Tampa Bay Rays

I think that a huge question that is on everyone’s mind that lives in the Tampa Bay area is “Can the Tampa Bay Rays do it again?” I know what you are thinking about, what does it mean do it again? In case you have been living under a rock for the passed few years then I’ll explain it to you, in 2008 the Tampa Bay Rays won a lot of games and ended up in the World Series!! Well right now they have the best record in baseball and it seems that this record isn’t going to fall any time soon. Right now all of their players are hitting like crazy people out on a mission and the pitching staff is throwing the mad heat. But this time instead of just going to the World Series, the Tampa Bay Rays should go all the way and win it all. Some experts believe that the Tampa Bay Rays can do this but the smart people say that they need to have the city and the surrounding area to back them up, meaning that seats need to start getting filled up. The only problem they have with that is that the Tampa Bay Rays play in St. Petersburg! Meaning that the people who are on the other side of the bay are not going to make that huge journey to go see a good baseball game. The Tampa Bay Rays are looking for a new stadium to where a lot of people will come and watch and the answer is to bring the team over to Tampa. Look at the facts, the Lightning and the Buccaneers suck real bad but their attendance is through the roof!! There is only one answer to this and that is that they are in Tampa which is close to a lot of places. So in order for the Tampa Bay Rays to be the best they need to move to Tampa in order to bring people to the games.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Wow it’s amazing, the Tampa Bay Rays are in first place in the American League East! It turns out the beast of the east is now the Rays passing the two power house Major League Baseball giants, the New York Yankees and the red red oh so red Boston Red Sox. Granted that the season only opened up a couple of days ago, the Tampa Bay Rays have taken a two game lead over every body else and are currently undefeated. With Evan Longoria knocking two home runs and about five RBI’s, it seems that this guy is averaging out to have 162 home runs this season to go with about 700 RBI’s.
Along with Longoria, you have Carl Crawford who had a walk off single during the home opener, is in the final year of his contract and has openly expressed his desire to stay but will likely end up in pin stripes next year. So they have one last good year with him before he is gone, so they need to make the best out of this situation. Then you have Carlos Pena who is a gold glover and can smack the crap out of the baseball. And BJ Upton who plays in center field is a major contributer because he can hunt down any ball that has a 100 foot radius from him.
With such a young team, a lot of people wonder if they even have a shot at making it as a contender for the World Series. And since it has only been two games into the season it’s hard to predict if they can stay in shape the way they are now. After 162 games played in a single season, it is hard for a baseball player to stay healthy. So with the main question to be answered, if they can stay healthy and not have any slumps they are sure to make one of the spots in the playoffs.
A lot of people say that this Tampa Bay Rays team looks a lot like the 2008 team that ended up going to the World Series. And most say that they will likely make it this year again. I really would like to see them pull it off and they seem to have the right tools for the job except for one rusted nail, unknown where his nick name came from Pat “The Bat” Burrell was not worth the $8 million last year and so far doesn’t appear so for this year. He’s more like Pat “The Crap” Burrell, during a spring training game I personally asked him how many home runs he is going to get this season and he replied “ I don’t know, 1. And I am pretty sure he meant it. What the Tampa Bay Rays need to do is try and trade away this piece of crap for even some prospects and they would still have the better of the deal. They should give this DH opportunity to someone more deserving like Willy Aybar who can produce hits and RBI’s.

To the Big Bad Red Steroid Man

To you Mark Mcgwire, why are you back in baseball? Haven’t you shamed your name more than enough already? You were at one time one of the greatest home run hitters that ever lived. People started questioning you like they did with Barry Bonds, how did such a tiny guy become so big in such a short period of time? A lot of people have mixed feeling about you returning to baseball even if it is as a coach.
It seemed like a magical moment when you out ran Slamming Sammy Sosa in the home run battle with an added touch of family values, when the television showed you hit your 65th home run and there was your son at your side proud of what his dad accomplished. But was it fair to him not knowing that his beloved father was cheating at America’s favorite past time sport? I’ll tell you what; you really had a lot of people fooled when you hit that number 65. The steroid era was upon us but we were just too blind to notice it at the time until later. You should’ve known that when Jose Canseco would not shut his mouth after finding out that he wasn’t going to make the hall of fame and went for broke starting his not so popular line of clubs down in Miami Beach. So what does the biggest blabbermouth in all of baseball go and do, write a book about the things he went through in baseball. And after his tell all book accused you of using steroids and that Jose Canseco introduced you to them and that he names when, where, and how you used them is pretty concrete evidence because it is coming from a man how has nothing else to lose and needs to dish out dirt in order to make some money. After all that was said and done and a bunch of players came out about their use of steroids, you out right deny that you ever touched the stuff. Why would you lie in front of a congress hearing you big dummy, don’t you know they could throw your ass in jail?
After a long while of speculation on you using steroids from Jose Canseco, I am glad you got some sense knocked into your brain and that you came out and said “Yes I used steroids during the highlight of my baseball playing career. I am glad that you finally figured out that you are a has been and never will be hall of famer and that you might as well come out clean because you have no where else to go and that you want to leave the game with a clean state of mind.
Now as far as you coming back to coaching, I think you are hurrying to quickly to this decision. It’s good to see you back in a Cardinals uniform but this time without any juice. Don’t you get it that you only came clean less than a year ago about being on steroids? People still hate you, and now you are the hitting coach? What are you going to do, take all the players down a dark ally in the mean streets of St. Louis and show them how to knock the crap out of the ball by just one small shot in the butt? You were only a good hitter because of the illegal substances that you did. Haven’t you heard about what baseball is trying to do now? They are trying to make it a drug free league, and with just your presence there, the Major League is not fulfilling their dream.

