Tampa Is…?

I know the only thing worse than hearing a fan whine about how the officials are cheating against their favorite team is hearing a fan whine about how the officials are cheating against their FIRST PLACE team.

But seeing not one, but two utterly heinous blown calls go against the beloved home town Tampa Bay Rays twice within a week is enough to make one at least react like this:

Granted, Sunday’s game in Chicago probably shouldn’t have even gone to extra innings. However, I fear that Shawn Riggans might be the Rays answer to former Lightning defender Pavel Kubina. He’s a dedicated team guy that you really want to embrace because he works hard and isn’t afraid to do more than his share of dirty work but always seems to do that one dumb thing in a game that makes you react like this:

In this case, it was dropping the ball on as easy and routine a play at home plate as you’re ever likely to see which allowed the tying run to score. Excuse me for a second please…

Of course, that doesn’t excuse the heinousness that followed.

Now, no reasonable person should think that any kind of “fix” is taking place. For one, this isn’t the NBA. Secondly, there are literally millions of reasons to believe that if there was some kind of dark conspiracy taking place behind the scenes to favor one team over another, it probably wouldn’t be for the White Sox:

Third, and most important, we’re still in first place.

Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness

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