Twofer Tuesday, so let’s head down to Tampa Bay and look at a couple of items involving them.
I had Sunday’s O’s-Rays’ game on at Buzzy’s Country Store and saw Rays’ pitcher Drew Rasmussen give up a hit in the 9th inning to spoil his quest for a perfect game. This was kind of a big deal because there have only been 23 perfect games pitched in MLB’s 218,000 plus games throughout its history (click here.)
Ironically enough, the last time it came within 1 inning of happening also involved the O’s and Rays as follows:
As I watched portions of the game in between my keeping-the-customers-satisfied-routine behind the Buzzy counter, I also saw occasional shots of rays swimming around in the Rays’ Touch Tank out in the right field stands.
It made me think about something I had heard when Brady and I visited Tropicana Field there a few years back. The Rays’ changed their name in 2008 to now focus more on the sun (see Rasmussen’s uniform above) and not so much the fish as in their original name Devil Rays:
You will note in Rasmussen’s photo above that the Stingray still appears on their hat.
But it also got me thinking about why the team went from being called the Devil Rays to simply the Rays. Here’s what I found thanks to the Wiki folks:
As for why they changed the name, guess you can say that the new ownership simply had no sympathy for the devil.
From their appearance in Stockholm a few months back. Jagger turned 79 in July and Keith follows in December of this year and yet they are still rolling. Hard to believe isn’t it?