Tampa Bay Devil Rays

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Tampa Bay Rays

Established:	1998
Former Team Names:	None
Ballpark:	Tropicana Field
World Series Titles:	0
Pennants:	0
Division Titles:	1 (2008)
Wild Cards:	0

1 Franchise History
2 Retired Numbers
3 Minor League Affiliates
4 Quick Facts
5 Local Media
6 External Links

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Franchise History

The Tampa-St. Petersburg area, one of the fastest growing areas in the United States during the 70s and 80s, made many attempts to acquire a baseball team before receiving the Devil Rays in the 1998 expansion. The main obstacles were city infighting and the lack of a stadium. That changed with the building of the state-of-the-art Florida Suncoast Dome in 1990. The dome was built without any notification of receiving a team (Major League Baseball recommended highly against it), and was solely meant to attract an existing team. Soon, teams started to look in to moving to the area, the first being the Chicago White Sox, who but for a last minute action by the Illinois Legislature would have moved to St. Petersburg. The price for keeping the White Sox in Chicago was high--a brand new Comiskey Park (now U.S. Cellular Field). The Seattle Mariners also looked at the area. While nothing came of it, an indirect result was what became Safeco Field. The San Francisco Giants also came close to moving there in 1992 but the team was eventually purchased and resultingly AT&T Park came about. Prior to the building of Tropicana Field, The Minnesota Twins expressed interest in moving to Tampa in 1984, before the team was sold to local businessman Carl Pohlad.

The 1993 expansion, the first in more than a decade, brought out interest from the area. Too much, it turned out. A group from St. Petersburg entered early, expecting to be a lock until a competing group from Tampa also showed up. Not helping matters was a bid by Wayne Huizenga for a team in Miami. Orlando also submitted a bid. Tampa was eliminated early due to St. Pete's existing stadium, but St. Petersburg, Miami and Orlando were all finalists. It was virtually taken for granted that one of the two new teams would be based in Florida. However, not wanting two Florida teams, and faced with a strong bid from Denver (which became the Colorado Rockies), MLB bypassed Tampa Bay and Orlando and took Huizenga's bid. Adding salt to the wound, Huizenga named the Miami team the Florida Marlins.

Another shot at baseball came when San Francisco Giants owner Bob Lurie agreed in principle to sell the team to a Tampa Bay-based group, who would then move the team to the Suncoast Dome. A press conference was announced, uniforms were drawn up, and tickets were about to be printed. However, at the last minute, MLB's owners vetoed the move under pressure from San Francisco city officials. The Giants were eventually sold to a local San Francisco group who eventually built AT&T Park.

There was a lot of bitterness in Tampa Bay, especially at Huizenga, who voted against the move. A local boycott on Blockbuster Video stores lasted for years. Angry at MLB about the Giants, group leader Vince Naimoli threatened a lawsuit. In fear, baseball decided to have another expansion, this time admitting Naimoli's group and a group from Phoenix (the Arizona Diamondbacks).

The Dome finally had a team, but the stadium that had built 3 other teams' new stadiums was now out of date. Naimoli needed more than $70 million US from the city in renovations. He also threatened to move the team to Orlando before it even started playing. In a biting irony, the team that was supposed to put St. Petersburg on the map was named Tampa Bay. Many never forgave the team.

Vince Naimoli ruled the team with an iron fist and tight pursestrings until the 2005 offseason, when he turned managing control of the team over to Stu Sternberg. His promises of a more stable, better-performing team are being worked on, perhaps best typified by signing several popular players to long-term contracts in the 2007 offseason.

Tampa Bay dropped the "Devil" from the team name, becoming the Tampa Bay Rays, and changed their colors, logo and uniforms on November 8, 2007. The "Devil" in the name had been de-emphasized since the first logo change in 2001. Although many consider the shortened name to symbolize "a ray of sunshine", as evidenced by features of the logo and the addition of gold as a color, the team still retains a version of the "manta ray" symbol from their original team insignia in the new colors.

Shortly after the name change, the team announced plans to sell Tropicana Field to redevelopers and build a new ballpark at the site of their original spring training facility, Al Lang Field (Progress Energy Park), along the shore of Tampa Bay. The park would be open-air, with a retractible fabric cover as a rainshield (much akin to the concept for Olympic Stadium in Montreal), and would be oriented so home runs to right field could land in the bay. Sternberg will pay $150 million, and the rest of the $450 million total price will be paid for through the sale of the Tropicana Field area, and tax revenue from the redeveloped property. Although not finalized, as development along the Tampa Bay shore must be approved by St. Petersburg voters even though there is no related tax increase, the team hopes to open the new facility for the 2012 season.

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Retired Numbers

12 - Wade Boggs (3B)

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Minor League Affiliates

	Durham Bulls The AAA team International League		Montgomery Biscuits The AA team Southern League
	Vero Beach Devil Rays Class A Advanced Florida State League		Columbus Catfish Class A South Atlantic League
	Hudson Valley Renegades Class A Short Season New York-Penn League		Princeton Devil Rays Rookie Ball Appalachian League