Tiger Woods

What is the big deal with Tiger Wood’s life? He is just an average person who cheated on his wife with a few other women. With him there are plenty of men who have fallen for temptation. None of the other people who have committed adultery end up all over the television or newspapers unless some other incident had happed as a result of it such as murder.
The only reason why Tiger Woods had so much publicity was that he is a person who can play golf better than almost every person on the face of the earth, and that he grossed just over something like a billion dollars last year. The man has lost a lot of his major endorsements like Gatorade, and Gillette just because he had a little perversion. When Kobe Bryant and Beg Ben Rothlisburger were caught cheating or raping someone, not to many people or news sources really cared or covered what exactly happened. And soon everyone just dropped the subject and Kobe Bryant and Ben Rothlisburger went on to lead successful playing careers without looking back. But with the case of Tiger Woods, the media spreading around the bad word about Tiger Woods, the people who view these sources have already cashed in their thoughts and feelings on this subject. After passing this judgment, they still continue to rag on Tiger Woods, and instead of looking into the future and see what great accomplishments will come to follow from one of the greatest athletes to ever step foot on a playing field and will go down in history as a golfer to be untouched. The people will instead view him as the sexual predator that he once was.
Tiger Woods is planning on returning to the golfing green when the masters comes in a couple of months. The golfing community is expecting a record crowd at this years masters that could reach more than three times more spectators than all other master’s in the past. With a crowd expected to be in the high 50s, a majority of the fans going to the golf match is not going because they are a fan of Tiger Woods or are impressed with his over 80 career wins. But are only going to more than likely chant some obscene rants or just to see him because he was a featured character on the animated cartoon series South Park or on TMZ. With a well preplanned speech at his news conference that had no emotion and seemed that it was presented by a robot, and going to a sex rehab and making every effort possible to keep his good clean name, we as a community should embrace his apology and forget about what has happened in his personal life and give him a rebirth and continue his overpowering career as the world’s greatest golfer. Maybe after his wins his next big tournament which hopefully will come in his first appearance, and gets his green jacket that that would be a step in the right direction for him.

Column

The ideal news journal or magazine for me to see my blogs in would have to be a gossip section that would appear in the Tampa Tribune newspaper. My first blog that I posted was about sportsmanship and how I felt about it. And I want to continue it into another direction to where I can talk about major issues that revolve around the world of sports. The sports writers of today in the Tampa Tribune write very little about their opinion on a subject and focus more time on just stating the facts. Hardly ever to we read an article that is opinionated in the sports section because the writers are in fear of losing their jobs. I feel that a majority of my opinions that center around sports are ones that everybody could agree on. An opinionated gossip sports column speaks for itself, even if a bunch of people who would read my column would disagree with my views, it would still attract readers.
Writing an opinionated would not only help myself in getting what I think about the world of sports out there but it would also help inform readers in a way, just incase they are not up to date on the matter. And if they are undecided on what to think on a subject, maybe my column could help them open up their eyes and maybe persuade them into my views. I know that having a gossip column is not always an easy thing, that sometimes you are on a slippery slope as far as people agreeing with one’s opinion. But without a sports writer to write about their feeling of on a certain sports issue, then there should be no sports at all.

Sportsmanship

One example of an issue in the history of sport relating to sportsmanship comes from a few years ago when the head coach from the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick was caught cheating. Being held high above people’s heads, Belichick was the face of the Patriots. He meant a lot to the city with bringing them super bowls and influencing coaches from all over the world to be like him in everyway. Once the news broke of Bill Belichick cheating in order to win games, it put a burden on his reputation as a person and as a coach who was put on a high pole as an ideal coach. Coach Belichick took the abuse pretty well, after the news came out, he put out a press conference and talked about why and did what he did and apologized to all the people who he had offended. Being a head coach in a professional league can be very stressful and a lot is put on the person, so it would seem that a coach would do almost anything in order to win. It seems cheating is a major issue in sport that has gone about through decades and has gone unnoticed unless if the team who is cheating is the team that is winning championships.

But is the only question; is Bill Belichick the only cheater among the NFL coaches? To answer this question I will use a synonym for this that a friend who is with a police force described to me. That there are plenty of criminals, but only the dumb criminals get caught. Meaning that a large majority if not all of the NFL coaches cheat in some form or another, but are smart enough not to get caught. Cheating should not be tolerated because America’s youth watches what happens and that these instances are showing poor sportsmanship. Which would be exercised in future sporting events.

Just say by the off chance that a team is on a winning streak without even setting foot in the cheating ring and they are confronted against a team like the New England Patriots with Bill Belichick as a head coach who has come out of the closet and admitted to cheating. And the team who is true ends up losing to the cheating team, how do you think the head coach of the losing team would feel? That the head coach would then question if he lost because the better team won or that the other team cheated to win. The head coach would probably feel that it was an unfair win on the other team’s part and that the lose should be taken away from the losing column and should be placed with a Did Not Play game. Or on the other side of the totem pole, whenever Bill Belichick won a football game the question would come up that if the coach won the game by his coaching ability or if he some how cheated. All in all, there is no answer to cheating in sports and sportsmanship is terminally finished. I think we need to accept sports for what they are, winning at any cost necessary.