By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
Published July 3, 2005
On this holiday weekend celebrating the birth of our nation, I rise to speak upon one of our great American institutions, namely, baseball.
As you may know, our Tampa Bay area is home to one of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball. Our team is known as the "Tampa Bay Devil Rays," after a sea creature. The name is unusual, but no more so than, say, "Dodgers," or a team named according to the color of its hosiery.
Now, without delving too deeply into the technical aspects of baseball, the general idea in any given game is to attain a greater score (expressed as the number of "runs") than that of the opposing team.
This brings us to the crux of the matter. Our Tampa Bay team has not been successful at winning baseball games. As of Saturday afternoon, the Devil Rays team had won only 27 games while losing 53, for a winning percentage of a puny .338. (Baseball expresses statistics in thousandths, and yet perversely calls them "percentages.")
Only one of the 30 teams, Kansas City, has a worse record than Tampa Bay's.
Interestingly, this poor track record cannot be blamed entirely on the Devil Rays' failure to swing their bats effectively and score "runs."
Indeed, among the 14 teams in the American League, the Devil Rays rank in the top half in the rate of hits per times at bat ("batting average") and in total scoring.
How, then, to account for the awful record? Careful study of the game will supply the answer - for the rules of baseball are fair and equitable, and both teams are allowed a turn at bat. This has proved to be the Devil Rays' weakness.
Tampa Bay ranks last in the American League in both the raw number of runs scored by its opponents, and the rate, per game played, at which opponents score (the "earned run average").
I do not wish to draw a sweeping overgeneralization. But the number of enemy "runs" is somewhat related to the skill of your own team's "pitcher," the player in charge of throwing the ball toward the other team's batter. The goal of being a pitcher, you see, is to make it difficult for the opponent to hit the ball . The Devil Rays pitching staff has not proved entirely adept in this endeavor.
Some comment has been made regarding the fact that the current boss of the baseball team, a certain Mr. Naimoli, is a hopeless cheapskate who pays his team a salary far less than any other owner.
Money is not everything in baseball - heart and gumption and brains count too. And yet, spending some level of money is necessary. The Tampa Bay baseball franchise refuses to employ pitchers with enough skill to reduce the rate of enemy "runs" scored. It is not entirely unreasonable to speculate that this is one reason the opposing teams have won more games.
I am out of space and have yet to touch on many important basics! As just one example, were I the field manager of the team, Mr. Piniella, I would encourage my young players who are taking their turn "at bat," especially the talented young Mr. Crawford, not to swing wildly EVERY SINGLE TIME a baseball is tossed in their general direction by the opposing pitcher.
I would comment ironically on my theory about the St. Petersburg Times ' two excellent baseball writers, Marc Topkin and Damian Cristodero. I did some research and made an amazing discovery. Those games covered by Mr. Topkin have resulted in a Devil Rays winning percentage barely above a ridiculous .250, whereas in games covered by Mr. Cristodero, the Rays actually have a winning record slightly over .500. But my lack of space forbids further discussion.
Finally, it seems to me that the lack of belief in the team by the ownership is having a poor effect on the players.
I wish I could transfer energy and anger into their young hearts, and have them believe like zealots that winning as few as 60 games this year will be better than winning 59, that losing a game by the score of 12 runs to 3 is better than losing 12-1, that it is better to dive for the ball, miss it and get a dirty uniform than to stop indifferently after a few steps, and that in all things, there are those who struggle with heroic effort until the final out, and then there are those who do not. Rage, Rays, rage against the dying of the fight.
