Tommy Pham is done with the pleasantries less than five months into his tenure with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Appearing Thursday on MLB Network Radio, the Rays outfielder shaded the team’s fanbase, comparing it to that of his prior club, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Tommy Pham misses #Cardinals fans
"Do I think something has to happen [with the #Rays], whether it be a new ballpark, maybe a new city? I think so." pic.twitter.com/aO2gf0HQxF— MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (@MLBNetworkRadio) December 27, 2018
“It sucks going from playing for a team with a great fanbase to a team with really no fanbase at all,” said Pham. “St. Louis, they’re one of the few teams to where, day in and day out, they have 40,000 fans at every game, and that’s something that I miss.
“The Rays, they just don’t have that,” he went on. “Do I think something has to happen, whether it be a new ballpark or maybe a new city? I think so. Because if you have a team that is going to be winning 90-plus games, competing in that division, and you don’t have any fan support, then that’s a huge problem.”
Pham, who will enter his first year of arbitration in 2019, was traded to the Rays by the Cardinals at the deadline last July. He hit a robust .343/.448/.622 with seven homers and 22 RBIs in 39 games for Tampa to close the season.
The Rays’ pathetic fan support is certainly no secret — they have finished last or second-to-last in average attendance in each of the last eight seasons (per ESPN). One beloved former Ray even recently agreed that the team may have to find a new city, and their current players seem to feel that way as well.
