Tampa Bay Rays, Lovebugs, Napoleon Solo & Fanta Crimson Sour Cherry

I’ll make another post sometime on Sunday, but I had the free time to post this now, after viewing Napoleon Solo win the Preakness Stakes horse race a little earlier in the day.

On May the fourth, I returned to Tropicana Field for the first time in two years to see the Tampa Bay Rays play. November of ’24-after that MLB season was completed-a hurricane went over St. Petersburg and because the team hates Tropicana Field & did not want to do better upkeep of the building, the roof was torn off the domed stadium. I still think that was nonsense & certainly did at the time; that’s why the journey was never made to see them play last year in a minor league stadium in Tampa.

I did decide to return to the stadium on the 4^th; aside from the new roof, the building looks largely the same. Yeah, I saw the viral video that someone took of a stadium pillar shaking-I’d like to think it is AI nonsense but who knows… I can say that when it was pouring rain for a few minutes on that night, a few droplets of water fell on me from the roof! Yes, the brand-new roof. I’m miffed about that also.

Alas, I otherwise had a fun time as Tampa Bay defeated the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 5-1. There were 10 hits each by the teams, a failed stolen base attempt, and my first time seeing the new ABS system used live; that’s where a player can challenge an umpire’s call and computer magic immediately confirms or overrules the call. A unique twist is that because of the date, the team had Star Wars Night, including official cosplayers who walked around. The day was a good time.

This is despite driving through swarms of lovebugs on the way to the Tampa Bay region. I haven’t mentioned them in years, but that’s because it’s been years since there have been such an influx of these bizarre creatures that only appear each May and September. For whatever reason, they’ve really proliferated in Florida now… and I understand, other Gulf Coast regions, especially also in Texas. I was hoping they’d be gone for good, but alas.

One last note: after purchasing that soda earlier in the year, I was finally able to try Fanta’s Crimson Sour Cherry. My verdict: pretty good, the cherry flavor not too sour.