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Things are happening in Downtown Clearwater

The Rays' Hummer

There’s a lot more to major league baseball than what goes on on the field.

Take the Tampa Bay Rays, for example.  The Rays are a young team, having been formed just 11 years ago. They made it to the World Series last year, but not before nine seasons of last-place baseball. The product on the field simple wasn’t enough to draw fans to the park, so the Rays spent lots of time and money developing community-based efforts that would, hopefully, spark interest in the team.

I saw an example of that effort not long ago in downtown Clearwater.

There is a regular monthly event in downtown Clearwater called Fourth Friday. On the fourth Friday of every month, late in the day, vendors start setting up on Cleveland Street, which has been roped off for just that purpose. People turn out to walk along Cleveland street, buy food and other items from vendors, and just generally enjoy Clearwater’s much-improved downtown.

On the day I was there, the Tampa Bay Rays had their special Hummer there, along with a stage set up to host the Ray’s pre-game and post-game radio shows on WDAE, the Sports Animal. The Rays were actually playing the Florida Marlins in Miami that night, but the live radio programs that opened and closed the game would be coming live from downtown Clearwater.

As workers set up the stage, young Rays employees were busy handing out white Rays t-shirts and other team goodies.

The Rays are always looking for more fans. And Clearwater is always looking for more people to come downtown and enjoy what is offered there.

Tags: baseball, Clearwater, downtown

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Clearwater, North Pinellas County, things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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