire on someone else’s terms. He wanted another chance.

Manny’s next chance came from one of the most unlikely sources in recorded baseball history – the Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. No one goes to the Taiwan. They go to Japan, like Cecil Fielder, Tuffy Rhodes, or Rays broadcaster Orestes Destrade did, where the competition is comparable to a top American minor league. They don’t go to Taiwan.

But Manny being Manny, as Manny always has been, did. And he succeeded. Stories were written about how Manny not only helped himself, but also helped the league, adding attention and respectability to the formerly troubled league. While he hit .352 with a .422 on-base percentage and a .555 slugging percentage in 49 games with the EDA Rhinos, attendance in the league soared and people came out in droves to see the former American star.

Still, Manny wanted to play in the Majors. To one day leave the game on his terms. Not after suspension and not after a 1-for-17 endnote. In June 2013, Manny opted out of his contract with the Rhinos and on July 3rd, he signed another minor league contract, this time with the Texas Rangers.

And that brings us to this week.

On August 14th, after 30 games with the Round Rock Express, the Rangers’ top minor league team, Manny Ramirez was released. Like the A’s a year earlier, the Rangers stated they had no place for Manny at the big league level. According to ESPN, although Manny hit three home runs in his first eight games with the Express, scouts now say “his bat speed has slowed down considerably”.

Although he is fighting Father Time at 41 years old, Manny says he will not retire and if he doesn’t sign with another team this season, he is looking forward to playing in the Dominican League this winter. The idea of playing in the Dominican League as a stepping stone back to the major is not without precedent. Former American League MVP Miguel Tejada signed with the Kansas City Royals after impressing with the Aguilas Cibaenas in the Dominican Republic Winter League following his release in early 2012 by the Baltimore Orioles.

Given what he has done to stay in the game, I doubt Manny Ramirez wants to leave the game like this. Manny seems to still want to leave the game on his terms. Some athletes have that chance. Some don’t. Some, like Willie Mays, fall down in the outfield, victims of the “helpless hurt” of age. Manny never was one for the field as the “Say Hey Kid” was, but if Manny’s once immortal bat is indeed less than mortal, he can’t possibly help a Major League team.

Even without performance-enhancing drugs, Manny Ramirez was better than the 1-for-17 he did with the Rays. He knows that. Any self-respecting baseball fan knows that.

Every player wants to go out like Ted Williams, to hit a home run in his final at-bat. Most hope to not go out like Babe Ruth, who hit a measly .181 while used as an attendance gimmick for 28 games for the 1935 Boston Braves, a team that won only 38 games and lost 115.

As Rays fans, we can harp on Manny’s brief time in the organization, dismissing him as a fraud, but living with the fact that had Manny stayed we would not have the season-long phenomenon known as Casey Kotchman’s “Magic of Kotch”. Manny’s loss was in fact the Rays’ gain. For the statistically minded, Kotchman had 3.7 Wins Over Replacement in 2011, an overall measurement of performance Ramirez came close to during his short stint with the Dodgers in 2009, but last achieved over the course of a whole season in 2006.

(Perhaps in an alternate universe, Manny Ramirez pees clean and Kotchman spends all of 2011 in Durham. Perhaps then it is Kotchman, not Dan Johnson, who is called up in late September. And perhaps Johnson never gets to hit the second most exciting home run in the final regular season game of that season.)

Or if Manny Ramirez is in fact done, if his bat speed just isn’t up to par, and if no team wants to take a chance on a mortal 41-year old designated hitter who hasn’t succeeded against Major League pitching in three years, then for a brief moment we, the fans of the Tampa Bay Rays, had the privilege of seeing the end of a great, albeit sometimes controversial, career.

Time to Tank the Rays Tank

With the speed of any other uber-reactive organization out for attention, the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has called for the Rays to remove the rays from their touch tank after a home run by Miguel Cabrera landed near the animals. According to their recent letter to the organization, PETA claims rays are “held captive at Tropicana Field...[and] are subject to harassment, loud crowds, and even baseballs capable of seriously injuring them

First, let me beat all the snarky commentors to the punch: there aren’t enough fans in the seats to be a “loud crowd”.

Bing.

Second, that’s what rays get for killing Steve Irwin.

Double bing.

All jokes aside, I think the over-reactive PETA people have a point here. Yes, there have been only two baseballs hit into the tank in eight years. But it would only take one poorly placed home run to create a public relations disaster for the Rays. Small odds, sure, but totally avoidable nonetheless.

And if a home run did ever land into the tank with such force as to bruise or kill a ray the fallout would be horrible. The incident would make headlines on SportCenter, get analyzed on every channel from ESPN to Animal Planet, and make the Rays a national punchline for every late night talk show host and hack comic from Tampa Bay to Toksook Bay, Alaska.

