12 years into of my Rays journey

The year was 2005, and I sat down to play my newly purchased MVP Baseball 05 on the PS2. Being a native St. Louisian, I loved the Cardinals, but I decided I didn't want to play as them online, because this was the time when they had Pujols/Edmonds/Rolen and were a popular choice for online teams. So, I went through the rosters of the less popular teams. I stumbled upon the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I noticed they had one good starter, Scott Kazmir, and a bunch of speedy fast guys. As someone who has always loved small ball, I knew this could work out for me. I decided they were my new go-to team online. Every game I played was started by Scott Kazmir, and half the lineup was full of extremely fast guys who could bunt or put the ball in play. I loved being the underdog and playing that style of baseball.

After a month of playing online and learning more about the team, I made the first big move in my new relationship with the Devil Rays. I bought a fitted hat and a t-shirt. I proudly wore them around despite the fact they were a basement dweller. Due to the team being extremely bad, they weren't often on national TV...but the rare times they did, I watched. I started reading online every day about the team's games, viewing the play by play on mlb.com, and becoming more and more invested in the team. In 2006, I went down to Jacksonville, Florida to visit my uncle. Just so happened that during the week I was in town, a AA baseball team named the Montgomery Biscuits was in town to play the Jacksonville Suns. I went to two of the games, and got to watch some unknown (to me) players along with this one prospect named Evan Longoria. From this point, I was hooked. They became my 1A team of choice, with just as much priority as the Cardinals.

In 2011, I noticed that my allegiances started to change. I started the year as a major fan of both teams, but when the Cardinals went down to the Trop for a series, I noticed myself cheering for the Rays, not the Cardinals. From this point on, I started caring less and less about the Cardinals, until I actually didn't have much interest in them at all. Watching the final day in 2011, seeing Dan Johnson hit the home run, and then Longo, is probably the most memorable moment for me as a baseball fan. That cemented everything for me as a fan, and I haven ever looked back. I jumped on board when they were bad, loved the years of success, and am still here in the years that haven't been as great (hope that changes this year). Hopefully the next 12 are awesome as well.