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STOCK PHOTO<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson used to be must-see TV. Now he\u2019s can\u2019t-see TV.\n<\/p>\n
At least for me. I can\u2019t find Rays games on my television. I\u2019ve searched the channels. I\u2019ve surfed that internet thing, but can\u2019t find their games listed anywhere that I can access.\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s quite vexing.\n<\/p>\n
Quite irksome.\n<\/p>\n
Nowhere to be seen.\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost as if the team is a mere rumor, an ineffable whisper of a team theoretically existing somewhere. I think.\n<\/p>\n
No Dewayne Staats. No Brian Anderson. No Kevin Cash. They are, respectively, the team\u2019s lead broadcasters and manager.\n<\/p>\n
Not where I used to find them on Channel 57, which was and may still be something called Bally Sports. It was 57 on my cable provider. Other cable providers no doubt place or placed them elsewhere on the dial.\n<\/p>\n
Where oh where can my Rays be?\n<\/p>\n
Not on ESPN.\n<\/p>\n
Not on MLB. Although at some point, that network may carry the odd Rays game or two.\n<\/p>\n
Not on any of the usual sporting channels suspects.\n<\/p>\n
I know the Rays are playing games. That\u2019s not Fake Sports News. I see them listed in the standings. But I don\u2019t see them winning and losing.\n<\/p>\n
I miss the Rays. A year ago at this time, when Simpson was a rookie, I referred to him on Facebook as Must-See TV because of his dynamic speed.\n<\/p>\n
I miss those days of easily accessible Rays games.\n<\/p>\n
I checked the team\u2019s website and scrolled through a maze of links and an ampersand or two and at least one \u2013 one! \u2013 exclamation mark!\n<\/p>\n
On the team site, I read that Rays fans can watch on television or stream digitally \u201cwithout local blackouts subject to national exclusivities.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have any streaming services.\n<\/p>\n
On the team website, I found a reference to \u201cChannel Finder.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
I found 12 options, none of which I use on my ancient television.\n<\/p>\n
One option is \u201cPhilo.\u201d The only Philo I know is Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television.\n<\/p>\n
The website notes that fans can watch over the air.\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s more in my Luddite nature.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch select Rays games over the air free on our partner networks across the state!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Across the state!\n<\/p>\n
With an exclamation mark!\n<\/p>\n
But where!?\n<\/p>\n
I miss the Rays, even if they are destined to miss the playoffs again.\n<\/p>\n
I remember the old days of baseball on TV, going back to the prehistoric era of the 1960s. Back then, the only televised games I could find were, as I recall, 2 p.m. on Saturday on NBC. It was the national game of the week.\n<\/p>\n
Now, baseball is regularly available on the MLB Network and other places.\n<\/p>\n
Back then, I likely watched on a 19-inch black-and-white set with rabbit ears on top and an antenna on the roof of the house.\n<\/p>\n
It was appointment viewing.\n<\/p>\n
Now, despite the abundance of televised baseball, I can\u2019t make an appointment to see the Rays and Chandler Simpson, who may be the fastest man in baseball.\n<\/p>\n
Some Southwest Florida baseball fans might ask about Florida\u2019s other big-league team, the Miami Marlins.\n<\/p>\n
Fair question. I\u2019ve always felt more connected to Tampa Bay teams. For starters, I grew up in St. Pete. And Fort Myers is closer to Tropicana Field than loanDepot Park.\n<\/p>\n
I checked Google Maps. The Trop is 111 miles from downtown Fort Myers and loanDepot Park is 156 miles.\n<\/p>\n
Southwest Florida geography makes a difference on which ballpark is the most convenient. From Ave Maria to loanDepot is 114 miles. But it is 151 miles to Tropicana Field.\n<\/p>\n
If one starts from downtown Punta Gorda, the Trop is only 89 miles, but loanDepot is nearly 100 miles farther, 181 miles.\n<\/p>\n
But from my couch, none of the highway travel matters.\n<\/p>\n
Simpson is off to a fine start for the Rays. As of April 4, as I\u2019m working on this column, he was hitting .417, second in the league behind teammate Yandy Diaz at .433.\n<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also stolen a couple of bases.\n<\/p>\n
Simpson is Must-See TV, but, alas, not for me.\n<\/p>\n
Glenn Miller started working for newspapers in 1972 as a mail clerk for the Times Publishing Company in St. Petersburg. With that toe in the newspaper world, he was given an opportunity to cover a high school football game for the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. He eventually moved on to the Fort Myers News-Press in 1987 and accepted a buyout offer from the paper in 2012. He has been freelancing ever since.\u00a0 Much of the freelance work has been with Florida Weekly. Miller is also an adjunct journalism professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he has been employed since 2018.\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STOCK PHOTO Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson used to be must-see TV. Now he\u2019s can\u2019t-see TV. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-670967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-rays","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371226946097573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}