On the back of the latest Rays ticket I bought, it states the following:

“The holder of this ticket voluntarily assumes all risk and dangers incidental to the game of Baseball, or other event for which this ticket is issued, whether occurring prior to, during, or subsequent to the actual playing of the game, including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown bats, fragments thereof, and thrown or batted balls or other objects, and the holder, by using this ticket, agrees that Major League Baseball (“MLB”), the American League, the National League, the Tampa Bay Rays (“Club”), other participating clubs, Tropicana Field, the City of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, and Ticketmaster, including without limitation their respective players, other employees and agents and all other individuals and entities affiliated with such organizations, are not liable and are hereby held harmless by the holder for all injuries, expenses, claims and liabilities resulting from or related to any such cases.”

In other words, if you get hit with a home run and get hurt, it’s not the Rays, the players, or any one’s fault but yours. Sucks to be you. If you are in the outfield, double shame on you as you failed to hear or recognize that a five ounce orb is headed your way. Way to be heads up.

An animal swimming in a tank in right center field has no such recognition capability. It has no idea the ball is heading its way. No idea until it is too late. It might not happen today, tomorrow, this season, next season, or ever, but an injury is a possibility.

To make a comparison, despite no actual bombs ever going off in Tropicana Field, I have to empty my pockets and be inconvenienced with a magic metal wand every time I walk into the stadium because someone decided there is some slim chance I could be a terrorist. Meanwhile, there have been two animals killed by baseballs – both seagulls. The first happened in 1983 at the arm of then-Yankees outfield Dave Winfield and the other by a pitch by Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamond Backs in 2001. Accidents happen.

Perhaps the Rays organization is ok with odds of a ray being hurt but not my claim that I am there to enjoy the game, not blow up the stadium.

Then again, this is the same organization – albeit different ownership – that acquired the infamous Jae Kuk Ryu, formerly of the 2007 and 2008 Devil Rays. In 2003, while a member of the Daytona Cubs, Ryu threw two baseballs at an osprey that lived in a perch high above Jackie Robinson Stadium. While the first throw missed, the second hit the bird. The bird died a week later.

So maybe it would be a good idea to move the rays from the touch tank and eliminate the chance of injury or public relations disaster. Or maybe make the rays somehow less vulnerable to incoming projectiles.

I am sure the Rays organization has reasons or maybe even calculations by their crack staff of sabermetric Keebler elves on the odds of an incident, but I would ask, “Is having the tank and the animals near the field of play worth the risk”?

New post on the Tampa Bay Rays on DRaysBay.com

I pitched an idea to the editors of DRaysBay.com, one of the biggest online websites covering the Rays. Although I have written for Rays Index.com, I like to stay in good terms with everyone and write a feature for other sites when possible. And the guys from DRaysBay have always been nice, and have provided me opportunities on other occasions, such as last year's piece: The Quest for 2 Million: 12 Ways to Market the Rays.

The year's article also explores the Rays from a business sense. Instead of proposals, however, I examine one of the Rays competitors in trying to attract fans: the five Florida State League minor league teams in the Tampa Bay area. This was a tough piece to write, not from the research part, but because I really do enjoy going to minor league baseball games and have written so much about the teams, the players, and the experiences. But I think the presence of those teams and the league is hindering the Rays ability to draw butts in the seats.

So check it out and if you like it, please let me know:

Does the Florida State League Hurt the Rays Attendance? - DRaysBay.com

(Quick update: this post was linked on twitter by a sports economics professor. I think that's pretty cool.)

Dropping the ball at Space Coast Stadium

Ever since my nephew was born, I've wanted to take him to his first baseball game. His father is not much of a baseball fan, so I felt it was my duty, as a big baseball fan and frequent writer of things baseball-related, to take the little guy when he was old enough to his first game. Whether he wanted to go to more games afterwards, well, that would be totally up to him. But Uncle Mike wanted to take him to Game 1.

A few weeks ago, I learned my nephew’s pre-K day care was taking the kids, including my nephew, to a Brevard County Manatees game. I absolutely had to be there. So I made the trip from Tampa to Melbourne, Florida to at least take some pictures of my nephew at the ballpark.

Although it was his first trip to Space Coast Stadium, it was far from mine. I’ve been dozens of times since I saw my first game in the stadium's first year in 1994. I’ve been walking the halls there for almost 20 years.

My latest visit to Space Coast Stadium before the game with my nephew was for the 2010 Florida State League All-Star Game. And like my write-up for that visit, I am using several graded categories, in an attempt to break down the entire experience.

