Queen of Sports

Evan Longoria And David Price Calls Attendance “Embarrassing”

September 28th, 2010 | Posted by Queen of Sports in Baseball

Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria (pictured above) and pitcher David Price spoke out about the lack of attendance at their recent games. On Monday night, 13,000 fans were at Tropicana Field when the Rays had a chance to clinch a playoff berth.

“You’d pretty much like to think that a team in a playoff hunt, with an opportunity to clinch, that you could at least get 30,000 in here to cheer you on,” Evan said. “We play 155 games of really good baseball, and it’s kind of like, what else do we have to do to get fans into this place? I mean, it’s actually embarrassing to us.”

Monday’s crowd was the fourth smallest of the year. The Rays entered Monday’s game with the best record in the league with a half-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East. Had they won or had the Red Sox lost at Chicago, they would have clinched at least the wild-card berth. But the Rays came up short in a loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

“It’s disheartening,” Evan said. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to say for a long time. It’s not a jab at the fans. It’s not a kick below the belt, but it’s something we’d like to see. Obviously we want to bring a championship to Tampa. We’d like more than 12-to-15,000 to know about it.”

David posted on his Twitter account “Had a chance to clinch a post season spot tonight with about 10,000 fans in the stands … embarrassing.” He later followed up with this tweet, “If I offended anyone I apologize I did not think it was gonna turn into this ….”

So what do you guys think, is it ok for these players to call out the fans? They’ve received quite a media backlash for these comments. Let us know your thoughts!

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Photo: PR Photos