December 9, 2024 • 16 mins
The Tampa Bay Rays are currently stadiumless. And, there's that absolute gem of a baseball stadium downtown. What do you say, Omaha?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Tampa Bay Race have no baseball park to play in. Really,
they are supposed to play at steinbrin Or Field this
year this coming season because Hurricane Milton wiped out the
entirety of their roof in Saint Petersburg. Guess the Tampa
Bay Rays play in the suburb of Saint Petersburg. But yeah,
they're playing in the spring training facility. You know what
(00:20):
the capacity of that spring training facility is? I guess
like eight eleven thousands. It is the largest spring training
facility in all the state of Florida. Usually they are
about six or seven thousand. What did I say the
day this happened, Like we came back the next day
and we knew this roof was gone. You said, what
did I say? You said that it was a sad thing,
(00:42):
that you were bummed about it, and that you thought
maybe just maybe they could take their things and get
in some buses, get on the highway then the interstate,
maybe stop to get some grub along the way, Probably
probably need a stopping at gas, hey, a toll or two. Yeah,
eventually find themselves inside of Omaha and park their buses
right outside the old Schwab. Guess what the Wall Street
(01:06):
Journal just published today. Huh a list of where they
could go. What do you think number one was one
of the top ones? Oh? Is it number one? I
don't know. They didn't really rank them, but yeah, they said,
Omaha's a chance in our forensic KETV, who do such
great work on a different medium in this city, has
apparently reached out to both Mecca, the people who operate
(01:27):
the downtown area the city of Omaha about this article
and about Omaha being mentioned. This was over a month ago.
I was saying it the next day and I said,
why not? But I told you there's a lot of hurdles, right, Yeah.
The hurdles are let's name the hurdles again for the people.
First hurdle, College World Series. Yeah. And the reason that
Baseball Park exists, which is about the same capacity as
(01:49):
Tropic cana Field and Saint Petersburg is they know they
won't play it into twenty six. They're planning to play
at a spring chaining facility half of that size, a
little less than half of that size. Why wouldn't you just,
you know, find a stadium that's open, but for two
weeks it's not open. It's not open at all? Is
that a problem for Major League Baseball. Well, it can't
be because guess what they have. You should see what
(02:11):
they did in the Tampa schedule, like eighty percent of
the second half of the seasons on the road for them.
I mean, they have totally screwed with that schedule because
of their location and because of the weather in Florida
and being an outdoor stadium that they I mean, like
if they did that to the schedule for next year
and change like the home and road situation for them
because of this, They absolutely could have done that if
(02:32):
they were in Omaha and scheduled around the two weeks
that they couldn't be here right right. Number two, Creighton
College Baseball does play there and could interfere with the
beginning of the season. Is there a way that we
can make that work somehow? Yeah, it seems like it
seems like something over you know, like a month, that
that would be a problem that we could probably figure
out a way to make that work. There are other
(02:54):
places that they could play temporarily as well, Yeah, or
just they could just share. They could share and just
like figure out the timing and all that stuff. No
disrespect the Creighton men's baseball but it's like how many
how many people are going to watch those those games?
Probably less than a Rais game, but still people go
for sure, yeah so so. But but we're not displaced,
you know what I'm saying. We're not placing tens of
(03:14):
thousands of people by just like saying, hey, we're gonna
adjust usually when these things happen, That's all I'm saying.
Right Number number three, Uh, you don't think the storm
Chasers might have something to say about this, and they should.
They should. Let's be honest, They're not gonna like this.
Kansas City also would not like this. Let's be honest.
You're stepping on royal country here for a lot of people.
And the fact that the storm Chasers also, hey, you know,
(03:37):
we need people to go to our baseball games. If
there's Major League games going on regularly, how many people
would actually be going over to the storm Chaser games.
I thought of a way to make the mascot work.
The mascot right because they Tampa Bay Rays. Yeah, just
change it to a guy named Ray. Just some guy
with a stash and a mullet with with one of
those like shades that he puts on the back of
his hat. That's what you want. It's what you think.
(03:57):
Omaha is just some guy named Ray cut off he
Omaha is a place of those guys, just some guy
named Ray. Yeah, so it says you who makes fun
of me because I make fun of the voice of
hawk to a girl? You want to talk about stereotypes.
