10 reasons why it's cooler to be a Rays fan than a Bucs fan

Maybe it is cooler to be a Rays fan these days than a Bucs fan. Check out Jason Burtch. He's a 29-year-old Tampa Bay sports fan from Port Charlotte. Burtch wants Rays tickets so badly that he’s willing to give up Bucs tickets for Rays tickets. Friday, Burtch, a 29-year-old who lives in Port Charlotte, posted a message on a Rays message board wanting to trade Bucs tickets for Rays tickets.

Tampa Bay always has been and probably always will be football-first town. But, actually, it is cooler to be a Rays fan than a Bucs fan at the moment. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. You can feel good about the Rays
Delmon Young is a head case and the Rays trade him. Elijah Dukes is a trouble-maker and the Rays trade him. B.J. Upton loafs and the Rays bench him. Meantime, the Bucs re-sign a player (Jerramy Stevens) who has been in one legal shenanigan after another, and use a first-round pick to draft a guy (Aqib Talib) who was caught smoking marijuana on multiple occasions in college and then got into a fight with a teammate at the NFL rookie symposium.

2. The Rays treat players better
Rocco Baldelli comes down with a mysterious illness and what do the Rays do? Stand behind him, help him, show patience and eventually work him back into the lineup. Chris Simms loses a spleen and what to the Bucs do? Bad-mouth him, bench him and, ultimately, release him.

3. It literally is cooler
Rays home game: 72 degrees, no rain, no wind, no boiling sun. Bucs games: 90 degrees, maybe a wicked thunderstorm, searing sun. At Rays games, you settle in with a cold drink and a bag of peanuts that you can bring from home. At the Bucs game, you cram into an oven and need 70 SPF and a bottle of water to just keep from passing out.

4. Rays are more family friendly
In general, the difference between a Rays game and a Bucs fan is like the difference between a movie that's rated PG and another that’s rated R. The Bucs draw more fans, but that also means more of them are drunk, obnoxious and swear like they're in David Mamet play. In short, if you have the choice to take your 8-year-old to a Rays game or a Bucs game, it's no contest.

5. The Rays owners seem like regular guys
The Glazers are probably nice people and they do wonderful charity work. But when was the last time you saw Joel and Bryan Glazer or GM Bruce Allen serving as ushers at a game like Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and executives Matt Silverman and Andrew Friedman? The Rays boys just seem more accessible and their sole focus is a baseball team in St. Petersburg. (They have nothing to do with a soccer team in England.) Plus, Sternberg gets extra points for being a Springsteen fan. We don't know what kind of music the Glazers listen to because they are so private, but something about them screams "Yanni.''

6. You don't have to sit in traffic
See, there's one advantage to small crowds at Rays games. You don't have to fill up your gas tank, leave your house four hours early and inch your way along the final five miles just to arrive two hours before the game starts. Then repeat the whole thing after the game. The Rays are a pleasant evening out. The Bucs are a hard day's work.

7. Joe Maddon seems like a nicer guy than Jon Gruden
The Bucs coach isn't paid to make friends, but to win games. I get that. But I go back two years ago when Maddon took two games off to attend his girlfriend's graduation from law school. I just don't see Gruden doing something like that. Maddon sips wine after a game. Meantime, when we think of Gruden, our first thought is seeing how many times he can use a word that starts with "F'' on the sidelines.

8. Free parking
When I see the word "free,'' my next thought is "cool.'' Cars with four or more people can still park for free at a Rays game. The Bucs charge 25 bucks a pop no matter how many people are in your car. Plus, you can get a ticket to a Rays game for a mere $9. Nine dollars can't get your front wheels into the parking lot at Raymond James.

9. Post-game concerts and giveaways
LL Cool J, Loverboy and more bobbleheads than you can shake a stick at. That's what you get at a Rays game. What do the Bucs give away? Posters that turn into flying airplanes about midway through the fourth quarter of their games. And, this has nothing to do with giveaways, but here's another reason -- there's more offense at a Rays game.

10. You can hang out after a Rays game
Okay, so downtown St. Pete isn't exactly midtown Manhattan. But at least you can walk to a couple of dozen places to grab a bite to eat and a drink, maybe even listen to a little music. There are a few popular places within walking distance of Raymond James. Sure, you can listen to music at these, uh, establishments, but you better not grab anything or a guy named T-Bone will snap your spinal cord.   

Comments

[D.G.]

Mr. Jones, you are excellent in writing this type of stuff. From a Rays fan who is not sure where the Gruden Bucs are or care about, Thanks.

