A small controversy has started to brew down in Saint Petersburg involving the name of the now legendarily and hellishly bad Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Rays are going through a number of changes meant at bringing up the abhorrently low attendance numbers. Instead of looking for a solution in areas such as “sucking less” and “ending better than last”, the management has been looking to spruce up the team image by possibly changing the team’s name and colors.
Note to the management: if your team sucks nothing about it will ever be considered cool. There are, of course, cases where even if your team’s good, its colors and logo suck — for example, the Cincinnati Bengals, who look like they’re constantly trick-or-treating — but those cases are few and far between, and the “D-Rays” are not in that boat (no pun intended). “Devil Rays” is a pretty cool name and your color combo is A-OK. However, you may want to consider fielding something better than the AAA club you have playing there now. By the way, the blue and green thing’s been done, by a team well on track to go to the Super Bowl this year.)
That said, Ski has temporarily moved his focus across the Bay to “The Trop” and is asking readers for a few suggestions on new team names. I posted the following list over at Ski’s BestBucsBlog, but if you have any thoughts on the matter, head on over to Best Bucs Blog and jot down your thoughts, or at least read what others (including myself) are thinking about this.
As for suggested names, I originally posted the following list of suggestions. (If you’d like to come up with logos for these, it’d be great.)
Edit:Ski has updated Best Bucs Blog with a poll featuring a few of the possible names. Get some practice before the 2006 election and head on over to vote for your favorite team name.
1) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (eh, why not?)
2) Tampa Bay Jesus Rays
3) Tampa Bay Devil Rays of Saint Petersberg
4) Tampa Bay iRays
5) Tampa Bay Flashers. (Mascot: Mamma Guava)
6) Tampa Bay Punishers (Now owned by John Travolta)
7) Tampa Bay 0wn3d
8) Tampa Bay 2001 Mons Redners
9) Tampa Bay Marlins (Why not, they’re probably leaving Miami anyway)
10) Tampa Bay Hurricanes (Yeah, as if Tampa’s ever seen one of those)
11) Tampa Bay Thunder
12) Tampa Bay Manatees
13) Tampa Bay Catfish (Ever been fishing in Tampa Bay?)
14) Tampa Bay Dianetics
15) Tampa Bay Southern Yankees
16) Tampa Bay Roughriders
Or, just in case they KEEP sucking…
17) Tampa Bay Black Holes (also “Tampa Bay Vortex”)
as I mentioned before, good list GNorb. Catfish is actually starting to grow on me, since I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone fishing only to pull up another god damn catfish which ate my hook.
also, I included some of your suggestions in a new poll at my site, so thanks again for the ideas
Not a problem. It was fun. Reminds me of when the Bucs were getting new colors and a logo. I spent days upon days drawing up new color schemes, uniforms, and logos. (I had a split-even orange/red on black uniform I’m still partial to.) By the way, remember the “Los Angeles Spidermen?” Talk about a bit of random trivia.
Anyway, ever since I found your blog it’s become one of my at-least bi-daily (if not daily) stops for sporting news, even when there’s not much in football keeping my interest. (Super Bowl is nice and all, but what the Bucs are doing in the draft and offseason is what I’m really interested in now.) Keep up the awesome work, Ski.
I suppose the D-Rays suck more than the Blue Jays?
I dream of a decent season from a team that won a World Series just over a decade ago…
They don’t suck too badly. I mean, they’re right up there with Hoover when it comes to suckability, but they have a long way before they go all “black hole” on us. Still, they’re pretty bad, although they have had a few rather refreshing winning streaks the last couple of years, all of which have come to a skreeching halt once the balance of the universe was threatened.