I think it'd be kind of cool. I think we
could just adopt the Rays of the best do in
the country thing. That's a cool mascot to have just
(04:19):
some guy named Race. No, it's around in between the innings.
Let's be honest. Ray is not athletic. He's got a
beer belly. He's been very bad to his body. He's
not gonna be running around anywhere. He's gonna be sitting
in a seat and not moving the entire game except
for his sixth inning bathroom break. Let's be realistic here.
I think it would be what if we did like
you know how they do like the Sausage Race of Milwaukee.
(04:42):
Maybe we do that a race of Rays and it's
like a mascot version of famous rays, like Ray Charles
and Ray Romano. Now, Ray Charles unfortunately keeps running into
the outfield wal because you can't see anything, but like
you know, we get the other Rays to you know,
run the race and run the laps, and you know,
the winner gets to Maybe that's the playoff that you're
looking for without making that them, you know, primary mask
(05:04):
cat You ever seen that clip on on a YouTube?
And you know, I believe everything I see you here online.
You ever seen that clip on YouTube of Ray Charles.
He's standing with some other fellow musicians and they're singing,
and the MIC's stand starts to fall over and he
catches it, and he catches it. I don't think that
was Ray Charles. I think you're talking about Stevie Wonder.
But wait, yeah, other blind guy, different blind guy. Oh
(05:28):
you're right, Oh yeah, Ray Charles, wonderful human being, certainly
not faking it. Stevie Wonder. On the other hand, I
just wonder, is that a superstition that you have? Oh ah, yep,
see Ray would laugh at that joke. And we need Ray,
We need the Tampa Bay Race. Finish the list of
the people that probably would have an issue with the
Tampa Bay Rays moving to Omaha, at least for temporary
(05:48):
temporary purposes. Yeah, I think that there's a there's a
few different things that we could look at. But the
Kansas City Royals won't like the addition of a team
right in the middle of their footprint that they certainly
would not like that their Triple A team would be
losing likely a lot of baseball interests, except for maybe
the suburban people, because if you have a major league
(06:09):
team playing eighty one games in the Omaha area, why
wouldn't they go see those including the Royals would be
playing there right because they would They're in the American
League together, you know what I'm saying. So and then
but get anyway, the TV station KAIETV talked to Mecca
in the city of Omaha, and guess what. A spokeswoman
for Mayor Jean Stothart told them they have not heard
any communication from Tampa, and Mecca says they're open to
(06:31):
having conversations. Well, well, well, now, conversations that doesn't mean anything.
But if they're willing to talk about this and try
to make some negotiations and try to make this work
with the CWS and all the other stuff that we
have to worry about, well, by golly, sir, what the
heck is going on? And you got to keep in
mind they're talking about a new stadium there that's already
been in the works. Well, in the last few weeks
(06:53):
they have like come up with a big hurdle about
the cost of what that's going to be. Well, I
know a place that you may not even have to
build a new stadium and make it work. October sixteenth,
twenty twenty four. I have the record the idea started
here first on October sixteenth, twenty twenty four. Yeah, pull
that seriously, I got it right in front of me.
It's on the podcast because because that's the evidence that
(07:15):
this was us. Yeah, this show planted the seed. The
next day, I was like, they're not gonna be able
to play there. Pick Omaha at least talk about it.
And this has nothing to do with anything else, but
you want to talk about getting people excited about something
that's happening regularly. You keep talking about Omaha wanting to
be a major league city. All of a sudden, Well,
guess what what does Oklahoma City have that we don't
have a basketball team? What does Portland have that we
(07:37):
don't have a base a basketball team? You know what,
here's a chance to get a base as a baseball
town with an opportunity for a Major League Baseball team
that has been displaced from their home. We are incredibly
fortunate to have a legitimate baseball stadium that is about
the same size as the one that they just lost
their roof to. We have the opportunity to build a
(07:58):
fan base with fans that wont have a team like
that to cheer for and call their own. There's not
a lot of baseball teams that are existent in a
market that doesn't have any other sports. Can you think
of one in Major League Baseball where there's not another
sport that is like they're battling for attention with it
doesn't exist. Omaha could be that for them. I close
(08:19):
my eyes and you know what I see. I see
mascot Ray sitting right over there, right next to you.