Ticket Prices: B

The game my nephew’s day care brought him to was on 2013 Camper’s Day at Space Coast Stadium. According to the promotional flyer, kids were charged $4 to attend instead of the normal $7. For $4 dollars more, they got a hot dog lunch with a Capri Sun and an oatmeal cream pie. And chaperones got in for free. Not bad. The end result was a few hundred attendees and probably 2/3 were kids of various ages.

Parking: A

Parking was free. I am not sure if this was because it was a day game on a Tuesday, or because it was a kids' promotion, or if the Manatees have instituted a “free parking” policy in the last few years. But I can’t argue with free.

The Game: B

It was a good contest between the Manatees and the Dunedin Blue Jays. Not a lot of runs, but the home team did end up winning 3-1.

Merchandise Stand: D

As it was a sparsely attended day game in the middle of the week, Space Coast Stadium didn’t have their primary merchandise store open. But they did have open a small merchandise stand. And I needed a new hat.

In the middle of the fourth inning or so, I walked to the small merch stand hoping to buy a hat. There were two guys in the booth standing around. I waited for a few minutes before one finally asked if I needed anything. Not “Can I help you?”. Strike 1.

I told the merch stand guy I was looking for a hat. I don’t wear fitted hats. I like my hats adjustable. Unfortunately, all the non-fitted hats on the racks at Space Coast Stadium look like old man fishing hats. Not good. The merch guy didn’t seem willing to help me find a new hat nor did he suggest I go to the Manatees website – maybe they have them on there. He didn't bring any to me to try on, to take a closer look at, or anything. Like I said, I was there to buy a hat. Strike 2.

Then I asked the merch guy if they carried shirts for kids – such as one I might buy for my little nephew. I couldn't tell from on the other side of the counter if the smallest ones on the rack would be small enough. He told me all they had there was all they sold. Again, he didn't point me to the website or anywhere else. Strike 3 for the merch stand.

I walked away empty handed and frustrated.

Food: B+

I had only one visit to the concession stand for a drink. It was 2 for 1 day. Drinks are always pricey at the ballpark, at least today it was less so.

Mascot: F

Considering there were a few hundred kids in the stands, the person in the Manny the Manatee suit did a horrible job. Absolutely terrible. Manny stood by the Manatees dugout the entire game and never once wandered the concourse. He participated in a few between inning contests, but that was it. Otherwise he just stood there. It would have been nice for the mascot to visit each of the day care or summer camp groups that were in the crowd. The kids would have been happy and it would have made for great photo ops.

I get that it is 90 degrees in the day time in Florida in the summer. But that is the price for putting on the mascot suit. The mascot has 9 innings worth of time to visit different parts of the park. Manny the Manatee did nothing.

Stadium Staff: D

I am not sure if there was any pre-game discussions, but I never once saw any of the Space Coast Stadium staff engage any of the groups of kids or their day care/camp leaders. The staff are the hosts of the ballpark. They should offer to take the kids around the park, show them around, or at least see how they are doing. Maybe even asked them as a group how many are there for the first time. They did nothing as well.

PA Announcer: C-

The PA announcer is saved only because he did announce the kids’ groups, but did that so fast I barely could hear each specific name. It would have been nice if he made a big deal out of each group and made them feel special. Talk to the kids as a group. Teach them how to cheer. Start chants. And maybe only announce one day care/camp per inning. At least he acknowledged them, I guess.

Music: D

It was Campers Day and not one kids’ song was played. I heard Jimmy Buffett and other traditional stadium songs. The only song the kids danced to was Gangnam Style. Not even the chicken dance. Music is tough, but when you have a crowd full of kids, maybe play the Spongebob Squarepants Theme Song or something else they might all know. After all, Spongebob lives in the water and so do Manatees.

Post game: F

Although my nephew’s day care left in the sixth inning as many of the kids were getting tired and bored, I didn’t see any kids  from the other camps who made it to the end of the game running the bases after the game. That’s easy to do. Or run them from the center field wall to home plate. Too easy.

Overall experience: A

The only reason today’s trip to the ballpark gets an “A” despite all the poor grades for Space Coast Stadium, is because my little nephew said his visit to the ballpark was awesome. And because one of the players tossed me a game-used ball and I gave it to my nephew after the game.

However, as I wrote on twitter during the game, if you can’t keep a group of 5-year olds entertained for 2.5 hours you need to improve your in-game entertainment. The Manatees are not only selling baseball, they are selling an experience. That’s a Mark Cuban theory that I think even applies to Minor League Baseball.

We in the sports business don’t sell the game, we sell unique, emotional experiences. We are not in the business of selling basketball. We are in the business of selling fun. We are in the business of letting you escape. We are in the business of giving you a chance to create shared experiences.

