I come from St. Petersburg, Fla. It’s not New York City or Chicago, but I’ve always thought it deserved more recognition than it gets. It’s a bigger city than Durham, Orlando, Richmond or Baton Rouge. But for some reason, no one has ever heard of it.
So when I went to college I stopped saying, “St. Petersburg” whenever someone asked me where I was from. Now I say, “The Tampa Bay area,” a major metropolitan center that includes, among other municipalities, St. Pete, Tampa, Clearwater and Largo.
When I say I’m from Tampa Bay, people usually know what I’m talking about. The problem is, they’ve only heard of Tampa Bay because it’s the city name that precedes all of our professional sports teams.
Most American sports teams get pretty good support from their fans. In exchange, they give their hometowns something to be excited about.
We Tampa Bayites (Bayans? Bayers?) hold up our half of the bargain. People go nuts for our football team, the Bucs. Last year, when the Rays were in a tight race for the baseball playoffs, people all around town got Mohawks to show their support. Some people even tune in to Lightning games, even though hockey and Florida don’t really get along.
But our sports teams just don’t give back. This weekend, the Washington Redskins played terribly; luckily for them, they were playing the Bucs, who played even worse. The Bucs did the only thing they did well and lost for the fourth time in a season that’s only lasted four games.
The weekend before that, my friends Nicolette and Ashley took me to see the Rays play the Rangers for my birthday. The game started really well. When we got there, the Rays had the bases loaded with no outs. But with two outs in the fifth inning, the Rays gave up eleven straight runs. Eleven. Not even the Bad News Bears could have pulled that one off.
The hockey season has only just started, so it’s too early to write off the chances of a Stanley Cup for the Lightning. But they lost their first game and I’m not hopeful that they’ll do much better than their 24-40-18 season last year.
Right now, the best team I root for is the SMU Mustangs. We started off strong but have faltered in our last two games. So to June and the rest of the team, I issue this appeal:
Please go back to winning. Please. It felt so nice to root for a team that didn’t make me cry.