[CharlieRay]

Nicely Put. I am pruod to be a Rays fan

[Rob]

Aqib Talib smoked weed?!?! IN COLLEGE!?!? And he's still allowed to walk the streets a free man? I can't believe the Bucs would draft someone who smoked weed in college -- I know of no other business (certainly not a newspaper) which would hire someone who smoked weed in college. WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

[Dave]

Tom, you're an idiot. The Bucs are the ticket in town, not the devil rays. Who wants to drive all that way to be mugged in the parking lot????

[Greg]

I definitely agree with all of your points. There certainly is something to be said about a stadium located close to a downtown as opposed to trapped in a pedestrian nightmare.

Dave the idiot is YOU...The Rays are THE TEAM....Please leave your ignorance out of our part of town.You arent welcome .
Tom what a great way to promote the Rays...It is the place to be ...GO RAYS

[Gene]

Clearly, the Rays in the post Namoli era get the point that they are part of the community and need to work on the relationship. You need go no further than the Simms/Baldelli comparison to see that the Rays are thinking about more than just the next game, while the Bucs are a "take it or leave it" operation.

[LDG]

While I think the article is great, I have to disagree with the Baldelli/Simms comparisons. The year after Simms' splean was removed, the Bucs gave him a new contract with "Starter money". The Rays recently declined to pick up Baldelli's option, which means he's on his own after this year. After giving Simms starter's money, the Bucs wanted to see if their investment in Simms would work out. It did not so they cut him (because they couldn't keep him on the active roster and there is no minor league program they could optioned him out to.) The Rays have a lot more flexibility than the Bucs do in terms of roster spots so they were able to keep Baldelli. All that said, and to paraphrase Rodney King, why can't we all just get along?!?! The Rays are a great story, the Bucs are (right now) a bigger draw but as a sports fan in Tampa, you have to love what's going on.

[skp]

what's idiotic is the notion this article is promoting that a fan should have to choose, especially in terms of putting one down to support the other. these are both our teams, not to mention apples and oranges - how about 81 chances to see the rays in the regular season vs 8 for the bucs? how about a 65k venue exploding with continuous energy & passion and specatacle vs a 35k bottled up with bursts of intensity amid stretches to enjoy your food and the company of those around you?

these are all pros, not pro vs con

as a rays, bucs, lightning and bulls fan, i find this article so idiotic and baseless that i'm compelled to spend time ranting about how idiotic and baseless it is. and the notion that the bucs are somehow full of bad guys from the ownership down to the practice squad is inaccurate and totally irresponsible....most people who have issues with the bucs' "character" are focused on 3 or 4 guys WHO HAVE DONE NO WRONG IN A BUCS UNI while overlooking high-character veterans including non-dungy guys like kevin carter, luke mccown, hovan, galloway, ruud, hilliard, etc etc etc

and get over the simms thing, the bucs and chris were dealing with a situation nobody in football has faced before, and this offseason they did the right thing for the bucs and their fans who want to win by keeping him as long as possible to hedge against injuries (2006 bucs or 2007 falcons anyone?) and trying to get value for a guy they paid millions to without taking a snap. chris simms will benefit from getting to choose the best team and situation for him while also getting the opportunity to get reps put his play on tape before hitting the market. his alternative was to sign on to a team not knowing whether training camp would leave him stuck on a team that might never give him a shot, instead, he'll be called by teams that probably have a significant immediate need for his services.

[skp]

by the way, points 6-10 are not rays vs bucs, they are NFL vs MLB....

-an NFL coach will never take 2 games out of 16 off for ANYTHING, an MLB

-it's much easier to provide a local economy around baseball postgame activities (81 games) than around football (8 sundays a year), and every MLB team has to do gimmicks like giveways and concerts to fill up 3+ million seats a season - traffic is there because the venue for NFL games is twice as big as MLB games and sold out close to 100% of the time

-free parking is a similar loss leader tactic necessary to get people to the games....

-i'd argue that the "family friendly" bit is also characteristic of each sport....do you think that the crowds at other NFL venues are less drunk, less amped up, and generally rougher around the edges than an MLB venue in the same city?

so tom, based on the second half of your list, is it accurate to say that you think that MLB is a better ticket than NFL?

[skp]

ok last one, didn't finish one of my thoughts up there:

-an NFL coach will never take 2 games out of 16 off for ANYTHING, an MLB coach can take off 2 games out of 162 because his uni is being altered...and really, did maddon's 2 days off amid a near 100-loss season really have a chance to hurt the rays?

[The Big Nasty]

I can't stand listening to that idiot heckler at the Rays games! He's such a publicity WH0RE it makes me sick to my 60" stomach!!!