Amidst the myriad articles placed in both daily newspapers on Friday as the Tampa Bay Rays prepare to enter the Major League Baseball playoffs for the third time in four years, is a story in the Tampa Tribune by Keith Morelli regarding some of the fans who departed before the Rays made their incredible comeback against the New York Yankees on Wednesday night to get into the post-season.
Included in some of the packaged clips of the Rays-Yankees game that I saw on ESPN early Thursday was a shot of hundreds of fans leaving Tropicana Field late in the game, as the Rays trailed by a score of 7-0 for seemingly hours, and the large house was more like a mausoleum for much of the evening.
Of course, in the wake of the great comeback started in the bottom of the eighth inning, naturally those early departing fans were raked over the coals by other fans on Twitter and talk radio, as if they had committed a crime of not being "true" and "dedicated" fans.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2011.