The Tampa Bay Rays are the best team in baseball, they’re garnering national attention that they only could have dreamed of, and their bandwagon is filling up as their stunning lead in the AL East grows. Juiced Sports talked about it with Rays mega-fan and DRaysBay Senior Editor R.J. Anderson, and its safe to say no one could have foreseen this coming

SCOTT JACOBS

The playoffs in July? It sure felt like it yesterday watching Tampa’s raucous crowd will their high flying Rays to a spectacular comeback and a surprising sweep of the reigning champ Red Sox. The win pushed Tampa Bay’s lead in the East to an impressive 3.5 games. It was time. Time to talk to the top Rays fan site on the net.

That’s where R.J. Anderson of DRaysBay comes in. Anderson has been with DRaysBay since August 2006 and says he got into baseball “right before the Rays came around.” Before that, he was a Braves fan. Anderson hails from the Tampa area and writes for Beyond the Boxscore, and has had his work featured on Deadspin and The Hardball Times.

Without further adieu: the interview in it’s glorious entirety.

Scott Jacobs: Have you pinched yourself to make sure everything happening right now is real? I mean, the Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball. As the Senior Editor of DRaysBay, how does it feel to finally have a winning team to talk about?

R.J. Anderson: No way, I don’t want this to end whether it be a dream or real. It feels a bit odd, honestly after all the losing seasons you start becoming numb to the results of games, and it’s not because you don’t care about the team and whether they win, but more of self protection. This is the first time in a long time that I, and really the entire fan base, can live and die with this team every night.

SJ: Who would have thought that the Rays could supplant the Yankees as Sportscenter’s number one crush of the week? ESPN has been all over you guys, and for good reason. How’s it feel to have all this attention (positive attention) placed on a team that has known nothing but failure?

RJ: It brings a smile to my face. Of course then someone will take a potshot at our fan base, which is growing, and it causes me to turn the channel. I don’t think the Florida Marlins or Oakland Athletics fans get called to go to the park every night, and it’s not even the Rays fans who don’t go, it’s the Yankee and Red Sox fans or even Cubs fans who live here and won’t support the home team, at least not until the Rays are winning.

SJ: Obviously the Rays are having their breakout year in 2008, but its been 10 years in the making. When did this turnaround really begin? And by turnaround I mean when was it evident, regardless of record, that Tampa Bay was starting to turn the corner?

RJ: It’s pretty hard to place a date on it because there isn’t a definitive point, this is more like the Renaissance, or if I can throw a cheap pun out there, the Raynessiance. Stuart Sternberg and the new regime took over in November 2005, so that’s a possible date, but if you want the moment us fans began thinking of this club different it was last July when the team dealt for Grant Balfour and Dan Wheeler within a few days of each other, suddenly they weren’t dealing major leaguers for minor leaguers anymore. Perhaps November 18^th as well when the team announced stadium plans and the trade of Delmon Young to the Twins.

SJ: Tampa Bay’s notorious, along with the Marlins, for having really bad fans and attendance numbers. Yesterday’s game against Boston was the 4th sellout of the season. So my question is this: are the fans finally here to stay, or is this just a tease of what could one day be?

RJ: I wouldn’t say “really bad fans”, I would say “fewer”, the fans the Rays have aren’t bad fans, they’ve supported a team that many would’ve given up on, and most Rays fans have a great grasp on the game itself. As for the attendance, look, the 1991 Braves went from 65 wins to 94 and their attendance jumped from 12,100 per game to 26,422. Right now our attendance is just shy of 21,000 in a 36,000 seat stadium, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium sat nearly 50,000 as a football stadium that hosted baseball. Going purely be capacity measures the Rays are filling up nearly 59% of the place, the Braves had that great run and at the end of the season filled up around 53% of their stadium. Are they here to stay? I’ll say yes, but only because I don’t expect the bandwagon to empty anytime soon.

“The people who run this team are former Wall Street honchos, think Billy Beane to the extreme. They’re going to find someone who is undervalued… and then they’re going to look like geniuses when he works out.”

SJ: Tampa’s got great pitching, very good defense, a solid bullpen, and they love to steal bases. Sounds a heck of lot like the 2003 Florida Marlins. That team as you may recall won the World Series. See any similarities between this year’s Rays and the 03 Marlins? What team would you compare this Rays squad to?

RJ: I think the 2003 Marlins are a fair comparison. Both teams had a young star step up after opening day with Miguel Cabrera and Evan Longoria, both had a pretty legitimate top three of the rotation – I mean look back at that rotation and tell me how they wouldn’t be expected to win every year if not for injuries – but they didn’t have a very good defense. The 1994 Montreal Expos fit us better in regards that they had a really good defense, no true “star” players, a bunch of somewhat young guys with good seasons, and came out of nowhere.

SJ: The trading deadline is fast approaching, and some interesting names have been linked to the Rays: C.C. Sabathia and Ken Griffey Jr. being the biggest When it’s all said and done, and the trading deadline has passed, is it realistic to think the Rays will have made a trade for a big name player, or are they going to stick to their young guys ‘paving the way’ approach?

RJ: It’s realistic to think they could, but they won’t, and it’s not because of money – although I don’t know if there’s a team out there that can re-sign Sabathia straight up before he touches the free agent market. The Rays have built this persona around their motto “We Are One Team” and I don’t see them bringing in a guy like Griffey Jr. because A) he’s not going to help this team outside of the veteran presence non-sense people toss around and B) he’s not good value. The people who run this team are former Wall Street honchos, think Billy Beane to the extreme. They’re going to find someone who is undervalued but can help this team and they’re going to acquire him for less than they should be able to, and then they’re going to look like geniuses when he works out. They understand the market and real player value very well.

SJ: Everybody’s talking about what Tampa Bay is doing well. And for good reason. But in order to sustain their success throughout the second half, what doe the Rays need to improve on?

RJ: The pitching and defense have been stellar, but the offense has only been average. I’m not sure if it’s something the team can improve on outside of acquiring someone, but they need for progression to strike Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford. If those two can get going with B.J. Upton, Evan Longoria, and Eric Hinske having their seasons, this lineup could jolt up from middle of the pack very quickly.

“This is the first time in a long time that I, and really the entire fan base, can live and die with this team every night.”

SJ: The Rays have long been one of the saddest franchises in pro sports. They changed their look, and their logo this year, and ditched “Devil”, now fining media members 1 dollar every time they say the word. Clearly they’re serious about the new image, but how much of an impact do you think their new look has had on the turnaround of this team?

RJ: I’m not sure if it had any affect, although the players love the unis, this team – or perhaps the franchise’s – mindset changed November 2005. To paraphrase something Chuck LaMar said: the only thing that was separating this organization from being recognized as one of the best was the results on the field. The team name and colors didn’t matter until the team got good.

SJ: And uh, speaking of the uniforms, why are the Rays too afraid to put “Tampa Bay” on any of their jerseys? What’s up with that?

RJ: The organization says its to build the new identity more, and I believe MLB rules prohibit changing the home/away jerseys within a year of each other, so what the plan seems to be is introducing a new uniform with RAYS on it, and then in 2010 implementing Tampa Bay on the road unis.

SJ: What’s the prognosis for Tampa the rest of the way? Can they win the AL East? Is it still hard to believe that you’re even getting asked this?

RJ: It’s easy to say the team will win the division, but frankly I’m not sure I can wrap my mind around that quite yet. Let’s say they break the franchise wins record (70) and after that all bets are off.

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