With Game 1 of the annual American League East Playoff To Put A Team In The World Series nearly upon us, we (and by we, I mean you) are about to get a new round of lectures about how Tampa and St. Petersburg are between them a lousy baseball town.
They didn't draw enough fans for the MLB lapdogs in the media, it seems. They didn't show sufficient love for the game, or for their team, and this is of course to be punished by the folks who believe that the customer isn't always right, but should always be there.
You know, like the annoying yet perpetually photogenic fans at Fenway Park.
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| It'll take awhile for the paying customers to feel secure with success. (Getty Images) |
This topic will come up whenever some TV or newspaper git points out how well the Rays play when they get their 36,048 in the gigantic crypt they call home. The undercurrent is that somehow Tampa doesn't deserve a team this good, or that the Rays don't deserve such a Johnny-come-lately advantage.
Well, take your undercurrent, wrap it around a pair of scissors, and run downstairs as fast you can until nature takes it course.
Here is a fact: The customer is never wrong. If the customer doesn't show up, it's because the proprietors didn't do a very good job convincing them that showing up is good for them. And if you don't believe me, reread Veeck -- As In Wreck, the still-essential primer on owning and operating a baseball team.
The old Rays organ-eye-zation spent years turning out bad teams, in a bad building they always bitched about, with the kind of customer service one normally associated with loan sharks. Year after year, the same thing happened, and eventually the citizens learned to live quite happily without the baseball team in their lives. I mean, how many times and ways can you be told that you're a sucker before you decide you don't have to be?
And though old traditionalists think that fan allegiance can be turned on and off like a Cubs fan's attention span, it actually rolls more like an ocean liner -- slow to turn, either in good times or bad ones. Thus, while the Rays were catching good waves early in the season, the fans were reluctant to believe in the phenomenon because the East has belonged to Boston and New York for years.
And the truth is, they were right to think so. Even though the Rays are no longer owned by the old regime, the new boys must pay for the sins of their predecessors. You cannot treat the customers like schmoes for an entire decade and not deserve the ramifications.
To their credit, the Rays have not complained about the crowds, at least not where anyone can hear. They have done the only thing players can do -- play. They have treated the big crowds like a gift, or more accurately, like finding a C-note in the gutter. And the front office is playing with the casino's money, with the good grace to act properly humbled. That will pass, of course, but for the moment, they are just saying "Thanks" and deferring the credit. Why tempt the gods before your time?
But the lecturers will be out in force this week, telling us in so many words how TSP has failed its baseball team, rather than the other way around. And ultimately, they will forget to tell you what every smart operator in any sport understands, namely this:
Every unsold seat is always and forever the fault of the guy with the seats, and not with the guy wants to rent one for the afternoon. Now more than ever, when the analysts talk about what a swell baseball town Boston is, and by comparison what a shameful baseball town TSP is.
Well, here's the truth -- every town is not created equal, but there's no such thing as a bad baseball town. There is such a thing as bad baseball operators, and there are more of those than anything else. It is the owner's job to provide the goods, and if the goods aren't appealing enough, it's the owner's fault. And the longer the owner doesn't provide the goods, the longer it takes for the customer to warm to his product.
In short, the Rays got the crowds they deserve every day, and that is as true now when they will sell out all their ALCS games as it was in April when they couldn't sell out a silo. And when you get an earful of snark about Tampa's insufficient stamp on baseball history, or its unmotivated fans, keep in mind this central truth:
Many people speak. Few should.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
