Day 150 – Disappointing

I took the now familiar route to the bus stop in Buffalo to go to the airport and it was off to Tampa w/a stop over in Atlanta. I arrived in Tampa early enough to take a city bus downtown and catch the greyhound to St. Petersburg. After walking in the heat to my hotel and getting checked in I was ready to take a quick swim before heading to the ballpark.

I got to the ballpark and as the game started I was wondering what happened to all the people. On my previous trip to TB the Jays were playing here on the weekend and they had pretty decent crowds. It was the 1st series after the All Star break and I thought maybe the fans were starting to come out and support the Rays. However, tonight in the last week of August and the Rays in 1st place the announced attendance was just 13,478. Clearly that was the reputation of the Rays fans and they have lived up to it tonight. Complain all you want about Jays fans but not once have the Jays drawn that low this season even on wknights in Apr and May when hockey is still going. It is a real shame that more people aren’t showing up here for an exciting 1st place team. I do believe the location is clearly an issue as evidenced by the discrepancy between wkend and wkday games. I don’t know about all the other surrounding areas but it certainly isn’t a short drive from Tampa. Plus there is no easy public transportation that could get you between Tampa and the ballpark. Hopefully if they do indeed build a new ballpark they will consider a more accessible location.

They had a little malfunction during BP tonight. While the Jays were taking BP the lights went out. Luckily it only took about 15-20 mins before they got them back on.

After the game they allowed the fans to walk across the field. I almost didn’t make it down to field level from the upper deck in time as I guess they close it off pretty quickly. You enter by 1st base and walk through the outfield exiting in CF. That makes it the 2nd time I have been on a major league field and both have come at the Trop.