Especially when kids are involved. Those kids are future fans. Those kids are the ones who will campaign their parents to come back. Even kids who are too young to follow the game can at least have a great experience.

My nephew is 5 years old and showing interest in baseball. I am sure we will be going to another game the next time I am in town. I only hope the Space Coast Stadium staff has their act together by then.

Coming Home to the Rays

I’ll admit, when I first saw the Rays’ new season slogan I almost got emotional.

“Welcome Home”

Home.

Home means much more to me than usual as I conclude nearly 14 months in Afghanistan. Home is more than where I lay my head or rest my hat.  Home is where the heart is. Right now, although I’ve been 8,000 miles away, my heart is still in Florida. My heart is on the East Coast where my family lives and it is on the Gulf Coast where my friends are. It is in the places I frequented often, from the live music spots to the pro wrestling venues to, of course, Tropicana Field.

While most fans are coping from the cold, barren offseason, barely kept lukewarm by the hot stove, my fandom has been stuck in a Han Solo-like carbon freeze ever since Evan Longoria smacked a Scott Procter pitch over the left field wall to end the 2011 regular season.

Needless to say, I need to see a game soon. If the normal offseason gives withdrawals, then I am feening and jonesing like Leonardo DiCaprio in Basketball Diaries.

Making matters worse are all the spring training pictures friends are tweeting or posting on facebook. Bright clear skies, green grass, and the crisp newness of a fresh baseball season. As much as images of the Florida sunshine warms my heart, they make me yearn for home that much more.

Home.

I really think the Rays marketing people put their 2013 campaign together with me in mind. They did it on purpose to pull at my heartstrings. They knew I was gone for the 2012 season and they knew I would look forward not only to being back at the ballpark, but back being with friends and family. I don’t know how they knew, but they knew.

A few weeks ago, my boss asked me to name one thing I am looking forward to doing when I get back. I told him I can’t wait to sit in the bleachers with a hot dog and beer and watch a ballgame. I can’t wait to absorb the sights and sounds of baseball again. The crack of the bat, the sounds of fans giving the umpire hell, the eternal mental chess match between pitcher and batter, and hopefully at the end, the joy of jumping in jubilee after a game-winning hit.

When the winning run safely arrives at home.

Home.

As I close in on a month left in Afghanistan, I am not sure what the future holds when I get back to the states. I won’t have a job. I won’t have a place to live. I’ll be looking for both. I’ll also be looking for a new car and a new TV. Basically, I need to reboot and reload. That’s kinda scary. Every other time I’ve moved I’ve had a job waiting for me. But like a new baseball season, this is the beginning of a new chapter. As we don’t fear a new season, it is foolish for me to fear a new chapter.

Like Joe Maddon and the Rays front office, I can’t dwell on what I don’t have. As has been the Rays’ way since 2008, I have to win with the tools at my disposal. Time to stay smart and stay ahead of the competition. Maximize. Find a way. Think differently.

I do have a few things. I have friends, family, and my health. I also have a pocket full of experience, a shiny new resume, and the change in my pocket. And as an additional bonus, I have the recently completed rough draft of my first fictional novel. (Coming soon.)

Instead of the free spending opponents the Rays face, my opponent is the opposite: severe budget cuts, the specter of another recession, and the Tampa Bay area’s renown depressed job market. Those are a few of the reasons many private employees try to stay in Afghanistan, not only to help the cause, but because of they have jobs. But as you can read in the newspaper, that gravy train is coming to an end. And besides, I miss home too much.

And although looking for a job and a place to live is the priority, even if I end up living in the makeshift homeless camp under the Gandy Bridge (if it is still there), I know I still have to make it back to Tropicana Field.

As the Rays say in one of their new promotional photos,

“They Say You Always Find Your Way Home … We’ll Be Waiting”

Happy New Year from a Rays Fan in Afghanistan

Greetings from cold, frigid Afghanistan,

Wow, much has changed since I last wrote. I apologize for being gone for so long. Besides being in the somewhat frozen tundra of Afghanistan and doing my thing out here, I have also been working on my first book, a fictional tale that has a lot of baseball in it. I’m almost done with the rough draft, so hopefully I’ll have something final soon.

But where do I start with everything that has happened with the Rays and in baseball universe since I last wrote? First and foremost, the season ended. With all apologies to Burke Badenhop, Jeff Keppinger, Hideki Matsui, the return of Carlos Pena, and Luke Scott, I never saw you. Hope your stay in the Tampa area was nice.

Then there are a few Rays whose exits I missed.

James Shields – I moved to Tampa around the same time Shields was putting on Devil Ray green. In 2007, I remember watching the Devil Rays stink up the Trop but telling people that not all the D-Rays stunk. That Jamie Shields was actually quite good. I told more than a few people to remember that even Greg Maddux had a horrible 8-15 win-loss record for a horrible 1986 Cubs team.

