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© St. Petersburg Times, published April 4, 2002
Through their short and unstoried history, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays appear to lead the league in at least one category -- marketing pitches.
We've seen "Off the Wall" -- the ill-fated, into-the-wall campaign of former Tampa Bay marketing hotshot Mike Veeck in 1999.
We've endured the overhyped, swing-and-miss "Hit Show" in 2000, survived the "Raysball: Be Part of It" crusade in 2001 as the team plunged to its first 100-loss season. And now -- as the young, inexperienced Rays step intrepidly into 2002 -- we're hearing the battle cry "Heart and Hustle."
With the franchise embarking on its fifth season, we take this moment to revisit classic oratories of preseason optimism.
-- DAVE SCHEIBER, Times staff writer
"We had a five-year plan when we started and we had a little divergence along the way (by signing high-salary veterans two years ago), but I think we're back on the plan. Perhaps our five-year plan was a little optimistic, perhaps it should have been five to six. But I think we are fairly well where we want to be right now. . . . I would never argue with our manager, and I think he's declared what his expectations are (a .500 season). I could do nothing but support him." -- Managing general partner Vince Naimoli, March 31, 2002
"It's the most talent we've ever had going into a year. . . . We've got to go out and prove we're better than we were last year, that we're better than we've been in the past, and how close we really are to being a competitive major-league club." -- General manager Chuck LaMar, April 3, 2001
Final record: 62-100
"I'm more excited and looking forward to more euphoria with more wins." -- Vince Naimoli, April 2, 2000
"There's been a lot said in the off-season that we went out and got all these exciting players and made these big moves to draw more fans. No, we made them to win more baseball games and take a step closer to being a championship club. And in turn when we do that, we do expect the fans to come out, and I think they will." -- Chuck LaMar, Feb. 15, 2000
Final record: 69-92
"It's going to be a fantastically fun experience this year -- fan-friendly and affordable. . . . We are going to have a better team. We're right on our five-year plan, right where we want to be this year. I think there's a lot of evidence of that in spring training. It's particularly interesting if you start to look at the horizon and you start to imagine. We have a very good pitching staff now, what it's going to look like in 2001." -- Vince Naimoli, April 4, 1999
"When we say the club is going to be better, obviously we think we're going to win more games, and we have the capability to do that." -- Chuck LaMar, April 5, 1999
Final record: 69-93
"It's going to be fun. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be a rallying point for everyone in our area. It's a form of unification for all of our different areas. It will be great notoriety for the entire area. There will be a terrific economic impact and the creation of a tremendous amount of revenue streams. . . . It's going to be an outing, an event. Something people have fun doing over and over." -- Vince Naimoli, March 31, 1998
"I guarantee this team is not going to lose 100 games. There's no way. We have good talent here and guys who have been in the league for many years, and everybody knows what they can do. So we're not going to lose 100 games; there's no way." -- Pitcher Wilson Alvarez, March 31, 1998
Final record: 63-99
-- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.