Devil Rays New Name

In January 2006 it was announced that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays would change their name for the 2007 season. If you have any doubt as to what that new name will be, just check out the home page for their official website.

It's Rays this and Rays that. They sell jerseys with the word RAYS across the chest. All the headlines start with Rays...

In May, team president Matt Silverman said he realized that there wasn't enough time to implement a name change by 2007, so he pushed it back to 2008.

"May 31, 2007 would be the deadline for submission to Major League Baseball [for the 2008 season], then you have finalization of any of those changes," Silverman said. "And the licensee starts producing the new product. So it would be possible that by the end of the 2007 season we would have an announcement of what the name is and what the uniforms look like. The hat, the logo, the colors and a new product would be available," he said. "Any changes we do make to our uniform, our team name, our colors, our logos, will be done and effective for the 2008 season."

But sometime next season there will be a press conference where they announce their new name is the Florida Rays, which will be the most anticlimactic press conference in the history of baseball. Those of you hoping for Tampa Bay Tarpons can forget it. That is, assuming that anybody still gives a crap about this team. C'mon! Move to Charlotte and get it over with.

But first trade Carl Crawford to the Mets.