Then in 2008, Shields turned in perhaps the best game I’ve ever seen live, a 1-hit shutout against the Angels in the game Evan Longoria hit his first game-winning home run. That was the first game I thought to myself, maybe there is something about this team. Shields was a big part of that. Sure enough, in the last game I went to before heading to Afghanistan, Longoria hit another game-winning home run – this one to get the Rays into the 2011 playoffs. Maybe you’ve heard of that game.

That night was also the last night I saw James Shields on a pitching mound. Shields didn’t actually pitch in the game, but did warm up in bullpen several times. Maybe they were ruses by Joe Maddon, or maybe Shields was actually getting ready to pitch in relief.

One of the things I’ll remember the most about James Shields was the warrior aspect of his pitching personality. The complete games, the durability, that nasty change-up he was unafraid to throw at any count. While he was part Maddux, he was definitely part Tom Glavine as well. And Glavine, despite being on the Braves when I was growing up a Mets fan, was one of my favorite pitchers to emulate. Something tells me if I was years younger, I would have probably emulated Mr. Shields as well.

(Honest admission: I never learned how to throw a curveball or a slider. So when I was a lanky, left-handed teen with a meh fastball, I read a bunch of articles on Glavine, including one where he discussed how to throw a circle change. After tinkering for a few weeks, I could throw a circle change with a tennis ball that would buckle the knees of kids miles around. Like Glavine and Shields, others might have thrown faster or harder, but none on my block could change speeds on the streets of Melbourne, Florida, like I could.)

Wade Davis – Speaking of those who also probably tried to be Shieldian, I won’t be seeing Wade Davis anymore. Like Shields, I saw Davis in his first starts. In his debut, Davis struck out the world. After that, he couldn’t seem to strike out anyone. Not that he was that bad, but a pitcher with no outpitch is soon either hit out or sent out. It was the former for the former Rays pitcher.

J.P. Howell – JP Howell was what I think I would have been if I learned to throw a curveball.

BJ Upton – I don’t think any player I have ever rooted for has invoked more of an emotional response than BJ Upton. One day he was great, another he was maddeningly poor. I saw him hit for the cycle and I saw him get thrown out at third more times than I cared to. For those who remember, BJ was the first Rays player I wrote about at Rays Index. He started my long-form addiction to writing about the Rays.

In that post, I compared BJ to former New York Mets outfielder Kevin McReynolds, who has been labeled “disinterested” on the playing field. Perhaps I need to amend my comparison. BJ wasn’t McReynolds, he was more Darryl Strawberry without the personal issues. When he was in the minors, someone once called Strawberry “the next Ted Williams”. Strawberry never came close, although he was a more than stellar outfielder for the Mets. BJ too faced the curse of potential being a first round pick, having loads of natural ability, and never quite performing up to expectations. Then, when the time was up, both outfielders left via free agency.

On a related note (pun intended), I never could find out why people always tried to compare BJ to his brother Justin, but never did the same for Willie and Erick Aybar. No one ever said we got the wrong Aybar.

Of course, I would have liked to see BJ and Big Game James stay in a Rays uniform. But that’s not the reality we live in. Allegiances to players must light if we want to keep the constant high of a consistently competitive team. And now when I get back I’ll be able to see Wil Myers, who if the projections are true, is seven feet tall and shoots fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.

Compared to other Major League baseball teams in Florida, I am glad the Rays let their fans get attached. They let them root and cheer for their players before pawning them off to the highest bidder. Then they usually get good returns from their trades. That is the biggest difference between how the Rays do business and how the team from South Florida handles their affairs. Just the fact that that they are entertaining offers for Giancarlo Stanton makes my stomach curl. Not even a championship could buy back that much heartbreak.

In other news, the Rays made a lifetime commitment to Evan Longoria. He rewarded the team by creating a new fan. Give me that kind of money and I’ll give the Rays my first born as well.

Now we are forty days or so from the start of spring training. Like Moses at the same point in time, the Rays are far from out of the desert. They still have their perennial holes at DH and catcher. They still need to figure out how they are going to handle first base. And they still need to sell one billion or more tickets so they can also give a lifetime contract to David Price and his little dog too.

It had been too long since I ventured out my fictional endeavor and wrote about real baseball. While it will still be cold and dismal in Afghanistan, soon pitchers and catchers will report to Florida, spring training will start, and the season will be upon us. And that means I’ll be closer to coming home. I can’t wait.

How much winning is enough winning to change fan culture?

Like Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the Moon and looked at the Earth, there is a tendency to see things different the farther you are away. You see habits you never noticed in friends, family, and as long as you still have the means of observation, the society you came from. From afar here in Afghanistan, my view on the US and the Tampa Bay area has been interesting.

