How dare Stu Sternberg. How dare he believe that if he transformed one of the least (if not the least) successful teams in all of baseball, that the community where the team resides would support the club. After Sternberg began running the club in 2005 he spoke of changing the team from top to bottom. Many fans believed Sternberg's promises would be unkept promises and that the Devil Rays would remain cellar dwellers and the Sternberg way would be business as usual.
Stew Sternberg didn't just change the name, colors and logo of the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays. With the help of Andrew Friedman, the young Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, Sternberg changed the face of baseball in the Tampa Bay area.
When I started covering the Devil Rays in 2007 it was evident early on that the clubhouse was loaded with young talent. Every Sunday morning I made a plea to the fans of Tampa to come out and watch the progression of the young team I found extremely entertaining to watch. I told everyone who would listen the Rays would be .500 by 2008 and a playoff contender by 2010. The Rays however, have far exceeded those expectations. The average caller would explain that the Devil Rays way of doing business was to ship this talent out of town before they'd ever see their potential reached and that they'd never spend the money until the Devil Rays spent the money.
Before you knew it 2008 had arrived and the Devil Rays had become the Rays. New colors, new jerseys, a new name, and a core unit of young players who were signed to be in Tampa for years to come. The excuse given by so many for their reason for not heading to the Trop was all but gone. The Rays had signed productive players to extensions, and through the spring showed signs of being a much improved ball club. The Rays attendance did rise in 2008, as it did in 2009, but with one of the top young teams in baseball , Tampa still remains at the bottom of the league in attendance.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