He reeks of axe body spray. Let's face it. He
wears lawnmowing gloves, so he's wearing jupe. He is a
jupe guy. It's gross. It is it is. It is
a middle schooler trying to be fancy, all right. It's
something cheap, and he wearing too much. It's disgusting, and
(08:39):
I'm seeing what I'm seeing lawnmowing gloves twenty four to
seven for this gay and this really old school, folded
up lawn chair that your grandma used to have at
home that you used in the nineties. That's that's the
chair that he's using. Oh yeah, and he likes drinking
a really cheap beer like natural Light. Yeah. I don't
like this guy. Actually, the more I talk to the morning,
(09:00):
let's just adopt the rays that are living in the
aquarium at to Henry Dorley Zoo and Aquarium and just
call it good there. Let's not overthink this. Danny McBride
would make a great ray. He's not gonna come and
do that. He's busy and he's famous bounding down. It
is four eighteen. We'll do the Friday four next on
news Radio eleven ten Kfab. Emery's songer on news Radio
(09:22):
eleven ten Kfab. We were talking about the rays coming
to Omaha potentially and how I'm going to take credit
for starting that conversation. Just I don't get to take
credit for a lot of stuff that I was right about.
So you know, if this actually happens, because it sounds
like Mecca is willing to like talk about it, all
Tampa needs to do is get on the horn and
(09:43):
how about we call them. Why don't we just you know,
like start that conversation and say, hey, don't forget about us,
Like we're here and we have a stadium you could
play in like now that actually could fit the same
amount of people you were trying to draw in Tampa
or Saint Petersburg. More specifically, we were talking about you
wanted to make it a guy named Ray that is
fat and gross. I'm just saying, well, we could do
like a Ray race in like the sixth Inning or
(10:05):
something like the Brewers do for the sausage race, and
we would just have different Rays, like Ray Charles or
Ray Romano. This guy said, you missed a chance to
add Ray Kinsella Kevin Costner's character from Field of Dreams,
which what a great one that would be. Yeah, I
mean we might need Universal Pictures or whomever to give
(10:26):
us the okay to be able to do that. But
that's a baseball guy. If you build it, he will come.
Could you imagine the real Costner showing up for a
baseball game in Omaha and then doing the race be
a magical moment. Oh, come on, he'd be there. I
know he would. He'd be in on that anyway, thanks
Marcus out West for that for that note, would we
(10:47):
change Okay, let's just like, let's play let's play hardball
here with this. Let's say they come, they basically do
an audition, and they say, hey, for the time being
for the next ten years, we'll sign a lease and
we'll be in Omaha at least for the next ten years,
and we figure out what the College World Series and
with the Rays like, how to make this work that's
(11:07):
permanent enough. Would you want to rebrand this team because
obviously Omaha becomes where they're from, and all due respect
to the to the ray, which I love, not really
something that you see outside of the zoo, and also
the ray of sunlight that they also say that they're
named after and is a part of their logo. We're
not exactly the Sunshine State when it comes to that.
(11:29):
We have our fair share of good days. But you know,
that kind of thing works a little bit better for
the Sunshine State than it does here in the Cornhusker States.
So would you want to make the Rays thing work
using the zoo and the sun as part of it,
or would you like to rebrand the team somehow? Again,
we're five steps too far ahead. Here. But you know
what it's fun to talk about it is what you
(11:50):
would you name the team? Man, Like, how would you
localize it but also make it like a brand that
could actually like grow nationally because you got to keep
in mind the ray hats with the actual Sting ray
on it pretty darn popular. I don't know if we
want to be taking that away from the lexicon here.
It could be a way for us to really market ourselves. Yeah, yep, yep.
