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Rays Fans Stampeding To Track Down Cowbells

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By LYNN CARSON, News Channel 8

and RAY REYES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 21, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Tampa Bay Rays fans are demanding more cowbell now that the American League champs are set to play in the World Series tonight.

One couple searched Tuesday for 30 of those little blue cowbells fans clank to rally the Rays and rattle opponents at Tropicana Field.

Theresa Clark of St. Petersburg said she and her colleagues are hosting a pep rally at work today, so she and her husband Wayne went to the official Rays merchandise store at the Trop for more cowbells.

The noisemakers are given away free to fans, but the store didn't have any in stock.

"I love it," Theresa Clark said of the clamor for -- and the claxon of -- cowbells at Rays games this year. She even had a cut on her finger from fanatically clanging the cowbell during Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox.

"It's constant cowbell," she said.

The Rays organization has been "running on fumes" on the cowbells since the pennant races in September, said team spokesman Rick Vaughn.

The team has released a new, bright yellow cowbell to commemorate the Rays' first trip to the World Series. On Tuesday, fans lined up at the store in the Trop and the official team store in downtown Tampa to snag the yellow noisemakers, without any luck.

"It's taken a life of its own," Vaughn said of the new tradition. "The players like anything that brings energy to the ballpark. There's something to it. It's worked its magic for us."

Rays officials said fans should rattle the cowbells at certain key points in the game, including when a Rays player reaches base or scores a run, when a Rays pitcher has two strikes on a batter, or when the scoreboard asks for more cowbell.

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