As we enter the home stretch of election season and of baseball season, the US seems like a truly divided culture. The people over there (over there from my perspective, that is) have seemingly dug in and picked their side. Those who object are wrong, and there is no middle ground.

Maybe it has always been like this, but American politics has become very much like sports. Maybe we have always thought in regards to winners and losers. Just like in sports, everyone is divided.

A few weeks ago, I engaged in a brief twitter conversation with Tampa Bay Times writer Michael Kruse in regards to fandom in Florida. Kruse’s claim was that Floridians are not good citizens and that their lack of citizenry is one of the reasons people don’t go out to support the Rays. Kruse bases this idea on the premise that while many people come to Florida to live, they don’t come to join communities and become active Floridians in their local community whether through sports or anything else. The Floridians who move here from all over the country or even world bring with them their own ideologies and interests and keep those ideologies during their time here, staying divided and never modifying their interests for their current environment.

On one hand, why should they? In these days of overarching, easily accessible media, where I am typing about a team in Tampa Bay from 8,000 miles away and people can follow their former hometeam from a new home just as they would from their old home, it’s easy to not have to care about what happens locally. The internet makes it easy to stay in touch with the people you left behind as if you are still next door.

I’m an example of this right now. I stay in touch with friends and family while living on an Afghanistan base I don’t often leave from. When our Internet connection is up, I email, Facebook, Tweet, and blog as if I was still in town. More importantly for Kruse’s theory, I also stay up on my Tampa Bay and Rays news. I brought my affiliations and fandoms with me and I keep rooting for the hometeam even though they are nowhere close to my current “home”.

But like a snowbird who only comes to Florida for the winter, I am not someone who matters in the grand scale of Afghanistan. Here there is a big effort to bring villages, tribes, and people into the fold of an overarching national government. Many of these villages are populated by tribes who have no relationship with their immediate neighbors, no less a government center hundreds of miles away. Many times the chiefs and leaders of these tribes see no benefit in joining the national government or even a more local overarching district or provincial government. These tribes are sometimes even against the national government and give support to the Taliban and other anti-government organizations.

Sound familiar? In a way, the idea of affiliation and winning over hearts and minds is the same in sports as it in government. People have to buy what you are selling. If they don’t, they don’t show up, in the seats or at the ballot.

With this concept in mind, something amazing happened in Afghanistan this year during the Summer Olympics. Afghans from across Afghanistan and all over the world united over a victory. A victory that won Afghan competitor Rohollah Nikpai his second bronze medal in tae kwon do as well as won Afghanistan it’s second ever medal.

According to reports, for one day, Rohollah Nikpai unified Afghanistan.

Although it would be foolish to think one bronze medal could turn around a country that has known little but division and strife for the last 30 years, Nikpai’s win does show that sports provides some possibility for social unification. US hockey’s win over the USSR in 1980 may be our best example. Our national morale was low in the late 70s and perhaps the win aided our national turnaround in the 1980s. Beating the Russians got people talking about America and chanting “U.S.A” and meaning it. It gave them something to be proud of.

There is no doubt most people like to be on the winning side. They like winners. People rally around winners. Winners tend to boost public confidence. And most people do want to fit in, but unfortunately our current state of Florida is so divided it is socially acceptable not to root for the Rays.

So what if the Rays win it all this year and the year after and the year after? Would they slowly build an overarching culture of support? What is the point in which neighbors and local peers start to pressure newcomers to leaving behind their past affiliations and cheering for the local squad? How many wins would it take to create a Central Florida-wide rabid fan base? How many wins until “the bandwagon fans” show up in mass for every game? How long until the Rays become part of our culture?

My worry is that we as Americans might be so numb to winning and athletic victories that no story, no cast of characters, or no heroes can win over a city anymore. Especially one as diverse as the Tampa Bay area. We might rally around our national athletes in the Olympics, or a small town might rally around their local high school football team, but cities might be currently spoken for to an extent.

Another important point in the case of Rohullah Nikpai is that the media helped point people in the direction of rooting. Due to the normally dire situation in Afghanistan, the media painted an overwhelming picture of support. There were no dissenting views on Nikpai’s run for a medal. They didn’t interview a farmer without access to the news or worse yet, a Taliban person who might have been anti-Nikpai. The media was pro-Nikpai. Having the media shape support in the direction your want is imperative.

