© St. Petersburg Times, published May 6, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- The voice is loud and it is distinctive. The words bump into one another and emerge at a frantic pace. Fury sounds a lot like this.
In a building filled with thousands, Vince Naimoli's passion rises above the rest. A third consecutive ninth-inning lead has been lost. And, for the moment, so has Naimoli's cool.
He screams. He paces. He screams while he paces. Protocol has left the owner's suite and soon family and friends will follow.
So you think you are a Devil Rays fan?
Step aside and observe the real deal.
It would not be wrong to say Naimoli invests more emotion than any Tampa Bay player, fan or employee. It would merely be an understatement.
He grew up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan at a time when his world appeared smaller and a ballgame's outcome seemed disproportionately important. Still it does not compare to the drama he relives daily with the Rays.
"In those days, if the Dodgers lost, I would feel bad," Naimoli said. "When we lose now, I feel devastated."
He is smiling when he says this. That is because the day still is young and batting practice has only just begun. It will be hours before the Rays blow that ninth-inning lead and lose 7-5 to the Red Sox on Saturday night.
The next time you feel alone with your frustration, the next time you wonder why no one cares as much as you do, remember the dark-haired man in the suite above. The one who has invested as much with his heart as his wallet.
"It's hard for me to sleep. It really affects me in a lot of ways," he continued. "My wife said to me this morning, 'You know you sleep so much better when the team wins.' I keep replaying games in my mind. I wake up and think, 'Gee if this would have happened or that would have happened.' You go on all night like that and it really gripes at you. The only saving grace, the only thing that saves you from total despair, is you play the next day."
Perhaps owners in other cities share the same depth of commitment as Naimoli, but none wear it as proudly and, at times, defiantly as he.
Say what you will about his business decisions and social grace. Argue about the team's direction or lack thereof. But understand this:
No one cares more about on-field success than Naimoli.
Most owners rarely travel with their teams. Naimoli may attend 30-40 of the Rays' road games. He does not dare miss games at Tropicana Field unless work has taken him out of town.
As a businessman, he can be aggressive and unforgiving. As a fan, he is much the same way.
This puts Naimoli in a unique position. What fan has not shouted solutions at the TV screen? Who wouldn't want a chance to push a team's buttons?
In Naimoli, you have the ultimate fan with the ultimate power.
Care to call a pitchout, Vince?
He insists that is not his way. The Rays managing general partner says he does not dictate personnel orders to general manager Chuck LaMar or lineup changes to manager Hal McRae. Baseball, he said, is like any other business. A CEO should hire experts and let them run the show.
Of course, a CEO should be kept up to date on important matters. In Naimoli's case, it might require being kept up-to-the-minute on all matters.
This would explain why McRae and pitching coach Jackie Brown, still half-dressed in uniforms, were seen leaving the upstairs suites long after the stadium had cleared Saturday night.
"Do I think, at times, that some different players should be playing? As a fan, yes. You reserve that right as a fan," Naimoli said. "But I would never think of saying to Hal, or to Chuck, 'So-and-so needs to be in the lineup.' That is their responsibility.
"I'm a great believer in authority and responsibility. When someone has the responsibility, they have to have the authority."
As much time as he spends at the stadium, Naimoli watches comparatively few games from his suite. In the owner's box, there are sponsors to be entertained, obligations to be met.
So he often allows his suite to be used by a charity and he takes a less restrictive seat near the field. Here, he usually keeps his own company. Here, he can watch the game on his own terms. Here, his intensity can simmer.
His mood for the night is too often determined by the game's result. He knows this. Usually he is powerless to change it. His self-described mood after a victory is supreme elation. You can guess about the defeats.
Naimoli said he normally avoids talking to people after the tougher losses. His wife hears about it most of the time. LaMar on other occasions.
"I'll go on and on with my wife and she takes it pretty good. I go on and on with Chuck and he'll fire back," Naimoli said. "I can think of a couple of times where I've had to pull the car off the road because we were shouting at each other on the phone. But, at the end, Chuck is usually right."
It is not always grim. There certainly have been many more defeats than victories along the way, but there are moments Naimoli says he cherishes.
The night Wade Boggs got his 3,000th hit. The emotional return to Yankee Stadium shortly after Sept. 11.
Even an otherwise nondescript night in Boston late in 1998.
It was Tampa Bay's first season and the unspoken goal was to avoid 100 losses. At the start of the season's final week, the Rays played a doubleheader against the Red Sox. They lost the first game 4-3, but won the second 8-4. It was Terrell Wade's first and only victory as a Rays pitcher. It also was Tampa Bay's 63rd victory, ensuring no more than 99 losses.
Naimoli said he could not let the moment pass. So he went to the highbrow Four Seasons where he enjoyed a victory cigar and drink.
"I was all alone," he said, "but I thought it deserved a celebration."
He never expected this. None of this. Not the long hours he has put in. Not the arrows that have come his way. Certainly not the depth of his attachment to a baseball team.
Others have told him it is folly to care so much.
So he tells a story to help explain.
A few years ago the Rays were at Chicago's Comiskey Park for a three-game series. The wind was brutal and Naimoli was there with his daughter and her new baby. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, seeing the family huddling in the cold, invited them up to his suite.
"At the time we're leading the game," Naimoli said. "So we go up to the suite to watch, we end up blowing the lead and losing the game. The next night, same exact thing. We're ahead, Jerry says to come up, I feel bad for the baby, so we go up and lose again.
"So the third day, I'm sitting down there and we're ahead, Jerry invites me up. I say, 'I'm not coming.' I wrote him a letter, apologized, told him, 'Thank you for your kind invitation, but after the first two nights, I really can't do it again.' I send him a box of cigars as a thank you.
"Jerry writes me back. He says, 'You may not believe this, but no matter where you sit, it will not determine the outcome of the game. And all this game will do is give you high blood pressure and a heart attack.' "
He laughs as he tells the story.
There is a silent pause.
He is asked what happened in the third game.
"We won."