At the risk of being verbally abused by Top Gun Numba One for linking to "Florida's Best Newspaper" once again, I am still directing your attention to Aaron Sharockman's analysis of the Tampa Bay baseball market...in the dead.tree paper on Sunday, but online now.

I was born and raised there. Don't miss it...especially this kind of weirdness.

Under the guidance of a former Procter & Gamble brand manager, the Tampa Bay Rays have gone through the sort of transformation typical of deodorant sticks and shaving razors.

Topps revealed the 17th card in its 2008 Red Hot Rookie redemption program on Tuesday -- and it's an autographed card of Tampa Bay Rays 3B Evan Longoria....

The Tampa Bay Rays made history with viewership of the Major League Baseball team’s TV telecasts jumping 95 percent as it clinched a play-off berth for the first time....

On Monday, I wrote:

Way back on August 20th, the Mets signed pitcher Al Reyes. He went to the minors to work back into shape before coming up in September to supposedly help the beleaguered bullpen.

Well, he's up, and he's yet to pitch.

And now he's gone.

The Mets released Reyes before he ever threw a pitch. Apparently, his performance at Double-A Binghamton before he was called up was sub-par, and the Mets decided not to roll the dice with their third Reyes.

From The 'Ropolitans (Mets blog)

Note tattoos... No Sox logos.

For the first time in their 11 years, the Tampa Bay Rays are talking playoffs. Ticket sales are up 25 percent. Television ratings are growing even faster.

So why, in the middle of this surprising surge, are the Rays seeking a new stadium?

What's wrong with Tropicana Field?

In a word: Money. The Rays say only a new stadium will generate enough revenue to pay higher salaries and field a consistently competitive team.

A St. Petersburg Times review of baseball finances supports the Rays notion that modern, more intimate ballparks make huge sums of new money. Attendance, ticket prices and team value all increase, often dramatically.

But the link between new stadiums and more wins is tenuous at best. Over the past decade, teams in new ballparks averaged only 2.2 additional wins. Five of the nine teams got worse.

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Will run in Sunday's paper. On Web now. Also...sidebar:

Are Rays making money or losing it? Yes. Probably

If the Rays' poor attendance is not about the team of the owner, what does that leave?

Romano column

Instant replay will be used for games at Tropicana Field starting Friday under a plan MLB is expected to make official this afternoon.

Commisioner Bud Selig is scheduled to announce at 5 p.m. that replay will be used for series starting Thursday and Friday. The Rays open a weekend series against the Orioles on Friday.

Also, Tim Beckham promoted to HV.

Awesome slideshow, with narration by Mark Topkin.

Some awesome pictures here...

From WTSP (Channel 10), with video.

On the face of it, it’s amazing the $6.1 billion that Major League Baseball took in last year is within spitting distance of the NFL’s 2007 revenue of $6.3 billion. The Super Bowl broke TV ratings records once again in 2008, drawing nearly 100 million viewers, while only 17 million bothered to tune in to the 2007 World Series. But baseball has found increasingly inventive ways to ramp up revenue — from counterintuitively reducing the number of seats in stadiums to selling streaming video of baseball games online — hitting record high revenues for five consecutive years.

Baseball remains an especially local, live form of entertainment — an aspect some analysts trace to its historical roots, which predate national markets and TV by a half-century. Unlike the NFL, which takes in more than two-thirds of revenue from national TV, baseball’s national broadcasts generate less than 20 percent of overall sales ($935 million in 2006). The lion’s share comes from revenue at its ballparks and via local broadcasts.

It’s at the local level — soaring sales of higher-priced tickets, concessions, and advertising at new theme-park style stadiums — that MLB is hitting some of its biggest home runs.

As players were beseeched by countless members of the news media to eulogize Yankee Stadium as it hosts its last All-Star Game, those sufficiently provoked Monday were willing to discuss what they would not miss about the old — very old — ballpark in the Bronx.

Players from the past had no problem saying goodbye to the Astrodome’s rats and Candlestick Park’s hurricane-force winds. Today’s All-Stars have their own reasons to dry their eyes at Yankee Stadium’s funeral.

"The smell," the Texas Rangers’ Michael Young said.

"The tiny clubhouse," Justin Duchscherer of the Oakland Athletics added.

"Hitting my head on the dugout," the Chicago White Sox’ Joe Crede offered. "Every time somebody scored or got a hit, you jumped up and forgot how low the ceiling is in there."

