Tampa Bay Rays Tickets

Tampa Bay Rays information, The Tampa Bay Rays are one of baseball's youngest franchises, coming into the league as an expansion team in 1998. Before the beginning of the season, the D-Rays acquired star players Fred McGriff, Wade Boggs, and Wilson Alvarez. However, even these players could not swing the bats hard enough to beat the Detroit Tigers in the teamís opener. The Devil Rays lost the game 11-6, and the score was very telling of the years to come. The Devil Rays finished in last place in the American League East every year from 1998 to 2003 and have never had a winning season. By the 2002 season, Tampa had decided to adopt a new strategy of harvesting young players and slashing the payroll. Aubrey Huff, Toby Hall and Randy Winn all began to emerge as vital players. In 2003, under the new management of the great Lou Piniella, Carl Crawford emerged as one of the greatest young players of his time. Piniella soon became frustrated with the performance of the Rays, noting that the team was not playing at the level that it was capable of. Changes are expected to be made in the future. The team is considering dropping the ìDevilî from its team name to reflect a more positive experience. With promising players such as Aubrey Huff, Crawford, Kazmir, and Gomes, the Rays look to turn around their performance in the 2007 season, and obtain their first winning season in the majors.