(12:11):
I don't have any good ideas that are jumping onto
me right now, but people will. I'm not. I'm not
going with anything corn related. You're you're really you're really
like painting yourself in if you're if you go with
corn or anything farm or anything like that, you kind
of you have to think bigger than that. This is
not a minor league team that we're talking about. We
gotta we gotta really, we got to think about a
national brand all of a sudden here. It does it
(12:32):
have to be like like how did the Royals get
their name? What makes Kansas City royal? Right, Like that's
a good questions. So it's at the royal blue that
they have in their uniforms potentially, Yeah, yeah, so I
don't know what we do it. You know, you got
Union Pacific here, you know you would like to make
it a local thing. At the same time, you got
to think about merch now, like this is a you
want it national, maybe even international brand that you can
(12:54):
build out of this. I'm not saying rays is the
right answer, but I'm not sure like killing that and
start from scratch is going to be a good idea
unless we get that one hundred percent right. Like look
at the Washington Commanders that they've been around for most
one hundred years and they're having a hard time selling
their news stuff. You know what I mean. That rebrand
did not go well for them. If you do it,
you got to get it right. Step one is getting
(13:15):
the team here. And I'm not trying to step on anybody,
just for the record. I'm just saying, it might be
cool to actually have a major league team if they
consider themselves free agents all of a sudden, Omaha, Mecca,
Gene Stothard, everybody should be getting on the phone and
calling them and saying, so why not Omaha, And then
in twenty twenty six or beyond, you know, who knows,
we might have a major league team just throwing it
(13:36):
out there and trying to manifest it into reality. And
I'm just saying, hey, we're here. Cheryl sent an email though,
because I was asking do we keep the Ray's nickname
if they stay here? And the question was answered by
Nebraskans have good old fashioned work ethics, what about the anvils?
I actually like this because the anvil could be a
great way to explain like power hitter in baseball, or
(14:01):
even like a guy who comes in is like the
closer of the team in the bullpen, you could call
him the anvil, like he just ends things, right. I
think of Jim the Anvil Kndheart from professional wrestling. It's
just such a great nickname. I don't hate it, and
it doesn't like pin us into the whole farming thing,
not that I doubt this like agriculture. I'm just saying
it's gonna be hard to sell that on a national level.
(14:24):
That's why you don't really see that sort of thing
at the major league level anywhere. You got to be
pretty creative so you have a national brand just saying
you know, I think you could do something with that,
and you know what you could do, like they could
be having some guy with an anvil somewhere in the stadium. Yeah,
and to rouse up the crowd, he starts hammering on
the anvil or Yeah, it's like a blacksmith guy. And
(14:45):
then you hit a home run and like that's part
of the sound. Like the sound effect is like you
hear like on the loudspeakers, like the anvil sound. Yeah,
and then like he's a real blacksmith. He could make
stuff like merch and you could buy merch like blacksmith merch. Cool.
He's like blacksmithing while the game is going on. You
want to know something. I'm in on this. I think
(15:06):
we actually can do something with this. Yeah, Mecca, where
are you? Jean Stothard? Make a trip for Saint Pete now,
like get a hold of those guys anyway. Yeah, just
just something something else, man, something else. We were talking
about the Anvils as a possible name because Cheryl, one
(15:26):
of our listeners, sent in an email to Emory at
kfab dot com and said, Hey, you know, uh, I
think the anvils is a good way to kind of
show off the hard working attitude of you know, Nebraskans.
It's like I kind of like that and you could
do all sorts of things. It would be black and silver,
kind of a you know, a color scheme. It's not
one that really is used in Major League Baseball. It'd
(15:46):
be a really cool way to kind of start fresh
with that team if they decided to permanently call Amaha
home at Steve email in and say hey, Emory. Keep
in mind that there are some artists who do blacksmithing
at the Hot Shops, which is very close to Charles
schwap Field. I'm sure they would love to get some
publicity and would probably do some demonstrations in the parking
(16:07):
lot before and after games. I would love to see
a professional team take up residence at the Chuck. I
love that nickname. Before that, it would be a good
use of a city facility that is way underused. What
do you think it sounds like we have we have
something on this something here sounds like sounds like we're
cooking with some grease now. And Dave also said, the
Omaha land Sharks is what I'd name them, because Sadbusters
(16:29):
and sea turtles just doesn't work fair enough. Land Sharks.
