How to weed out Rays fan imposters: a quiz

We don’t need to tell Rays fans that sometimes our Tropicana Field can attract the wrong sorts of people. You know who I mean. Yankee fans. Red Sox fans. The Rays are set to play one of those AL East rivals whose diaspora of fans can be found throughout the 813 and 727, and who are ready to pay top dollar to insinuate themselves into the home games at our stadium.

In our dreams we have the money to buy up a lot of tickets and re-sell them - or give them, in our dreams we are wealthy!— only to true Rays fans. Even in real life, some of us might find ourselves with an extra ticket and want to make sure it goes to someone deserving. How can we weed out the usurpers?

We’ve come up with a few screening questions you can use to make sure your tickets go to Rays fans. We’ve stuck to more recent teams (say, Kevin Cash era) because we don’t want to screen someone out just because they were only 10 when the the Rays won the 2008 pennant. We’ll add the answers in the chat. We also invite you to come up with your own screening questions.

Question 1:

Where is Tropicana Field located?

a. Tampa

b. Literally in Tampa Bay

c. Montreal

d. St Petersburg

Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images

Question 2:

How often do the catwalks interfere with balls in play?

a. At most a few times a year but always when the team plays on national TV

b. About 10 times a year

c. Never

d. At least once a homestand

Question 3:

There are three players named Lowe who have been part of the Rays organization since 2015. What are their first names, which two are brothers, and which one pronounces his name so that it rhymes with “pow”?

Question 4:

Since the Rays started experimenting with pitching roles, a number of pitchers have, in the same year, “opened” games and also “closed” games (earning a save). Three of the pitchers below have both opened and closed/saved games in the same season; one has not. Pick the pitcher who has not opened/earned a save in the same season.

a. Diego Castillo

b. Chaz Roe

c. Andrew Kittredge

d. Sergio Romo

Photo by Mark LoMoglio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Question 5:

Match the baseball player/manager with the local high school

Player

a. Kevin Cash

b. Denard Span

c. Brett Phillips

d. Ryan Yarbrough

High school

i. Seminole High School

ii. Gaither High School

iii. All Saints Academy

iv. Tampa Catholic

Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images

Question 6:

If your starting pitcher is dominating but about to face a lineup for the third time, what do you do?

A. Leave him in — he’s dominating!

B. Pull him, our spreadsheets say no 3TTO ever

C. Trick question, the Rays don’t have starting pitchers