Clearwater getting grief from misinformed fans

The city of Clearwater is getting hammered by nasty e-mails and phone calls from Rays fans who think the city is taking sides against the Rays because it's the longtime spring training home of the Phillies.

Not true, say Clearwater officials and employees, many of whom are wearing Rays gear to work these days.

The callers and e-mailers, whose fury is being stoked by sports talk radio, are mad about two things:

1. They're under the mistaken impression that the city is hosting Phillies rallies at the team's Clearwater ballpark, Bright House Networks Field.

2. The city put up a "Go Phillies" sign at the Clearwater end of the Courtney Campbell Parkway. It's near a "Go Rays" sign.

Here's a sampling of comments:

"I am appalled at your hosting a rally for our Rays opponents ... what a bonehead decision. You should be ashamed!"

"I for one will make every effort to avoid doing business within the city of Clearwater limits. Your city is an embarrassment to this entire area."

City officials are scratching their heads. For one thing, Clearwater didn't host a rally. The Phillies, who operate Bright House Field, opened up the ballpark Wednesday night and showed the game on the Jumbotron. More Rays fans than Phillies fans showed up to watch. The team has been holding happy hour on Wednesday nights at the stadium's tiki bar for years.

And the "Go Rays" and "Go Phillies" signs were there before the playoffs even started. Clearwater has a 62-year relationship with the Phillies.

"People need to keep everything in perspective. This is only a game," said Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard, who got a blue Mohawk on Wednesday to show his support for the Rays. He's tired of the city's receptionists getting profanity-laced phone calls. "Nobody should be rude to a bunch of people who are just doing their jobs."

Mike Brassfield, Times Staff Writer

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Comments

[Joseph Dunn]

jose---- you dont like it here.... go back up north on the next bus!!

[jose]

this is from those two small market radio yahoos, the killer Bs on espn. these two idiots are asking callers to call the city and other businesses that support the phillies during spring training. interesting in this economy that they would work overtime to damage someone's business.

i hope these two losers like tampa, as they will never get into a better market. talk about amateur radio, these losers are on par with community access TV.

rinky-dink bums. the 2 top radio guys in philly makes over $1M a year each, these two bums probably split 80k.

[cg]

NY Times had a great article about Clearwater yesterday. It was fun to read about my home town and wish I could be there for these games. Rooting for the Rays, but can't muster up the hate for the Phils because of so many childhood memories at Jack Russell.

People need to chill out.

[PhilsPhan]

come on, you had to see this coming, our srping training has been down there for over half a century! i'd like to know the ratio of phlorid born citizens to new england transplants that live in that area of phlorida... it's not surprising that there are a lot of philly phans down there doing what they do best - root for their team! if a bunch of tampa-area people moved to philly i'd be upset about them taking over my stadium (or dome in your case) but i wouldn't cry about it, i'd cheer louder for my squad! maybe think about trading in your cowbells for rally towels...
go phis!!!