That's pretty funny, that's pretty cool. Yeah, could you call
a could we rope a Buffett into this somehow, like
the the investors is that, like they call them the
Omaha Oracle. Omaha oracles maybe but a little boring. Yeah,
The Tampa Bay Race have no baseball park to play in. Really,
they are supposed to play at steinbrin Or Field this
year this coming season because Hurricane Milton wiped out the
entirety of their roof in Saint Petersburg. Guess the Tampa
Bay Rays play in the suburb of Saint Petersburg. But yeah,
they're playing in the spring training facility. You know what
(00:20):
the capacity of that spring training facility is? I guess
like eight eleven thousands. It is the largest spring training
facility in all the state of Florida. Usually they are
about six or seven thousand. What did I say the
day this happened, Like we came back the next day
and we knew this roof was gone. You said, what
did I say? You said that it was a sad thing,
(00:42):
that you were bummed about it, and that you thought
maybe just maybe they could take their things and get
in some buses, get on the highway then the interstate,
maybe stop to get some grub along the way, Probably
probably need a stopping at gas, hey, a toll or two. Yeah,
eventually find themselves inside of Omaha and park their buses
right outside the old Schwab. Guess what the Wall Street
(01:06):
Journal just published today. Huh a list of where they
could go. What do you think number one was one
of the top ones? Oh? Is it number one? I
don't know. They didn't really rank them, but yeah, they said,
Omaha's a chance in our forensic KETV, who do such
great work on a different medium in this city, has
apparently reached out to both Mecca, the people who operate
(01:27):
the downtown area the city of Omaha about this article
and about Omaha being mentioned. This was over a month ago.
I was saying it the next day and I said,
why not? But I told you there's a lot of hurdles, right, Yeah.
The hurdles are let's name the hurdles again for the people.
First hurdle, College World Series. Yeah. And the reason that
Baseball Park exists, which is about the same capacity as
(01:49):
Tropic cana Field and Saint Petersburg is they know they
won't play it into twenty six. They're planning to play
at a spring chaining facility half of that size, a
little less than half of that size. Why wouldn't you just,
you know, find a stadium that's open, but for two
weeks it's not open. It's not open at all? Is
that a problem for Major League Baseball. Well, it can't
be because guess what they have. You should see what
(02:11):
they did in the Tampa schedule, like eighty percent of
the second half of the seasons on the road for them.
I mean, they have totally screwed with that schedule because
of their location and because of the weather in Florida
and being an outdoor stadium that they I mean, like
if they did that to the schedule for next year
and change like the home and road situation for them
because of this, They absolutely could have done that if
(02:32):
they were in Omaha and scheduled around the two weeks
that they couldn't be here right right. Number two, Creighton
College Baseball does play there and could interfere with the
beginning of the season. Is there a way that we
can make that work somehow? Yeah, it seems like it
seems like something over you know, like a month, that
that would be a problem that we could probably figure
out a way to make that work. There are other
(02:54):
places that they could play temporarily as well, Yeah, or
just they could just share. They could share and just
like figure out the timing and all that stuff. No
disrespect the Creighton men's baseball but it's like how many
how many people are going to watch those those games?
Probably less than a Rais game, but still people go
for sure, yeah so so. But but we're not displaced,
you know what I'm saying. We're not placing tens of
(03:14):
thousands of people by just like saying, hey, we're gonna
adjust usually when these things happen, That's all I'm saying.
Right Number number three, Uh, you don't think the storm
Chasers might have something to say about this, and they should.
They should. Let's be honest, They're not gonna like this.
Kansas City also would not like this. Let's be honest.
You're stepping on royal country here for a lot of people.
And the fact that the storm Chasers also, hey, you know,
(03:37):
we need people to go to our baseball games. If
there's Major League games going on regularly, how many people
would actually be going over to the storm Chaser games.
I thought of a way to make the mascot work.
The mascot right because they Tampa Bay Rays. Yeah, just
change it to a guy named Ray. Just some guy
with a stash and a mullet with with one of
those like shades that he puts on the back of
his hat. That's what you want. It's what you think.
(03:57):
Omaha is just some guy named Ray cut off he
Omaha is a place of those guys, just some guy
named Ray. Yeah, so it says you who makes fun
of me because I make fun of the voice of
hawk to a girl? You want to talk about stereotypes.
