Red Sox official makes "exploratory" visit to Disney sports complex

CapnStinxy

CapnStinxy

Member
Original Poster
JCorduroy said:
Having grown up in Ft. Myers for a good chunk of my adolesence, it's not a 'dump' - the statement that it is a dump is rather rude and frankly, a huge generalization. I was born in Fall River, Massachusetts and lived in Ft Myers, and both places have their good sides and both places have their bad sides. Just like EVERY other town in America.

It's a fact that the area where the Sox practice facility is located is a bad part of town - I'll give you that. But when you're basing your entire opinion of the area on that, well, you're wrong. Go down McGregor, go to South Ft. Myers, visit Cape Coral, walk around Downtown - it's a beautiful place. Great, and overall a safe place to grow up.
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Ft. Myers seems determined to run itself into the ground. Downtown could be a gem, with the riverfront and the decent number of architecturally interesting buildings in good repair. Instead, you had Mayor Jim ran off the nightlife just when it was getting rolling because they wanted to be "upscale." Well, now you can't give away those "upscale" condos, and the interminable street-scape project is killing the few businesses which did stick it out.

City of Palms Park is in a terrible location for encouraging people to come before and stay after the games. It's hemmed in by residential streets and it's at least a mile walk to any place to eat or have a post-game beer. What few there are are closed on weekends, since the only business downtown generates is county government, the ever-expanding jail, and the lawyers that feed off both.

The closest hotel? A highrise which smells like stale soup, and has lost three franchises because the family that owns it neglects it malevolently. So, the teams stay 9 miles away at the Holiday Inn by the Bell Tower.

I've lived in Cape Coral since 1977. Just calling it as I see it.
 
RSoxNo1

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
To the poster that said Florida is just for the Rays, this is Spring Training - teams play all of their spring training games in either Florida or Arizona (with the exception of the last few games of Spring Training). As a Sox fan, I'm thrilled that the Rays are playing well, I've been telling people for years that they're going to be good, just have patience, and now that's come to fruition - however the Red Sox playing their Spring Training games at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex is irrelevant to that argument.

With all that said, as a huge Disney fan and Red Sox fan, I would be thrilled if this deal happened. Color me excited.
 
lnsemsf

lnsemsf

Well-Known Member
I've been a Rays fan since we got them, and I still don't go to Blockbuster over their former owner stealing the Marlins from Tampa (anybody else remember people burning their BB cards?) I like no football team but the Bucs, and I've liked them since the Tampa Stadium games and Bucco Bruce orange. I've followed the Lightning since the Fairgrounds to the Thunderdome to the Ice Palace, and they won the Stanley cup game 7 on my birthday. I also actively followed the Mutiny and Rowdies until they were driven out of town, and now I can't stand soccer at all, I don't have a team. I even remember going to several Bandits games back when they were around. I've gone to a few Storm games, and while yeah I don't say I'm really on their bandwagon, I always hope for them to win and try to catch the games on TV if I happen to find them. I'm no fair weather Tampa fan. I didn't have a baseball team here in Tampa to root for, so I followed my father's team.

The sox were the lovable losers for 86 years, and they deserved one and I was glad to see it. I still rooted for the Rays over the Sox at games, but if the Sox won I wasn't heart broken because they deserved a Series title. That time has now passed and just like the Yanks their an overpaid group of athletes performing a sport as a job, they're not a team (Bye bye Manny, your services with the company are no longer required.)

While I always was a Devil Rays fan (and yes I still call them that, changing the name to appease the southern Christians was stupid, but I digress) but I never thought they had a chance. That wasn't the point, I didn't go to a Rays game expecting them to win (and boy did their playing meet my expectations) but I still enjoyed it. This year it's a team to really believe in, they've got a chance. It's a TEAM, a real honest to god team. No trades at the deadline, no multi million dollar purchase, just a group of guys who play well together, and win against teams whose combined payrolls are nearing 1/2 a billion dollars.

