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John McHale Jr., the chief operating officer, says the team blames no one else for its woes and will work to earn support.
By BRYAN GILMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 21, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- John McHale Jr. sees the attendance dropping and the expensive players not earning their keep. He hears the nationwide snickering about Tropicana Field every time a fly ball hits a roof ring, and he hears the whispers that Major League Baseball might shut down the franchise.
But the new Tampa Bay Devil Rays chief operating officer says the team needs to look in the mirror when pointing the finger of blame for those problems, not out the window at the people who live around Tampa Bay.
"It's utter hubris to tell people they're responsible for supporting my business no matter how I run it," McHale told a group of St. Petersburg Times editors and reporters Wednesday. "You earn their support by creating a franchise that they're proud of."
As McHale embarks on what amounts to a "We're Sorry" tour of the Tampa Bay area, his pitch is this: The team is an institution built by a community that lobbied for more than a decade to get a team, not by a group of millionaire investors.
During the hourlong session, McHale struck a markedly different tone than managing general partner Vince Naimoli has while overseeing the club's day-to-day operation for its 3 1/2 seasons of major league existence.
McHale said he does "report" to Naimoli. But McHale insisted he really is in charge of the baseball team's daily business decisions. He said that he is "not eager to cross swords" with Naimoli, but that the two men will engage in an ongoing philosophical discussion about the direction of the team.
McHale is frank: He foresees several tough years ahead on the playing field as the team cuts player salaries and focuses instead on developing young prospects. Still, he thinks he can reverse the attendance slide, which has fewer than half as many fans at the average game this season (10,224 fans attending on sales of 14,738 tickets per game) as in the team's inaugural season in 1998.
He called one of his disappointments upon arrival, "living with a bad ball club for another number of years," after leaving the Detroit Tigers in the midst of a rebuilding job.
He said realizes the team is asking fans to do the same thing.
So he and the Devil Rays will have to make Tropicana Field a cool place to go on a hot summer day, emphasize the chance to see famous major league players on visiting teams, and build the team's reputation on promising young stars.
And he is not asking taxpayers for a new stadium, seeing Tropicana Field as a suitable major league park for decades.
"These are not the kinds of issues club owners should be talking about when the team is in our situation," he said.
Despite ESPN SportsCenter highlights featuring the roof-support rings, McHale said he is pleasantly surprised by how suitable Tropicana Field is for the Devil Rays.
"I think Tropicana Field is a better place to play and watch baseball than I expected," McHale said, adding that his memories of the stadium from previous seasons were vaguely unfavorable but inaccurate. "I think the building is mischaracterized nationally."
He praised the upscale artificial turf, the sight lines, the air conditioning and shelter from the sun -- even the quality of the food from the concession stands.
Where Naimoli has often irritated potential fans and corporate sponsors, McHale intends to court them. Corporate sponsors are frustrated with the team "not to a unanimous degree, but to a nearly unanimous degree," McHale said, creating the need for "repositioning, fence-mending and apologizing."
Major League Baseball is following the situation in Tampa Bay closely, McHale said, but he said he has not been part of any talks about shutting the team down in a contraction of the major leagues.
"If I thought it was a risk, I don't believe I would have agreed to come down here," he said.