Every summer baseball season gets into full swing and we get to witness the future pitching and batting Hall of Famers. Throughout the years, many baseball teams have tried for the World Series title, and each year only one can claim the honors.
The Tampa Bay Rays are one of those teams that has tried to capture a World Series Title, but still has yet to do so. The Tampa Bay Rays are a professional men’s baseball team that is relatively new to the sport having only been created in 1998. They are located in St. Petersburg, Florida, and they play in the Eastern Division of the American League in Major League Baseball. They play all of their home games at Tropicana Field.
The Tampa Bay Rays have not been very impressive in their 12 years of being in the MLB, but in recent years have made some big improvements. The team began its roots back to 1966 where Jack Lake of the St. Petersburg Times strongly suggested that the city get a major league team. The dream wasn’t fully realized until 1998 when the franchise was bought by a team of investors and allowed to play in the MLB.
The first few years for the then named “Devil Rays”, were not much to talk about. Their first year in the league they would lose 99 games and one of their only highlights was when Wade Boggs hit his 3000th hit of his career and had it be a home run.
He would retire after that season and retire his number. They tried to stock up their batting order with the likes of Jose Canseco, Greg Vaughn, and Vinny Castilla, but all these players were already in the twilight of their careers. The Rays would struggle for the next couple of years and would have their very worst season to date in 2002.
The next notable milestone for the team from Tampa Bay came in 2004 when the team won 70 games for the first time and didn’t finish last in their division. 2006 was considered a rebuilding year and the team switched ownership and made more of a commitment to winning. Halfway through the season, however, the front office was afraid that the team wouldn’t make it to the post season and they traded off some key players to the team struggled and ended up with a league worst record.
In 2008, the team was revamped. They changed the name from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to just the Tampa Bay Rays. They also changed their colors to include gold, Columbia Blue, and the traditional navy. They picked up a few new players in Jason Bartlett, Matt Garza, and Troy Percival, and finished their spring training camp with a total of 18 wins which was a club record. That season they would be the first team to ever go from the very worst record in the MLB to the best record by Memorial Day the next season. They would go on to win their first playoff game and to advance to the ALCS. They made it all the way to the World Series but would end up losing to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Since then, the Tampa Bay Rays have continued to play well and are looking forward to being an elite team in the league.
James Jackson writes reviews on various sporting events including the different sportsbook websites. In this piece of write up, the author highlights on some of legends of MLB and MLB Betting odds. The author also takes the readers thought on how to bet on baseball
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