I was watching Jim Rome Is Burning Thursday and noticed a familiar guest on the program — Rays pitcher Scott Kazmir — a guy who has been on Jim’s show the last few years. Thing is, every time in the past that Kazmir’s been on, it was early in the year before the Rays were a non-factor in the standings. This time around, it’s a different story; Kazmir’s just as good as he’s always been, but the Rays are one of the best teams in baseball. That’s why when asked about the lack of attendance at home games, Kazmir did not stop himself from calling out Rays fans who should be supporting the team. Kazmir said:
It’s kind of disappointing I guess you could say, coming back home from a road trip and you see maybe 9, 10 thousand fans at the games when we’re in first place and at one time the best record in baseball. It seemed like every home stand there was some type of excuse of why we didn’t get our fans here. If we really had a good fan base that cared about baseball and was a good baseball town, I think they would come out and support us. From what we’re doing right now I think it’s pretty special and I think it would be nice to have that 10th man out there to support us when we get home.
That quote is actually a condensed version of what Kazmir actually told Rome (I didn’t have my DVR to pause and transcribe at work, so I snagged the version SportsCenter played at night). Kazmir went into more detail about the excuses fans had for not showing up. Point is, Kazmir’s right — they should have more fans showing up at their games considering how well they’re playing. If it were May or June, I could understand fans still questioning the legitimacy of the run and being hesitant to show up. But now it’s almost September and there’s no doubt that the Rays are for real. By now the fans should have awakened. At the same time, I jumped on Rockies fans for becoming bandwagoners last year when the Rox got hot. In the end, I suppose it’s much better to have bandwagon fans who at least show up late to the party than to have nobody there at all.
Thing is, if those fans need some baseball tickets, all they have to do is go to Ticket Solutions. They can easily hook up Tampa Bay Rays tickets for anyone interested in jumping on the bandwagon, which I would highly encourage.