Yankee Stadium is holding up about as well as any 85-year-old can be expected to, but the ballpark’s 1970s facelift has begun to droop. Players found reasons for moving on easy to come up with.

Olfactory issues led the voting, although few players were able to identify what the problem has been. Is one of Babe Ruth’s half-eaten hot dogs still rotting under one of the grandstands? Are the foul lines marked with sulfur? And how long does pine tar keep, anyway?

Fascinating read from today's WSJ:

"They play the same game. They pick from the same pool of players. For some reason, though, they don't get the same results.

"By just about every measure, the 16 teams in Major League Baseball's National League are inferior to the 14 in the American League. The AL has won 11 of the last 16 World Series, including three of the last four. The annual All-Star Game, to be played Tuesday, has practically become a farce: Not counting a 2002 tie, the AL has won 10 straight.
...
"The plight of the NL seems rooted in a chain of events that began in 1973 when the AL adopted the designated-hitter rule -- which allows for the pitchers to be replaced in the batting order by a full-time hitter who doesn't play in the field. The disparity was spurred by new ballpark construction; an unprecedented crop of young power hitters who, for various reasons, almost all fell to the AL; a series of disastrous trades and free-agent signings by NL teams; and a tradition of innovation in the AL that began in the mid-1990s with the Oakland A's."

Yet another unanticipated consequence of having a suddenly-awesome team. Now we have parking issues.

The surest indicator yet of this team's success...

Rays fans at the Trop have become accustomed to encountering fans of out-of-town teams, especially during games against the Yankees or at this week's series against the Red Sox. Even so, there's no question they're finding more Rays fans at this year's games than in the past.

Have you switched loyalties from the Red Sox — or some other team — to the Rays? Tell us why! E-mail Times staff writer John Barry with your story.

R.I.P. George Carlin

Via SPTimes Heater blog:

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has only attended one game at Tropicana Field as far as anyone knows, and that was in June 2004, before all the improvements by the Stuart Sternberg-led ownership group.

But that didn't stop Selig from bashing the Trop, in his bid to push the importance of the new stadium, in an interview with ESPN's Howard Bryant, which is excerpted below. And the way Selig answered the St. Pete/Tampa question is interesting, especially since the Rays have a lease with St. Petersburg through 2027.

From the New York Times, no less...

After the Rays quieted the Baltimore Orioles, 4-2, on Thursday at Camden Yards, they improved to 16-12, the best 28-game start in their 11-year history. The Rays have won eight of nine games, including three-game sweeps of the Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays. So far, something is different with a team that has never won more than 70 games.

"People want to watch our team play now," left fielder Carl Crawford said.

Watching the Rays roll can be refreshing. See center fielder B. J. Upton uncork a throw from near the warning track to nab a runner at second. Marvel as Crawford churns around the bases like an Acela. Follow James Shields’s changeup as it baffles batters. Study Longoria’s fluid at-bats and smooth defense. Stare at Carlos Peña’s sweet swings.

Manager Joe Maddon sees those elements, sees terrific athletes becoming terrific players and sees a young team gaining valuable experience. Although Maddon does not dwell on being marooned in the same division with the two teams that usually have the highest payrolls in baseball, he said that the Rays were starting to believe that they belonged in the company of the Red Sox and the Yankees.

Maddon smiled when he said the Rays, who had lost their last 23 series in Boston, should be viewed differently when they visit Fenway Park this weekend. The Rays are in first place in the division, percentage points ahead the Red Sox (17-13) .

Jose Canseco, the former AL MVP who made millions during his baseball career, has had his home foreclosed.

Canseco told the syndicated TV show "Inside Edition" that he walked away from his $2.5 million, 7,300-square foot home in suburban Encino because it didn’t make sense to continue making payments.

"I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else," he said in an interview that aired Thursday.

Aaron Sharockman's new blog, offering "the latest from the ongoing debate, focusing on the impact to taxpayers, the evolution of the Rays’ proposal and the politics unfolding behind the scenes."

Rays starter James Shields got two wins, and Monday he got something to go with them - American League Player of the Week honors.

From Eric Wilbur, Boston.com sports @sshat...

It’s exciting all right; a young team annually destined for the dregs of the division may finally have something to play for. But when a three-games-above-.500 mark is your franchise’s crowning achievement thus far, well, sorry that just sucks.