Granted, Tampa is a bandwagon city, but honestly we have a reason for it. Our owners put decades of crap on a plate and served it to us season after season. It takes time to get people to believe you that you're really trying. Hugh Culverhouse's (Bucs owner) death was the best thing that ever happened to Tampa, and within a few years we had constant sellouts, and a few years after that a Superbowl win. The lightning used to be so bad I got 15 free tickets for buying 8 gallons of $1 gas (oh how I miss those days for both the price and the tickets.) It will take time for Tampa to really believe in the team. Sure it's bandwagon, but really once the wagon starts rolling, it doesn't seem to stop. The Bucs have not been doing great since the Superbowl, but it sells out every week. The Lightning were dead last the past season, but people still go, there are no free tickets, they don't need to give them out when people will pay.

Now, that was all about me, and my defense to a few pages of being looked down on. Why don't I want the Sox at Disney? The Rays need that bandwagon right now, they need attendance, they need fans from outside of Tampa. Putting Boston's training right in Orlando, in the same stadium the Rays play games in to try to get some new fans in Orlando does not help us. Kids will see a Sox game, and it's just going to breed more Florida Boston fans, and not more home town fans. Boston should go down south, steal some Marlins fans, leave central Florida to the Rays. Like it or not, we need the bandwagon fans for now, because once they get on and it starts rolling, hopefully it won't slow down enough for them to ever get off.

As for you Sox fans praying for a Rays collapse. YOU'RE PRAYING FOR A RAYS COLLAPSE, could you have imagined saying those words last year? This wasn't supposed to happen, we're not supposed to win, but we do, and we keep doing it. You weren't supposed to win 4 in a row against the Yanks to get to the Series, but you did. Sometimes, it's just your time...

LETS GO RAYS!
 
Lance

Lance

Active Member
First, I've lived in Massachusetts for 23.5 years, Orlando for 1.5 years..... Second, I'm not a Sox fan, I stopped being a Sox fan nearly 10 years ago. I don't have any MLB loyalties, because I HATE MLB... HATE... love baseball, love playing, but I hate the MLB with a passion.... so why am I commenting on this thread? Because I can...lol

Sox management aren't stupid(except for not building a new ballpark), and they'd be out of their minds not to set up shop at WWoS. Braves and Sox in Disney, that'd be out of control for both teams.

The personal problem I have with it.... RED SOX NATION. The reason I hate the sox so much nowadays, is because of RED SOX NATION. The mere fact that a term has been coined by these bandwagon, fairweather wannabees... makes me sick. The pink cap, Tek-loving females, and everything is why I hate RS Nation and there-in, the Sox.

WITH that being said, I wouldn't want the Sox in WWoS, because Red Sox Nation would INFEST WDW, and I don't know if I can handle RS Nation in two geographic areas of this COUNTRY.... ugh... so obviously, if this happens, then I could never go to WDW in Feb-March ever again...


JC, sorry about having to go from Fall River to Ft. Myers... you're 0-2 right there! Fall River is a dump, Ft. Myers is not much better. I've only been to Ft. Myers for one Sox spring training, it was apalling, but I knew all of Florida couldn't be beautiful... I often tell friends here.... Ft. Myers is the "Lynn" of Florida.... if anyone knows where Lynn is.... and I get to say that, cause I was born in Lynn....lol... but I've since upgraded...
 
gabroccoli

gabroccoli

Member
"I often tell friends here.... Ft. Myers is the "lynn" of florida.... If anyone knows where lynn is.... And i get to say that, cause i was born in lynn....lol"

lynn lynn the city of sin, you never come out the way you went in!!!
 
donvincenzo

donvincenzo

Member
gabroccoli said:
"I often tell friends here.... Ft. Myers is the "lynn" of florida.... If anyone knows where lynn is.... And i get to say that, cause i was born in lynn....lol"

lynn lynn the city of sin, you never come out the way you went in!!!
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Come on man, you beat me to it...