I think it'd be kind of cool. I think we
could just adopt the Rays of the best do in
the country thing. That's a cool mascot to have just
(04:19):
some guy named Race. No, it's around in between the innings.
Let's be honest. Ray is not athletic. He's got a
beer belly. He's been very bad to his body. He's
not gonna be running around anywhere. He's gonna be sitting
in a seat and not moving the entire game except
for his sixth inning bathroom break. Let's be realistic here.
I think it would be what if we did like
you know how they do like the Sausage Race of Milwaukee.
(04:42):
Maybe we do that a race of Rays and it's
like a mascot version of famous rays, like Ray Charles
and Ray Romano. Now, Ray Charles unfortunately keeps running into
the outfield wal because you can't see anything, but like
you know, we get the other Rays to you know,
run the race and run the laps, and you know,
the winner gets to Maybe that's the playoff that you're
looking for without making that them, you know, primary mask
(05:04):
cat You ever seen that clip on on a YouTube?
And you know, I believe everything I see you here online.
You ever seen that clip on YouTube of Ray Charles.
He's standing with some other fellow musicians and they're singing,
and the MIC's stand starts to fall over and he
catches it, and he catches it. I don't think that
was Ray Charles. I think you're talking about Stevie Wonder.
But wait, yeah, other blind guy, different blind guy. Oh
(05:28):
you're right, Oh yeah, Ray Charles, wonderful human being, certainly
not faking it. Stevie Wonder. On the other hand, I
just wonder, is that a superstition that you have? Oh ah, yep,
see Ray would laugh at that joke. And we need Ray,
We need the Tampa Bay Race. Finish the list of
the people that probably would have an issue with the
Tampa Bay Rays moving to Omaha, at least for temporary
(05:48):
temporary purposes. Yeah, I think that there's a there's a
few different things that we could look at. But the
Kansas City Royals won't like the addition of a team
right in the middle of their footprint that they certainly
would not like that their Triple A team would be
losing likely a lot of baseball interests, except for maybe
the suburban people, because if you have a major league
(06:09):
team playing eighty one games in the Omaha area, why
wouldn't they go see those including the Royals would be
playing there right because they would They're in the American
League together, you know what I'm saying. So and then
but get anyway, the TV station KAIETV talked to Mecca
in the city of Omaha, and guess what. A spokeswoman
for Mayor Jean Stothart told them they have not heard
any communication from Tampa, and Mecca says they're open to
(06:31):
having conversations. Well, well, well, now, conversations that doesn't mean anything.
But if they're willing to talk about this and try
to make some negotiations and try to make this work
with the CWS and all the other stuff that we
have to worry about, well, by golly, sir, what the
heck is going on? And you got to keep in
mind they're talking about a new stadium there that's already
been in the works. Well, in the last few weeks
(06:53):
they have like come up with a big hurdle about
the cost of what that's going to be. Well, I
know a place that you may not even have to
build a new stadium and make it work. October sixteenth,
twenty twenty four. I have the record the idea started
here first on October sixteenth, twenty twenty four. Yeah, pull
that seriously, I got it right in front of me.
It's on the podcast because because that's the evidence that
(07:15):
this was us. Yeah, this show planted the seed. The
next day, I was like, they're not gonna be able
to play there. Pick Omaha at least talk about it.
And this has nothing to do with anything else, but
you want to talk about getting people excited about something
that's happening regularly. You keep talking about Omaha wanting to
be a major league city. All of a sudden, Well,
guess what what does Oklahoma City have that we don't
have a basketball team? What does Portland have that we
(07:37):
don't have a base a basketball team? You know what,
here's a chance to get a base as a baseball
town with an opportunity for a Major League Baseball team
that has been displaced from their home. We are incredibly
fortunate to have a legitimate baseball stadium that is about
the same size as the one that they just lost
their roof to. We have the opportunity to build a
(07:58):
fan base with fans that wont have a team like
that to cheer for and call their own. There's not
a lot of baseball teams that are existent in a
market that doesn't have any other sports. Can you think
of one in Major League Baseball where there's not another
sport that is like they're battling for attention with it
doesn't exist. Omaha could be that for them. I close
(08:19):
my eyes and you know what I see. I see
mascot Ray sitting right over there, right next to you.
