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Nobody Beats The Rays In The Land Of Mickey

Tribune photo by Jason Behnken

Rays Nathan Haynes is tagged out at the plate by Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun during the 4th inning Tuesday night at Champions Stadium at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 23, 2008

Updated: 04/23/2008 12:22 am

LAKE BUENA VISTA - It was a hot Tuesday afternoon in the Tampa suburb of Orlando. She had traveled from Miami and now stood at the end of Main Street, in the very heart of Rays Nation. She was hot and bothered. Tanya Coke, mother of three (soon to be four), had pushed her expectant self and a stroller all over Disney's Magic Kingdom, to Fantasyland and back, and there was still no sign of him.

"Where's Mickey?" she asked. She pointed to her young daughter. "I've been here eight hours and spent a hundred dollars on water. Where's Mickey? I'm going crazy."

Someone else had an entertainment suggestion - a real major-league baseball game on the Disney campus that very night.

"Who?" Tanya asked.

The Rays.

"Will there be cartoon figures there?"

Well ...

Great Collection Of Athletes

Bite your ears. And tongue. And forget those two Rays errors on a single run-scoring play. Year Two of the great home-away-from-home experiment began auspiciously, even with 1,200 empty seats in 9,500-seat Champion Stadium at the Disney sports complex.

The visitors from the west beat the Blue Jays 6-4 for their fourth consecutive win here dating to last season's three-game sweep of Texas. Nobody goes into Disney and beats the Rays. Nobody.

This might very well have been the greatest collection of professional athletes ever assembled in Orlando on a single night, seeing as the Magic were winning an NBA playoff game in their rickety downtown arena.

The Rays responded. Eric Hinske came up just a single short of the cycle, Evan Longoria also homered and the pitching was how the Rays drew it up in camp - James Shields to Dan Wheeler to Troy Percival.

"I'd like to see a few more of them," Rays manager Joe Maddon said of the fans. "I saw some green seats. We'd like to put a few more fannies in them."

Tuesday night, the grass was green and the night was breezy. Behold: outdoor baseball. Of course, it isn't July and mosquitoes haven't carried off any preschoolers, but maybe there's something to that big sailboat stadium in the St. Petersburg baseball peninsula. Imagine the fannies. OK, don't.

Really, it was a spectacular evening for baseball. It's hard to know who should be more ashamed, people in Orlando who didn't show up, people in Tampa Bay who didn't ride over or the Rays for never winning enough games to ever matter. We'll call it a draw. Nation building, the battle for Main Street, it takes time.

The Rays have invested time and advertising dollars in reaching out to O-town. It's downrange thinking, but results have to catch up, way up, before roads will choke with fans willing to battle I-4 logjams, Tampa's malfunctioning junction and the big bridge.

And now meet an early convert.

Fans Will Respond To Wins

Janna Brennan lives in Maitland, just north of Orlando. She had her sons Ethan and Duncan at the park Tuesday. Three or four times a season, they make the two-hour trek to Tropicana Field. Get this: They gave up their Magic playoff tickets to be at Tuesday's game.

"They're the only baseball team," Ms. Brennan said.

Mr. Carlos Pena, another Orlando-area resident when not playing for the Rays, was a grand marshal in the big parade at the Magic Kingdom on Monday, along with his daughter, Shields and Shields' daughter.

Pena loves Disney World. Then again, it's spring break for school students in New York and Massachusetts, so the Kingdom is overrun with Yankees and Red Sox hats and shirts piling onto Dumbo The Flying Elephant. Didn't see any Rays hats.

"I heard the Yankees and Red Sox during the parade," Pena said. Will the Rays ever have a Central Florida they can call their own?

"If we win, the fans will come," Pena said.

Tanya Coke pointed at her daughter.

"If Mickey's at the game, I'm for Rays. I'll go."

The nation stirs.

Today Disney, tomorrow Weeki Wachee ...

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