(Seems like this is becoming the Massachusetts inside joke thread...)
 
coltow

coltow

Well-Known Member
gabroccoli said:
"I often tell friends here.... Ft. Myers is the "lynn" of florida.... If anyone knows where lynn is.... And i get to say that, cause i was born in lynn....lol"

lynn lynn the city of sin, you never come out the way you went in!!!
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I'm from Lynn! I've lived here my whole life (and don't plan to leave anytime soon) and so have my parents and their parents were here most of their lives too. I even went to the old Classical and survived. It does have a bad reputation, but not all parks are bad. Most are very nice, just stay away from downtown.
 
JCorduroy

JCorduroy

Active Member
RSoxNo1 said:
How did the Rangers/D-Rays regular season series do at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex?
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I believe attendance was pretty good, but not sure if it was a sellout or not - of course, when you've got a team like the Rangers as your opponent, a lot of people wouldn't be interested in attending. :) However, it was a first time experiment to get more fans from Orlando for the Rays, and I hope it worked. They're an organization that deserves better than they get.

Back on the Red Sox topic though - how about Bay's debut tonight? Nice to see some defense being played in left field for a change. :)
 
CapnStinxy

CapnStinxy

Member
Original Poster
mcstensrud said:
Why isn't this news up here in Boston?
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Because Ft. Myers is a much "smaller" town than the population would suggest. By quirk of geography, we have four network teevee affiliates. They fear covering the real local news - fits of domestic violence, petty thievery, cut-rate crookery by local political figures and developers, and the howling void of the real estate market - lest it induce mass terminal depression. Instead, they peddle tripe like this.

Having the Red Sox allows Ft. Myers to glom on to greatness, at least fox six weeks out of the year. The thought of losing their one connection to the big time has the local boosters in full-on howling fantods. So much so that, despite the tax base having contracted by 12% and the county having now laid off or bought out 20% of its workforce, there are serious proposals for throwing around upwards of $40 million to build a new spring training complex, despite still owing $15 million (a debt the county had to assume, as the city was in danger of default) on the current one.
 
I

I-4Warrior

New Member
Not to stir up a storm, but EVERY pro sports market has degrees of being populated by fairweather fans... even New England. It's not just a Tampa Bay thing. I lived just over the MA/NH border from 1981 - 1995 and remember the down years of the Pats... people were giving away tickets and most home games were blacked out. Nobody wanted to see a broken down Steve Grogan or Hugh Millen or John Stephens. They hit a fever pitch in 85 with their march to the Super Bowl ("Squish the Fish", "Berry the Bears"), got slaughtered in the end, and the fan base ran and hid for the most part until 1996, and then the bandwagon got so full that the axles have started breaking since the dawn of Brady. New England/Boston fans, like every fan, can be terrific and horrible, die hard and bandwagon. Nobody is immune. Winning cures all sports-related illnesses.

The Rays fans have every right in the world to crow right now. They're better than the Yanks OR Sox right now (certainly more consistent) and with the kids currently on the team, and a rotation of the future that includes two more blue chip SP (Niemann and Price) on the way, I think Yanks and Sox fans better get used to the Rays being our stumbling block for a very long time (while boston and NY get older and older). Rays fans have been a national punchline for a decade, if their fans didn't let everyone hear about how good the team in now, I'd be disappointed. I've been going to Rays games (about a dozen a year) starting with the 6th game in team history. Those first 10 years, the Trop was a wonderful place to take a nice nap in air conditioning, and that's pretty much it. Naimoli had turned the team into an abomination (The Hit Show, and $15 million payroll for example... not to mention the dumpiest sping facility in Florida). They truly are underdogs and to come from the wreckage the franchise had become very early on in its existence, it's about time and all sports fans should be happy for them. A team built from scouting and smart trades for prospects... not from overpriced free agents.
 
WDWFREAK53

WDWFREAK53

Well-Known Member
JCorduroy said:
Back on the Red Sox topic though - how about Bay's debut tonight? Nice to see some defense being played in left field for a change. :)
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Yes, Manny wouldn't have caught that...but again, he would've held him to a single. Welcome to the Bay State :)

What I found odd was how Manny's "knee problem" was virtually non-existent as he sprinted down the first base line!

The words "Manny" and "Sprint" never went in the same sentence here. I love what the guy did with the bat...and how he played that wall...but never did he give 100%.
 

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