★ ERIC Atkins ★

I was in St. Pete this weekend and decided to attend by first MLB post season game.



The outside of the stadium looks boring. Kind of like walking beside a big oil refinery I guess.

The turf looks like it was transplanted from the Astro Dome.

The field has light fixtures in play above the playing field. Players can hit a pop fly, the ball can hit a light or support beam, and the umpire can give them a homerun. In some cases the ball remains in play and you just play the live ball. I saw BJ Upton hit a light supporting beam. The ball may or may not have left the field. I’ve heard stories of players hitting pop flies, the hits a support beam and rolls along a catwalk, the player rounds the bases, heads for home, the ball falls and the outfielder catches it for an out.

The catwalks obstructs the view for some of the fans.

The seats were dirty.

They’ve got room for a big pool full of sting rays in the outfield behind the wall, but they don’t have room for a bullpen. The bullpen is on the side of the field.

Besides LSU and Tennessee football fans, the Rays fans were the most vulgar and poorest sports of all fans I know.

There were probably no more than 1,000 seats in the outfield.

The stadium seemed small. Some fields in Spring Training are larger.

It was one of the loudest sporting events I’ve been to because of the cowbells. Thousands and thousands of fans bring cowbells to the game and ring them.

I just learned that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are no more. Several hundred churches objected to the word “Devil” being in the moscot’s name so the team changed their name to the “Rays” — as in “ray of light” from the sun. It was very confusing seeing fireballs and streaks of light used generously during their marketing sessions.

The game ended up being a lot of fun. The fans were just as entertaining as the game itself.