While most baseball people will tell you that two fights in less than a week is far too much for any team, there is something positive to be said about the recent scraps involving the Tampa Bay Rays. The ferocity of the recent brawl with Coco Crisp and the Boston Red Sox has brought an already tight team even closer together. Some of the antics of some of the participants could surely be questioned, mind you, but the underlying message - that this team won’t back down from anyone - has been sent. And, yes, even the tussle between teammates Matt Garza and Dioner Navarro will prove to be a plus for a young club trying to inch its way up the ladder of respectability.
Good teams know they’re good. Good teams are confident. Good teams don’t take sh*t from anyone. Good teams can be downright nasty, even to each other.
The Red Sox had a couple of teammates at each other’s throats recently in Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis. They’ve had a bit of success in recent years.
And how about the Chicago White Sox? Their skip, Ozzie Guillen, the undisputed heavyweight champion of powderkeg managers, recently lit them up in a postgame interview, holding nothing back (as if he ever does.) They’ve responded and are now rolling.
What I’m saying, folks, is that Garza v. Navarro is the latest good sign in a season full of them for the Rays. Win or lose, all year long it’s been clear that this team leaves it all on the field and is willing to do absolutely anything for a teammate - absolutely anything to win.
Think a team like, say, the New York Mets could use a Guillen-esque tirade from their skipper, the beleaguered Willie Randolph? Think a pier 6 brawl with the rival Phillies or Braves wouldn’t liven them up? Think an Oliver Perez/Brian Schneider on-mound fracas might awaken that hibernating clubhouse?
Don’t expect it, though, Mets fans … that team is soft as a marshmallow.
I bring the Mets up because, right now, they are the antithesis of the Tampa Bay Rays. No energy, no grit, no spark whatsoever. And a-floundering they continue … content multi-millionaire prima donnas that they are …
I’m ecstatic to have the opposite over at The Trop …
Call me crazy, but the way this Rays team has looked through and through up to this point in the season, is looking more and more like what I consider to be the model for a wildly successful and entertaining baseball team.
Parts of me still can’t believe I just said that.
The rest of me is thrilled that I did.
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2 Responses to “Fights Add to Rays Reality: This Team is the Real Deal!”
Posted: 06/10/08 at 7:04 am
Team unity at its finest! I totally agree you with Jon on this one. When teammates are willing to go through a wall for each other, they care and want to win as badly as the next guy!
Posted: 11/12/08 at 9:15 am
Art Vandelay, you are def my favourite baseball blogger