MLB Star Blasts His Own Team's Fans, Gives Props to Other Fanbases
Former Cardinals and current Rays outfielder Tommy Pham has nothing good to say about fans in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area in Florida.
Even though Pham revived his career when he came to Tampa Bay, posting a fantastic 1.070 OPS and .343 batting average in 39 games after the July trade deadline, he trashed the team’s fanbase in an interview on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio.
“It sucks going from playing in front of a great fanbase to a team with really no fanbase at all,” Pham said, praising the rabid fans in St. Louis.
Tommy Pham misses #Cardinals fans
“Do I think something has to happen [with the #Rays], whether it be a new ballpark, maybe a new city? I think so.” pic.twitter.com/aO2gf0HQxF— MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (@MLBNetworkRadio) December 27, 2018
Pham furthermore said the Rays need “a new ballpark, maybe a new city.”
“If you have a team that’s gonna be winning 90-plus games competing in that division, and you don’t have any fan support, then that’s a huge problem,” he said.
Obviously, the outfielder’s comments didn’t sit well with Tampa Bay fans, who fired back at Pham on Twitter.
When one chided him for not showing respect to Rays fans, he responded by saying, “Respect is something that’s earned not given.”
Respect is something that’s earned not given when you have a team who wins 90 games and has more Yankee and Red Sox fans at there home games that’s a problem so why don’t you look at what I’m saying and agree instead of hating on the truth
— Tommy Pham (@TphamLV) December 27, 2018
There’s no question attendance at Tropicana Field has been a problem for years. Of course, it doesn’t help that it’s an ugly, antiquated stadium that, for fans in Tampa, requires driving across a traffic-choked bridge at rush hour in order to attend a home game on a weeknight.
So is Pham right that the Rays need a new ballpark? Without question.
The bigger question becomes what this all means for Pham and the Rays in a purely baseball sense going forward.
After all, Pham is getting into his arbitration years and may end up leaving via free agency.
If that ends up being the case, there’s a lot of demand for a guy with an OPS north of 1.000, and a lot of the teams that can throw money at Pham play in front of crowds closer to the Cardinals’ average of 42,000 fans a game than the Rays’ paltry 14,000 — the second-worst attendance in baseball ahead of the Miami Marlins.
Then again, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. The Tampa Bay area hasn’t been able to persuade taxpayers to fork over money for a new stadium, which means the Rays are stuck at Tropicana Field until 2027.
And if they can’t get a new ballpark and can’t draw fans to the old one, what you’ve got left is a situation where maybe Portland, Oregon, or San Antonio or Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina (home to the biggest-drawing team in the minor leagues), can do what Tampa Bay won’t in terms of supporting a competitive baseball team.
That would be another tough blow for an area that’s had more than its share of sports misery over the years.
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