Hello Rays fans,

A wandering Braves fan here, continuing on the consummate baseball quest to visit every Major League park.  If the flights look good, I find myself eyeballing the remote possibility of visiting Tropicana Field, on Thursday July 9th, as the Toronto Blue Jays visit your hometown Rays, for an afternoon game.

If all goes according to plan, I really do not have a whole lot of time to wander about Tampa and St. Petersburg aside from just the ball game, but I would just like ask just a couple of quick questions, that I'm hoping the locals can help me out with.

Taxis - from Tampa's airport to the Trop is showing about 26.1 miles.  Would you folks suggest that I cab it, or just plunk down the cash to get a rental - basically initial estimates are showing that I'd be paying $50 for the 12-hour window I'd be looking at, for an economy car.  I guess what would help is if anyone could spare some knowledge of if there are any storage lockers in Tampa's airport or not; if not, without question, the rental car will become necessity, as it would become my storage locker on wheels for the day.

Tickets - given the fact that it's a day game, would you folks suggest I just eat it at the box office, or does the Trop have a scalper scene that would afford me a good shot at getting a good seat for a nice price?

Park - I can read the fluff on tampabayrays.com, but I want to hear from you the locals, if there is truly anything at the Trop that I should make a must-see in my visit?  Btw, I recall back when the devil was still around that Trop parking was free; I imagine with the nice run and influx of popularity that's proabably changed?

Food - I'm a bit of a foodie enthusiast when traveling, and I'm all about trying new and unique (read: big and strange) things that are mostly exclusive to your area.  So here's the question - I've got one meal available; where in St. Petes/Tampa do you recommend?  If it's any help to the kind of weirdo I am, I'm a fan of Man v. Food on the Travel Channel, and I like to try weird things out.

And that's really about it.  Like I said, I don't have much more than an afternoon to spend in your fair city unfortunately, otherwise I'd be asking a lot more questions.  Any help that any of you guys can provide will be greatly appreciated, and all feedback is welcome.  So thank you in advance, and I look forward to the ideas and suggestions you guys have in store for me.

PS - if DRaysBay is interested, I can put together an unbiased, outsider's write-up about my experience at the Trop after the trip, if it occurs.  In fact, I'm actually hitting up your AAA affiliates in Durham a day prior, so I could be sure to throw that in, as well.

Previous parks, with the help of local folks all around MLB cities:  Great American Ball Park, Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park

I'm bored at work, and when all other channels of self-entertainment runs dry, I tend to seek out the activities that I think will help consume my time efficiently, at the same time making me appear busy to those who walk by my little box and have to engage in the nosy glance at what I'm doing.  So that means, writing.

I am in my late twenties, so most of this is going to be somewhat nostalgic for anyone who is similar, or older than I am.  But in this day and age, who's to say that not everyone is going to be able to relate to the nerdy-savant-ism that I express from time to time.

Some of you might disagree with my analogies, and that's fine.  Feel free to discuss - this IS something meant to be light-hearted and something to help us take our minds off of negative garbage, and to stop slamming the Braves, and more importantly, one another.

In 1988, the ABC network had Friday night programming, geared to aim towards families.  By 1989, it was anointed as "TGIF - Thank Goodness It's Funny"  I had a conversation with a friend of mine about how awesome 80-90s sitcoms were, and how they are non-existent today, and then it went towards TGIF, and being me, I somehow managed to segue the Braves, and which TGIF show they were, into this conversation.  I am extending this conversation, to you guys.

Full House is... Doyle Alexander

Despite how successful Full House was at really putting TGIF on the map, with their vaunted 8:00PM EST lead-off time slot, the show was such a hit, that they couldn't remain on Fridays.  Eventually, Full House was traded away to a different time slot, where the show flourished for six more seasons on various other time slots, mostly Tuesday or Thursday nights, where they could really capitalize on families being grounded at home, instead of the competitive Friday nights.  But the departure of Full House would eventually lead to the rise of one of the key components of the successful run of TGIF...

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How quickly we forget when not so aptly reminded anywhere on the front page.  Okay, it's getting to the point again, since our beloved Braves are currently playing well below expectations, that the "THIS and ONLY THIS is how we're going to fix them" rosterbatory posts and hypotheses(es) are starting to over saturate the FanPosts section.  Some ideas, better than others, but I'm not going to lie, many have my face hitting the desk like a cocaine addict.

Since the old one got bumped off the front page by picture posts and why Chipper Jones is great, let us try this again:

ROSTERBATE HERE AND ONLY HERE.

