Friday, June 6, 2008

You can take the "Devil" out of the name...

...but you can't take the "Devil" out of the Rays.

I heard a quote the other day from Rays manager Joe Maddon. He said that the next step that the Rays needed to take as a franchise was to learn how to win at Fenway. He said they already knew how to win in the Bronx. The next step was Fenway. It seems to me that the next step the Rays need to take as a franchise is to stop acting like a bunch of gutless punks. I can't take them seriously as an organization unless they stop throwing at guys and causing brawls. I thought that by dropping the "devil" and the Dukes, the Rays were turning over a new leaf as a franchise. This looks like the same old Devil Rays to me. Pathetic.

On the plus side, it's nice to see a brawl with some actual emotion. None of the usual clear the benches and stand around the infield. This one actually had some punches thrown and landed. It actually had tempers.

Speaking of tempers, a couple of them flared up in the dugout as well. I'll trust the team when they say it's not a big deal. I'm sure it happens all the time behind cameras. You spend enough time with someone, and it's bound to. But, I did have one question. Who knew that Manny cared enough about anything to get into a brawl over it? That was impressive to see.

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