Hate the owner, hate the stadium but the Rays players deserve your support tonight at The Trop 7 pm.

Tonight at 7 pm the Tampa Bay Rays will play the Houston Astros in Game 4 of the 2019 Major League Baseball Playoffs with the hopes of forcing a Game 5. This small playroll band of young players and role playing vets earned they way on the same stage as the payroll busting Astros and Yankees.

For the second straight year they have won more than 90 games and have one of the most exciting teams in all of Major League Baseball. Yes, I know you hate the owner, you don’t want to build them a baseball stadium, you don’t care if they move to Montreal.

But tonight at Tropicana Field 27 men who are wearing Tampa Bay Rays jerseys is playing a Houston team stacked with high priced talent. Buy a damn ticket and cheer them on despite your destain for the teams ownership.

Only the Yankees, Astros, Nationals, Dodgers, Cardinals and Braves are still left playing baseball after New York swept past Minnesota on Monday night. So, the Rays are in very impressive company, so give them the same love you give the Lightning.

For years the Tampa Bay Area fought to get a Major League Baseball team and now just for a few days it would be nice if they actually supported it. We only need about 25,000 of you to buy some tickets and make some noise.

At MLB’s owners meetings in June, commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters that the club isn’t going anywhere yet, as the lease at the Trop runs through 2027.

We have no idea what comes next as is the case in Oakland and Phoenix where both franchises are seeing Las Vegas dangling a new billion dollar stadium out in hopes of landing the Diamondbacks or A’s to join the Raiders and the Golden Knights in their new desert homes.

Last month, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported the Diamondbacks signed a nondisclosure agreement with the City of Las Vegas in the summer of 2018.  Just weeks before that, Las Vegas suburb Henderson actually tried to lure the team to its city with a $1 billion stadium proposal.

The paper said that proposal did not move forward, but the city made it clear it is very interested in talking to any professional sports team to Henderson.

A new baseball stadium just opened in western Las Vegas for the AAA-level Las Vegas Aviators who just happen to be a farm team for the A’s. The stadium opened to rave reviews and was named the best AAA ballpark by Ballpark Digest.

The new AAA stadium has not stopped the Las Vegas area from pursuing more professional sports teams. 

But for tonight just be Rays fans!

Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.