Melanie Lenz, who gave many of those sometimes contentious waterfront stadium presentations to neighborhood groups, is being promoted, Rays team president Matt Silverman said today.

According to a Rays press release, Lenz has been promoted to Vice President of Development for the Tampa Bay Rays.

“Melanie has been instrumental in the planning and construction of our new spring training facility in Charlotte County, the implementation of our Teaming Up for the Environment initiative, and in various aspects of our new ballpark plan. She is an invaluable resource to the entire organization, and we look forward to contributions and continued leadership in this expanded role,” Silverman said.

Lenz joined the Rays in November 2006 as senior director, development. She came to the team from the New York City Economic Development Corp., where she had served as vice president, real estate division since 2000. During that period, she directed more than 50 real estate transactions within the five boroughs of New York City, resulting in more than 15-million square feet of new development and several billion dollars in public investment.

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As you can imagine, there has been a lot of feedback to our story Sunday, "Do the Rays have a future in bay area?" There has been some common themes in reader responses, and I wanted to address a couple of the most common here.

Look at the Bucs and the Lightning. When they won, people showed up. Just give it time.

This is probably the comment I've gotten the most. And time, as we said, is the only way we're going to get an answer.

But comparing baseball to other pro sports just doesn't work. Let's do the math. The Bucs play eight regular-season home games and have about 530,000 tickets to sell. The Lightning play 41 regular-season home games and have about 841,000 tickets to sell. The Rays -- they play 81 home games -- and not including the tarped off seats, have 2.92-million seats to sell. I hope that sinks in. The Rays have more than five times as many tickets to sell as the Bucs.

Move the team to Hillsborough County, the demographics will be better there.

All of the data we reported Sunday (age, income, cost of living, etc.) included Hillsborough County. We set the boundaries of the Tampa Bay area the way the federal government does, which includes Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough, and Hernando counties.

Why not include Sarasota and Manatee? That would change the numbers.

We decided to stick with the boundaries set by the federal government. Yes, Manatee and Sarasota counties may have altered the numbers slightly. But the point here is that the vast majority of the Tampa Bay fan base comes from Pinellas and Hillsborough.

Numbers can say whatever you want them to.

We looked at every indicator we could think of that would make a major league market successful and then compared it to the 24 other MLB markets. Using comparisons negates the fuzzy math factor. Moreover, we included the best number for the Rays, which is the size of the television market. If there's something you think we should have checked but didn't, let me know.

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The upstart Tampa Bay Rays were about to take the field in the World Series. Tropicana Field was gorging with fans and media. A national TV audience looked on. Yet one big question continued to hang in the air.

Do the Rays have a future in the Tampa Bay area?

The answer, Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg recently said, may not be clear until next spring, or possibly September.

"To operate here, we have to have sponsors, and have season-ticket holders, and have TV revenue, to have any chance of this thing working," he told a visiting reporter.

Sternberg's remarks could simply be a push for a new stadium. But he has good reason to question whether the Tampa Bay area can support a baseball team in the long run.

Despite two relatively large population centers and a history of spring training, the Tampa Bay area remains one of the poorest, oldest and most fractured communities with a Major League Baseball team, according to a St. Petersburg Times analysis of the 25 U.S. baseball markets.

Read the full story here.

Using bellwether population and demographic data from baseball’s 25 U.S. metropolitan areas (four areas have two teams, and the Toronto Blue Jays play in Canada), we were able to compare Tampa Bay to other Major League Baseball cities.

The data shows .... we'll you'll have to wait for that.

If I get the OK, I'll post the story here Friday. Otherwise, look for it on doorsteps Sunday.

Because there's nothing else going on today, right?

The New York Times has an interesting report today on the construction of new baseball stadiums for the New York Yankees and Mets. Read it here. If you don't remember Rays senior VP Michael Kalt, the team's stadium point person, worked on behalf of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to strike the deals with both New York ball clubs.

Oh, and I couldn't help thinking on my drive to work that we were supposed to be voting on a new stadium plan of our own today. Kind of crazy, huh?

You can't make this stuff up. Read this about Rays owner Stuart Sternberg.

Ballpark Frankness caught up with Rays team president Matt Silverman in the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse Thursday afternoon. He talked about a new stadium and some plans for the Trop next year. Here's some of what he had to say.

On a new stadium
"With the love this team has fostered, the discussion of a new ballpark takes on new meaning. It makes the new ballpark less of a sell. Through this postseason run, the community has been been able to recognize the economic impact of baseball firsthand."

On the team's financial take from the postseason
"The dollars generated during the postseason run are minor compared to what this can mean for the team going forward. The key for sustainability is adding to the season ticket base and creating a recurring revenue stream."

On the contiunity heading into the 2009 season
"Fans won't have to get to know 15 new faces next year like it was when we were the Devil Rays."

A couple of other notes: Silverman said fans should expect ticket prices to increase next year (it's been two offseasons without an increase), but that those increases would not be dramatic. No major physical changes are planned for the Trop next year. Silverman also said the team is largely going to stay out of the stadium discussions this offseason, leaving the work to Mayor Rick Baker's ABC Baseball coalition. And the Rays are considering adding a third, alternate jersey for next season.

ST. PETERSBURG — Standing on the turf of Tropicana Field, marveling at the historic turnaround of the Tampa Bay Rays, principal owner Stu Sternberg acknowledged one major regret.

"Part of me wishes that I'd be playing this game on the waterfront tonight,'' Sternberg said moments before Wednesday's Game 1. "How unbelievable would downtown be? And how unbelievable would the city of St. Petersburg be … with all the parking, and all the walking, and all the stores, and all the restaurants, and the views, and the weather?"

Read the rest here.

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The Tampa Bay Rays have slain the big-market bullies from New York, Chicago and Boston, but the team will soon face a much greater foe.

"The economy could kill us," says Stuart Sternberg, the team's principal owner and a former partner at Goldman Sachs.

For years, Mr. Sternberg's franchise was the doormat of baseball, a money-losing team that few thought would ever prove successful. But tonight, the Rays will begin the World Series at home in St. Petersburg, playing the Philadelphia Phillies.

Playing with Major League Baseball's second lowest payroll, the Rays owe much of their success to the long-term contracts given to their core of talented young players. The deals will allow the team to keep its top players for several more years, leading many to predict that the Rays could become a dominant force in the game.

But Mr. Sternberg has a problem: The Rays, he says, can barely afford their $44-million payroll with their current attendance, and that payroll is going up. Once the glamor of October baseball fades, the Rays will need to build a stable fan base in a region that has never truly embraced them -- and it must do so during an economic crisis that is worse in Florida than nearly anywhere else.

Read the rest here.

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So I just got back from ABC's third committee meeting at the EpiCenter in Largo. The group is still getting organized and really hasn't gotten to the nuts and bolts of what it's been formed to do. Officials promise that is coming shortly.

What I can tell you is that no sites have been discussed for a potential stadium. Neither have funding plans or the design of the facility.

Anecdotally, it seems most members prefer a facility with air conditioning. But other than that, there just isn't much to report. Stay tuned.

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