(rosterbate = "write out your own hypothetical fixes," to those not in the know)

I do not care if you write out your own 40-man rosters or hell, even organizational depth charts.  Go nuts with the batting orders that have Adam Dunn batting lead-off, and Magglio Ordoñez whom we got for Freddie Freeman/Francoeur/Free cash batting clean-up.  As long as it stays in here, you're okay.  Just keep in mind that you are at the mercy of other TCers who may or may not agree with you and will certainly let you know when you're wrong in probably the most blunt, unplesasantly, bitingly true words they can pull from their literary repotoire.  So if you don't like it when people disagree with you, either don't post, or get ready to defend, because people flagging trolls/inappropriate because of a discrepancy of opinion is getting really old now.  And since so few people actually like to verbalize agreement with an opinion, utilize the rec buttons to show your quiet, anonymous support for a comment you like, so that the user who wrote the comment knows that they're not alone in their opinion.

And should you decide to go nuts and ignore this post and put up rosterbatory posts anyway, they will get deleted.  Whether you get an explanation (warning) or not to why is completely up to whether or not if yondaime4, gondeee or myself feel like doing it.  Rosterbatory comments in threads, if not properly justified or relevant also risk deletion without explanation.

In case I missed anything else, here are the previous rules, written by yondaime4:

So here is what will be done. If you post something that coudl easily be commented into another existing post (I.E. rosterbating) then I or royhobbs will summarily delete it and warn you. (Understand also that a warning isn't always us being a dick, sometimes I just use to inform you why I did something ebcause it gives you a message when you log on the site. So if I delete your post and warn you just understand that I am trying to keep things smooth and concise in the fanposts).

If you FanPost a sarcastic or insulting post that is directed at someone else, you are probably doing the same thing that we all get annoyed at them for so your post will be summarily deleted and you will be warned (probably in a dickish fashion).

If you post something without enough words and then use some stupid filler to make up 75 words then you shouldn't be posting in the first place. It isn't hard to put 75 words in a post. Hell each one of my paragraphs here probably has 75. So you know what will happen with these kinds of posts? They will be summarily deleted and you will be warned (in a dickish fashion).

I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but let's face it - way more often than not, there are users who are voicing complaint over the incessant uneducated comments, arguing, and verbal stabs at other users.  And yes, I'm aware that this is the internet, and this kind of behavior is largely unavoidable, but at least if it's acknowledged and disclaimed, nobody can really justifiably complain, when it's actually enforced.

Let's face it - the Braves can't seem to have both at the same time.  Obviously, this year is a year of inept offense, but some good starting pitching.  Previous years, we've been privy to some Braves teams that were capable of generating a good bit of runs, but had pitching staffs that either couldn't start, or couldn't close.

FOX really loves to drive home the notion that Pitching.  Wins.  Championships.

But the rules of baseball state that one team must have more runs than the other team in order to be declared the winner of that particular game.  And the Braves haven't been very good at scoring any runs, despite how well the pitchers might be pitching.

So instead of mulling about how much the Braves stink right now, throwing in the towel, or being yet another Negative Nancy (believe me, I'm quite not enthused about the Braves right now either), I'm going to write about some numbers, and ask the subject lined question.  What is your preference - better offense, or better pitching?  Because right now, the Braves can't have the cake and expect to eat it too.

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Since I already used the TC group facepalm to tease upcoming stories and photographs, I'll have to say that if there's any other picture that sums up the group excursion, I would say it would have to be this one - cbwilk and I photobombing the Baltimore Oriole. The jerk actually had the audacity to shove me away, so the blur that is me, is me, forcibly making my way back into the photograph.

It's going to be tough to top the excellent fanpost cb wrote up, but I'll do my best.  And it most certainly looks like people here could use a laugh or two, a distraction for a few minutes, or anything to help take their minds off of the abysmal baseball that our beloved Braves are playing right now.  And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, it doesn't look like it's going to get any better, what with six games with the Boston Red Sox, three games with the New York Yankees, three games with the Philadelphia Phillies, and a make-up game with the Chicago Cubs to boot, all coming after we're done in Cincinnati.  I try not to tell people what they should be doing, but all I can really suggest is sit back, (try to) relax, and hold on to your butts, because it's June, and things might get a little bumpy around these parts.

Now before we begin, I must really warn you that this is going to be very photo-intensive, the largest photo post/travel story fanpost I've done yet.  With two destinations covered here, that means twice the photos and words.  I sure hope you have a high-speed connection...

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