Hey Rays fans...when I read about today's game with Minnesota later today, I had better see the words "capacity crowd" in the article.
Not "a good size crowd" or "a nice crowd."
I'm talking standing room only.
I'm talking scalpers being able to pay a lot of bills this weekend.
If the Rays win today, they are going to the playoffs.
It's that simple.
And the Rays, a team whose previous accomplishments were a 70 win season and The Rookie, a team that was a consensus pick for contraction, can get into the playoffs... the baseball playoffs... the hardest playoffs to qualify for... with a win today.
The team with the lowest payroll in the American League can thumb their noses at all of baseball and punch the most unlikely ticket to October possibly in history if they beat the Twins today.
And they can do it at home... on a Saturday afternoon... on a day which according to Weather.com is 90 degrees and sunny... and you'll be in a dome.
And Saturday and Sunday are the last two home games of the season. The last chance to cheer on the team that will, against all the odds, bring post season baseball to Tampa Bay.
There had better not be an empty seat.
I don't want to hear about how most baseball fans in Tampa are transplanted Northeasterners.
I don't want to hear about how hard it is to get to the Trop.
I don't want to hear how people dislike the management and are taking a wait and see approach.
I don't want to hear how long it takes to build a fanbase.
Sell this game out.
Tickets are reasonably priced.
If there aren't 45,000 people in a Metropolitan area wanting to come out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to see the hometown team pull off a feat that should be the subject of books and HBO specials for years to come... then maybe it's not a Major League town.
The post strike expansion already gave us the Diamondbacks, a team that couldn't sell out the NLCS.
A game like this had better be the hottest ticket in town.
I had better not be able to talk to the ticket window and say "two please."
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