Of course, most media has to take an unpartial view. But that’s where public relations and other offices come in. They are there to counter bad messages with good – see where the source of dissention is and try to sway it. I wonder if there is anyone in the Rays front office who analyzes what the media says about the Rays, especially in regards to national media. In my estimation, most national media posits positive comments on the players, management, and front office, but typically negative comments about everything else. Just as a college team saturates media outlets with Heisman campaign propaganda, maybe the Rays or even a highly dedicated group of Rays supporters need to send the national media members pictures of sell-outs, stories of fans enjoying the games, and things that might move reporters out of their negative mindset.

No matter how much a team wins or who wins, however, there will always be a segment of the population too new or too engrained in their ways to be swayed. Using the Nikpai example again, although I was rooting for him in Tae Kwon Do events, if Afghanistan was playing against the US in basketball or swimming or something Americans care about, I, as a new “resident” would have probably kept my US affiliations and rooted against Afghanistan.

Winning is just part of the social engineering solution to win hearts and minds and make fans. It takes a combined effort of victories, marketing, advertizing, good media relations, and social peer pressure to turn people into fans. Some may never convert, but hopefully in a generation or two, the seeds will be planted for positive change, and new habits, either in government or in sports fandom, will take hold.

Imagine if one day, people put aside the bickering and their foreign affiliations. Imagine if one day, people of Central Florida all supported one team. Imagine if they were unified in their support of the Rays. It’s easy if you try.

Star Wars Day Shirts and the Power of Rays Fans

Ever since Star Wars Nights became a thing a long time ago in stadiums far, far away, I swore I would go to the first one in Florida. I am of course a huge baseball fan and have been a Star Wars fan since I was knee-high to a Jawa. So being at a Star Wars promotion at a ballpark near me was something I had to do. It was like Luke needing to go to Dagobah to visit Yoda before he died.

Alas, Star Wars Nights and Days have invaded Florida baseball stadiums quite often since late last season when the Marlins hosted the first Star Wars promotion in the state as part of the Stand Up to Cancer effort. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the game due to the fact that I had no money and nowhere to stay around Dolphins/Pro Player/Joe Robbie/Jimmy Buffet Stadium. So I missed out.

Going to Afghanistan this year I knew I was going to miss out on some great Rays baseball. I knew I was going to miss out on friends and fellow fans and some great times. But I never thought I would miss out on a Star Wars promotion at Tropicana Field. As Leia never considered that Luke might have been her brother when she kissed him, the thought of missing a Star Wars Day or Night never crossed my mind.

Needless to say, I was bummed out when I knew my odds of going to the game were lower than 3,720 to 1. As a matter of fact, I had a better chance of beating a Jedi in a mind reading contest than I had of making the game. So I did what any huge Star Wars and Rays fan would do, I started campaigning for some commemorative swag, specifically one of the Star Wars Day t-shirts featuring Darth Vader’s head and a Rays logo.

Once I realized these shirts were available, I took to twitter and began pestering @RaysBaseball. For a few days the week of the game I asked @RaysBaseball if they could send a shirt to me in Afghanistan. I was even more than willing to pay for it. Whatever it took, I wanted a shirt.

Yet there was no reply. Like C-3P0 wandering the sands of Tattooine, it appeared my cause was lost and missing out on Star Wars-themed baseball celebrations would be my lot in life. Then, out of the blue a rescue appeared. Fellow Rays fans and twitter friends @MandaGator, @Raynaadi, and @BayCrab3 asked me if I had heard from the team and if not, they would do what they had to so that a Star Wars Day shirt was shipped to me in Afghanistan. When I told them I hadn’t heard from anyone, @BayCrab3 said she would hook me up.

Fast-forward to early this week. A week after getting a box of Rays-related goodies from a few of my old co-workers, I received my box from @BayCrab3. Inside were bags of snacks, some Rays stickers, and my very own Rays Star Wars Day shirt!

(Note: I did eventually hear from Jonathan Gantt of the Rays a few days after I gave @BayCrab3 my mailing address. He told me he was on a hunt for a shirt for me. I politely told him that my fellow fans were already coming through.)

So thank you to @BayCrab3, @mandagator, @rayaandi, and all the other Rays fans who helped me in my epic quest to get a Star Wars Day shirt. May the Force Be With You Always!

Q&A: Dunedin Blue Jays Community Relations Coordinator Vincent Caffiero

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I thought was one of the more interesting promotions in the Florida State League this year, the Dunedin Blue Jays "Turn Back the Clock Night". After writing the post, I decided to contact the Dunedin team and ask about the promotion, how it came to be, and how it went.

Big thanks to Craig Dunham for setting this up and many thanks to Vincent Caffiero for being so kind as to answer our questions.

Bus Leagues Baseball: How did the idea originate? Was it though the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Dunedin Historical Society, or a combination of both?

