Let's replace apathy with anger

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© St. Petersburg Times
published September 18, 2002

Somebody ought to be ticked off.

Somebody ought to be mad.

Somebody ought to slam a fist on a desk and demand a few answers.

Another year, another hundred losses, and where's the news? The Rays are sadly, horribly rooted in last place, and what did you expect? The Rays are terrible? Of course they are. They're the Rays.

Somebody ought to be tired of it.

Somebody ought to kick a chair.

Somebody ought to scream.

This is the worst part about the Rays' current mess. No one expects any different, and no one demands any better.

The Rays stumble through the days, and the defeats, absorbing one after the other, and after a while, one feels no different from the rest. After all this time, a certain numbness to it all has enveloped Tampa Bay.

Only a couple of things are worse than losing. One is the acceptance. We aren't disappointed when they lose; we're surprised when they don't.

A baseball team should lose 100 games at its own peril. A hundred defeats, and someone should be angry. Someone should be shaped up, someone else shipped out. Fans should lean over the rails and demand answers. People should boo and bemoan and wear paper bags over their heads.

Owners should snarl.

General managers should snipe.

Managers should snap.

A hundred losses! There should be a feeling of betrayal. It's an outrageous number, and it should result in outrage. A hundred losses should be a rare, horrifying experience. A hundred losses should cancel all leaves, suspend all raises and shiver all timbers.

Here, it feels like "Tuesday."

Here, we look the other way. Here, we see a team playing for loss No. 101, as the Rays did Tuesday, and we joke about Dalmatian giveaways. We wait for the 14th year of the team's five-year plan. That should come in 2012 and, barring injuries, we can expect the Rays' first draft pick from 2008 to be ready, can't we?

Frankly, it would be a healthy thing to see a little anger, from the players, from the front office, from the stands. It would be better to see impatient, impassioned people demanding a little more than a team going gently into the good night. It should matter.

They can be a sensitive lot, these Rays. There are those in the front office who think the media have been horribly, wickedly, unfairly hard on them. Ha.

The truth -- and I'm as much to blame as anyone -- is this: The media have wrapped the Rays in a snuggle blanket and placed them on fluffy pillows in a glass case. No one has demanded heads. Or, for that matter, hearts.

In Philadelphia, they would have heckled the players. Mercilessly.

In Chicago, they would have lambasted the manager. Endlessly.

In Boston, they would have roasted the general manager. Ruthlessly.

In New York, they would have ripped the owner. Relentlessly.

Here? Every now and then we treat this franchise like an active child who has crashed his tricycle by being careless. We chide. We scold. Every now and then we offer a hug and share a story about tomorrow.

That should change. It's time standards should be raised and tolerance lowered. Now sounds good.

How good should the Rays be?

Better than this.

Anyone who disagrees should be shown the door.

How vicious is Tampa Bay? Hey, we give benefits of doubt for Christmas. We listen to talk of tough losses and young teams and tough breaks. We chuckle softly. Even as B.J. Upton was taken to the hospital for dehydration Tuesday, the first thought was that he was really a Ray now, and that Josh Hamilton and Matt White would meet him in the waiting room.

But there is a difference between ill wind and bad odor. It's time Tampa Bay noticed.

My favorite e-mail of the season arrived last week. It was from an irate fan who was disgusted when manager Hal McRae left it up to Esteban Yan to finish another game. In six sentences, the fan used 16 exclamation points and capitalized three words for emphasis.

Such a letter should not tick off the Rays. It should make them jump up and slap palms. It is a rare, beautiful display of obvious passion and emotion -- not to mention flawless logic; why Yan is allowed to ride the team bus, let alone take the mound, is a mystery. Hey, somebody cares.

For the Rays, the problem isn't that too many fans are upset. It's that not enough are.

This is baseball. People ought to be screaming about the owner's wallet and the general manager's resume and the manager's lineup card.

Ben Grieve's impassive face ought to drive people crazy. Fans ought to discuss which players could have been purchased with the money thrown at Wilson Alvarez. No one should be safe. The cellar should not be so darned comfortable.

Instead, we expect very little, and we get it, and no one is disappointed. That's much of the problem. The Rays have been horrible, yet no one can accuse them of underachieving. Sad, isn't it?

The individual games are no longer distinguishable. They blur together into a giant blob of blah. Every game is the same. Tanyon Sturtze, it seems, has started 97 games, and every loss is 6-2, and Yan has blown them all. We have all turned into McRae, staring blankly at the size of it.

Over their first three seasons, the Rays averaged 94 losses. And those were the good old days. Since then, the franchise has gone backward. It's like falling out of Death Valley.

A hundred losses. A hundred last year, too.

Ask yourself: Do you expect a hundred next year? Of course you do.

Somebody ought to be miffed at the thought.

Somebody ought to be warned.

Somebody ought to do something about it.

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