* Unless it’s opening day, a killer concert or a Bosox flashmob, attendance at Rays’ games is often not far from four figures. Now, apparently, we can add another variable: something to do with popular, Golden Glove outfielder Kevin Kiermaier. More than 30,000 were at the Trop on Saturday, which featured a Kiermaier bobblehead giveaway, and nearly 22,000 turned out the next day as fans under 14 were gifted with blue Kiermaier gloves.
* Speaking of Boston, it deserves a shout-out for being one of four major league cities to ban smokeless tobacco–as the Rays chewers found out this week. It’s been long overdue, and the remaining 26 MLB cities need to get on board.
It’s not just a stupid part of baseball’s “culture.” It’s spit-prompting and off-putting on TV. It can have perverse role-modeling impacts on younger viewers. And then there’s that salivary-gland and oral cancer thing.
* Forget about a two-county tax scenario and CSX subplots. The Rays will not leave the Trop to relocate to Oldsmar. Doug Bevis, Oldsmar’s mayor, thinks it has possibilities. But that’s the way tiny-town mayors think. It was interesting, however, that encouragement was provided by some local, non-St. Petersburg-based state lawmakers: Rep. Jamie Grant, R-Tampa; Rep. Larry Ahern, R-Seminole; and Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater.
* I’ve never been a fan of sports such as basketball, soccer and tennis in the Olympics. Not when there’s the NBA championships, Wimbledon and the World Cup, which are so much more meaningful for those sports. Plus you have the mega millionaires among the divers, pentathloners and wrestlers, a potentially weird dynamic if underscored.
It will be in Rio in August. Once again, NBA players won’t be staying in the Olympic Village. Too much like the dormitories they were forced to live in for that one year in college. Word is they will stay on the Silver Cloud cruise ship that markets itself as the “Leader in Luxury Cruising.”
“We don’t stay in the village because we don’t feel it’s the best way to prepare for competition,” explained a USA Basketball spokesman. It’s also a way of compensating the players for agreeing to give up off-season lifestyle time to represent their country.