He reeks of axe body spray. Let's face it. He
wears lawnmowing gloves, so he's wearing jupe. He is a
jupe guy. It's gross. It is it is. It is
a middle schooler trying to be fancy, all right. It's
something cheap, and he wearing too much. It's disgusting, and
(08:39):
I'm seeing what I'm seeing lawnmowing gloves twenty four to
seven for this gay and this really old school, folded
up lawn chair that your grandma used to have at
home that you used in the nineties. That's that's the
chair that he's using. Oh yeah, and he likes drinking
a really cheap beer like natural Light. Yeah. I don't
like this guy. Actually, the more I talk to the morning,
(09:00):
let's just adopt the rays that are living in the
aquarium at to Henry Dorley Zoo and Aquarium and just
call it good there. Let's not overthink this. Danny McBride
would make a great ray. He's not gonna come and
do that. He's busy and he's famous bounding down. It
is four eighteen. We'll do the Friday four next on
news Radio eleven ten Kfab. Emery's songer on news Radio
(09:22):
eleven ten Kfab. We were talking about the rays coming
to Omaha potentially and how I'm going to take credit
for starting that conversation. Just I don't get to take
credit for a lot of stuff that I was right about.
So you know, if this actually happens, because it sounds
like Mecca is willing to like talk about it, all
Tampa needs to do is get on the horn and
(09:43):
how about we call them. Why don't we just you know,
like start that conversation and say, hey, don't forget about us,
Like we're here and we have a stadium you could
play in like now that actually could fit the same
amount of people you were trying to draw in Tampa
or Saint Petersburg. More specifically, we were talking about you
wanted to make it a guy named Ray that is
fat and gross. I'm just saying, well, we could do
like a Ray race in like the sixth Inning or
(10:05):
something like the Brewers do for the sausage race, and
we would just have different Rays, like Ray Charles or
Ray Romano. This guy said, you missed a chance to
add Ray Kinsella Kevin Costner's character from Field of Dreams,
which what a great one that would be. Yeah, I
mean we might need Universal Pictures or whomever to give
(10:26):
us the okay to be able to do that. But
that's a baseball guy. If you build it, he will come.
Could you imagine the real Costner showing up for a
baseball game in Omaha and then doing the race be
a magical moment. Oh, come on, he'd be there. I
know he would. He'd be in on that anyway, thanks
Marcus out West for that for that note, would we
(10:47):
change Okay, let's just like, let's play let's play hardball
here with this. Let's say they come, they basically do
an audition, and they say, hey, for the time being
for the next ten years, we'll sign a lease and
we'll be in Omaha at least for the next ten years,
and we figure out what the College World Series and
with the Rays like, how to make this work that's
(11:07):
permanent enough. Would you want to rebrand this team because
obviously Omaha becomes where they're from, and all due respect
to the to the ray, which I love, not really
something that you see outside of the zoo, and also
the ray of sunlight that they also say that they're
named after and is a part of their logo. We're
not exactly the Sunshine State when it comes to that.
(11:29):
We have our fair share of good days. But you know,
that kind of thing works a little bit better for
the Sunshine State than it does here in the Cornhusker States.
So would you want to make the Rays thing work
using the zoo and the sun as part of it,
or would you like to rebrand the team somehow? Again,
we're five steps too far ahead. Here. But you know
what it's fun to talk about it is what you
(11:50):
would you name the team? Man, Like, how would you
localize it but also make it like a brand that
could actually like grow nationally because you got to keep
in mind the ray hats with the actual Sting ray
on it pretty darn popular. I don't know if we
want to be taking that away from the lexicon here.
It could be a way for us to really market ourselves. Yeah, yep, yep.