Vincent Caffiero: This idea came about through the Dunedin Blue Jays. Obviously throwback uniforms are something that everybody does. We just wanted to do our own twist on the promotion. The Dunedin Historical Society was asked later on in the process if they wanted to be involved. It was a no brainer, as the Historical Society already hosts vintage baseball games. Additionally, their director, Vinnie Luisi, is a big time baseball historian. He even wrote "New York Yankees: The First 25 Years" and "Baseball in Tampa Bay".

BLB: Was this the first turn back the clock night in Dunedin Blue Jays history? What was done to prepare for it?

VC: I’ve only been here since January, so I wasn’t sure if the Dunedin Blue Jays have done a throwback night before. They have been here since ’77 and have done many promotions! To prepare, I did some research through the historical society, and read up on the uniforms of the time. Some of the staff spent an entire week having fun with some of the slang of the period. You couldn’t go 15 minutes without hearing someone tell a “dame,” about being “the bee’s knees."

BLB: I am very curious as to why 1929, as there was no Dunedin team or Florida State League at the time, nor any Blue Jays.

VC: 1929 was chosen because it’s smack-daddy in the middle of some of the biggest moments in professional baseball history. We wanted to pay homage to the golden era of baseball. I wanted to pick a year where Ty Cobb and the dead-ball era were still relevant, but on their way out. I wanted a year where the greats of the golden age like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were still relevant. Finally, I felt it important to include a year in which the Negro Leagues were really gaining ground. The whole point of this night was to get people talking about baseball history, so I wanted a year that was inclusive.

It was less important to include the professional baseball history of the city of Dunedin, because there wasn’t any. Another factor, was that the Tampa Bay Rays have done a very good job of “throwing back,” to a lot of the great minor league teams in the Tampa Bay area. That approach has been tapped out. Also, on a practical level, it is much more difficult to get the license of actual teams of the period. It is a process that we wanted to avoid, in exchange for artistic and logistical freedom.

BLB: What did the Dunedin Blue Jays staff change to fit in to the theme of the night? Was anything done differently?

VC: Luckily for us, in 1929 baseball parks were using PA Systems, so we didn’t have to cut out the Public Address announcer. We changed all of the music, and even gave the players walk up songs from the likes of Cab Calloway and the Piccadilly Players. We had 25 cent Crack Jack, which is probably a bit expensive for 1929, but we did have to take some artistic liberties! Fans also played Bingo which was actually invented in 1929. The staff also dressed in period attire. We had a lot of fun with this night, and it showed!

BLB: Who made the uniforms? What were the influences used?

VC: I designed the uniforms to look much like those of the period. This meant simple and elegant. We opted to remove the piping from the sleeves and had just royal piping down the buttons. The hat had a white crown and blue bill to fit the look of a 1929 uniform. I used the 1930’s Homestead Grays as one of our biggest uniform inspirations. I knew that the uniforms couldn’t be authentically wool or flannel because of the heat, so we went with a normal modern material. Uniform Express produced the uniforms, and they did a great job!

BLB: I saw pictures of the staff in 1920s era clothing. Was that found locally or through the same provider of the uniforms?

VC: These clothes were a hodgepodge of thrift store and modern store finds. Men’s fashion has not changed much in 100 years. The main difference is that in 1929 a man was expected to where a hat and suite almost everyone he went- including the baseball park. Southern summers were so hot, that men would often ditch the coat and wear knickerbockers instead of full pants. Nonetheless, long sleeves and high socks still covered almost all exposed skin.

BLB: Who designed the flyer? That was very impressive.

VC: Thank you! I happened to be the one behind the flyer. I took an actual 20’s baseball postcard/advertisement and fit in all of our relevant information. It was fun to make and really turned out nice. It wasn’t your typical stiff, impact lettering over a bright background-type of modern baseball flyer. I hate those.

BLB: Did you contact any other teams who have done turn back the clock nights? Did they provide any advice?

VC: I did use other throwback nights as inspiration, but did not specifically contact any of them. The Tampa Bay Rays are a great example of marketing that always keeps their “Turn Back The Clock Nights,” fresh and unique. I was lucky enough to be working with their organization last year during their “Tampa Smokers” night.

BLB: Do you see the Dunedin Blue Jays making more trips to the past in the future?

VC: Unfortunately the team lost the game that night. I can’t imagine the players and staff being on board for another 1929 night, as I imagine the uniforms were a source of blame. Baseball has got to be the most superstitious games on the planet. However, I can see the Dunedin Blue Jays having fun with alternate uniforms honoring baseball’s rich history in future seasons. Fans were able to take home some really neat autographed jerseys, while raising over $2,500 for the Dunedin Historical Society. The night was a success, so I’m sure we’d like to do this again!

(Photo from the Dunedin Blue Jays Facebook page taken by Charles Gehring.)