What the hell is going on with Tampa Bay? I know it's May, but they're stomping assholes around the league in this little run of theirs. I've always laughed at the Rays since they debuted wearing purple/black/green/blueish gradient jerseys, making Wade Boggs look like a damned clown, but this season they've got a good core of young players playing some good baseball.

Any thoughts on the once-and-still-possibly-eventual-lowly devil dogs?

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pitching will continue to be their problem. kazmir is a stud, but rocco baldelli's mitochondria problem must be contagious, cause dude can't stay healthy at all. the lineup is tampa bay's true strength, and i don't think they'll be able to out-slug boston or new york when the time comes, but i've really enjoyed keeping track of their progress over the years (i'm a closet fan).

+$.02:
1. if you told me last year that tampa bay would be in first place this season WITHOUT delmon young and elijah dukes, i would have laughed my ass off.
2. the d-backs used to have the same color scheme as the rays and they did pretty well for themselves.

I'll tack on 4 cents:

1. I heard Baldelli's career was over. I was shocked to hear he was even taking some swings, much less still on the roster. I'd hope he gets healthy, he was fun to watch when he was healthy (for the one or two games).
2. The D-Backs used to wear teal, purple, gold and black. Sorry to be a hard-on, but the Rays wore purple, black, green, yellow, and it was all this horrific gradient thing that was embarrassing, and made the players look just plain silly. While I'm a fan of the D-Backs new Astros/Chili's uniforms, I hated the purple/teal days, and actually was disappointed when the Rays unveiled their new look. I mean it looks okay, but they're like the 28th team in the league with blue in their color scheme. Oh well.
3. The Rays also have the worst ballpark in the majors. Tropicana makes me sad just to look at. Anytime I see highlights from inside that carpeted dome, it looks like they're playing in a Sam's Choice warehouse. What a fucking dump. There's catwalks hanging down into the field, the ceiling is this puke-tan, and you can't even tell the field is in a beautiful Florida town. I hope their new field gets built sooner than 2012, because it looks amazing and would give a blossoming franchise some credibility.
4. I agree in that this swoon won't last the entire season, but it'd be cool for their fan base if they made it a fight. Boston and the Yanks are playing like ass right now, but I like what I'm seeing in the growing rivalry between the Yanks and Rays. Ever since Girardi wet his pants in spring training over the train rolling of his catcher, these two teams have played some pretty intense games against one another.

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To nitpick about the color schemes even furthur, the Dbacks main colors were purple and black, the others were accent colors, and the Rays mainly wore that green and black before they went with these new ones. When they first started they had the wierd lettering that was multicolored, with the colors you guys had mentioned. They looked like they were created by an '80s teenage girl. "Oh these colors look soooo rad!"

And I agree, Tropicana Field, aka the Thunderdome, is the worst ballpark in baseball, with Dolphin Stadium, aka Joe Robbie Stadium, close behind.

I don't think that fans really knew what a Devil Ray was, and I don't think fans were buying anything green & black before they changed the name to Rays and changed their uniforms this season. WHile they still play at a rotten excuse for a stadium, Tropicana Field, the Rays are actually developing their own talent, such as third baseman Evan Longoria & left fielder Carl Crawford. When the White Sox were down there recently, I overheard reports that the Rays actually want to build a new, better baseball-only stadium down the road from the current site. I heard something about a referendum and that taxpayers there were supposed to vote on it. The other Florida MLB team, the Marlins, have been trying for years to finance a new baseball-only stadium in Miami, but it has come up short every time lawmakers there have voted on whether to use taxpayer dollars on footing the bill.

I thought the Marlins already had a deal in the works to move into a new park and become the Miami Marlins?

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They do have a deal, but I didn't know a name change was going to be required.

florida doesn't deserve to have a major league baseball team...you could take both fanbases of the rays and the marlins and put them in one park and they still wouldn't fill HALF the seats...

Every expansion team since the 1990's has had either purple or teal in their colors.

Rockies, Marlins, Devil Rays, D-Backs, Raptors, Grizzlies, Hornets, San Jose Sharks, Jaguars, etc.

Technically, the Browns were an expansion team, so not true...I know, I'm reaching...

I actually think that they considered the Browns to be a "returning" team, and that When the original organization moved to Baltimore, that team, the Ravens, was considered the expansion team, and they wear purple.

However, the Columbus Blue Jackets don't have those colors and neither do the Charlotte Bobcats.

Nashville Preds, Florida Panthers.

Fair enough, but didn't they still call it an "expansion draft" when the Browns made their roster? That being said, your examples are much better, and I completely forgot about the bona-fide NFL expansion team with no purple: Houston Texans.

Another good one, Atlanta Thrashers and Ottawa Senators (didn't they join the NHL in 1990?)

Didn't mean to trigger a hubbub by saying "every team," was just using a hyperbole, heh.

There was a 90's swoon for major markets to premier new franchises with bolder, more untouched colors. Teal and purple especially were the major colors of this somewhat strange and unsightly deal.

But since then I think if you look at teams like the Jaguars, they're not really teal anymore, they're more of an aqua blue. The once Vancouver now Memphis Grizz went to blue, navy, and yellow, the Raptors have abandoned purple and made red their main color. It's slowly going away, and for the better.

But the Rays I feel just would have stood out a bit more had they gone with an all green color palate. Now they're the 3rd team in their division wearing blue.

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The only other team in MLB with green is Oakland, however nowadays it seems that the mix of darker and lighter blue seems to be en vogue, many teams also adding yellow/gold, like said Grizzlies and the Nuggets.