(12:11):
I don't have any good ideas that are jumping onto
me right now, but people will. I'm not. I'm not
going with anything corn related. You're you're really you're really
like painting yourself in if you're if you go with
corn or anything farm or anything like that, you kind
of you have to think bigger than that. This is
not a minor league team that we're talking about. We
gotta we gotta really, we got to think about a
national brand all of a sudden here. It does it
(12:32):
have to be like like how did the Royals get
their name? What makes Kansas City royal? Right, Like that's
a good questions. So it's at the royal blue that
they have in their uniforms potentially, Yeah, yeah, so I
don't know what we do it. You know, you got
Union Pacific here, you know you would like to make
it a local thing. At the same time, you got
to think about merch now, like this is a you
want it national, maybe even international brand that you can
(12:54):
build out of this. I'm not saying rays is the
right answer, but I'm not sure like killing that and
start from scratch is going to be a good idea
unless we get that one hundred percent right. Like look
at the Washington Commanders that they've been around for most
one hundred years and they're having a hard time selling
their news stuff. You know what I mean. That rebrand
did not go well for them. If you do it,
you got to get it right. Step one is getting
(13:15):
the team here. And I'm not trying to step on anybody,
just for the record. I'm just saying, it might be
cool to actually have a major league team if they
consider themselves free agents all of a sudden, Omaha, Mecca,
Gene Stothard, everybody should be getting on the phone and
calling them and saying, so why not Omaha, And then
in twenty twenty six or beyond, you know, who knows,
we might have a major league team just throwing it
(13:36):
out there and trying to manifest it into reality. And
I'm just saying, hey, we're here. Cheryl sent an email though,
because I was asking do we keep the Ray's nickname
if they stay here? And the question was answered by
Nebraskans have good old fashioned work ethics, what about the anvils?
I actually like this because the anvil could be a
great way to explain like power hitter in baseball, or
(14:01):
even like a guy who comes in is like the
closer of the team in the bullpen, you could call
him the anvil, like he just ends things, right. I
think of Jim the Anvil Kndheart from professional wrestling. It's
just such a great nickname. I don't hate it, and
it doesn't like pin us into the whole farming thing,
not that I doubt this like agriculture. I'm just saying
it's gonna be hard to sell that on a national level.
(14:24):
That's why you don't really see that sort of thing
at the major league level anywhere. You got to be
pretty creative so you have a national brand just saying
you know, I think you could do something with that,
and you know what you could do, like they could
be having some guy with an anvil somewhere in the stadium. Yeah,
and to rouse up the crowd, he starts hammering on
the anvil or Yeah, it's like a blacksmith guy. And
(14:45):
then you hit a home run and like that's part
of the sound. Like the sound effect is like you
hear like on the loudspeakers, like the anvil sound. Yeah,
and then like he's a real blacksmith. He could make
stuff like merch and you could buy merch like blacksmith merch. Cool.
He's like blacksmithing while the game is going on. You
want to know something. I'm in on this. I think
(15:06):
we actually can do something with this. Yeah, Mecca, where
are you? Jean Stothard? Make a trip for Saint Pete now,
like get a hold of those guys anyway. Yeah, just
just something something else, man, something else. We were talking
about the Anvils as a possible name because Cheryl, one
(15:26):
of our listeners, sent in an email to Emory at
kfab dot com and said, Hey, you know, uh, I
think the anvils is a good way to kind of
show off the hard working attitude of you know, Nebraskans.
It's like I kind of like that and you could
do all sorts of things. It would be black and silver,
kind of a you know, a color scheme. It's not
one that really is used in Major League Baseball. It'd
(15:46):
be a really cool way to kind of start fresh
with that team if they decided to permanently call Amaha
home at Steve email in and say hey, Emory. Keep
in mind that there are some artists who do blacksmithing
at the Hot Shops, which is very close to Charles
schwap Field. I'm sure they would love to get some
publicity and would probably do some demonstrations in the parking
(16:07):
lot before and after games. I would love to see
a professional team take up residence at the Chuck. I
love that nickname. Before that, it would be a good
use of a city facility that is way underused. What
do you think it sounds like we have we have
something on this something here sounds like sounds like we're
cooking with some grease now. And Dave also said, the
Omaha land Sharks is what I'd name them, because Sadbusters
(16:29):
and sea turtles just doesn't work fair enough. Land Sharks.
That's pretty funny, that's pretty cool. Yeah, could you call
a could we rope a Buffett into this somehow, like
the the investors is that, like they call them the
Omaha Oracle. Omaha oracles maybe but a little boring. Yeah,
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