The Rays lost two key pieces to their off the field team today. Joe Magrane left our broadcast booth to head to MLB network to do broadcast analysis and studio work. I’m a little sad about this as Joe has grown on me a little over the last couple seasons. He’s not really witty or insightful but he was entertaining in his own way. I really didn’t care too much for Magrane early on as he really didn’t bring much to the broadcasts and sounded quite uninspired most of the time. He also had annoying tendencies with some of the things he said like scoring “points” and calling pop ups “poppers”. He got a lot more outspoken and entertaining after the new ownership took over which led me to believe there was some sort of gag order on him from the Naimoli group. Since that point I became fond of Magrane’s “everyman” type of style and I’m actually gonna miss him now. The real travesty today was finding out about Kelly Frank’s dismissal as the Rays beloved mascot Raymond. I just found out this year that Raymond was actually a woman. I’ve really enjoyed Raymond over the years. I’ve taken my son to at least 25 games in each of the last two seasons and, especially before the Rays success this year, Raymond was his primary focus. He’s a goofy looking critter who taunts the other players in the dugout, gives away prizes and just always seems to be having fun. Kelly seemed to perfect some of Raymond’s moves like the butt wiggle and some of the dances we routinely saw. She really did a great job as Raymond and I know I’ll never look at Raymond the same. I don’t like this move by the Rays but I’m not gonna throw a fit over a mascot. Maybe she asked for a little too much money or got a little too much attitude and that’s why she got fired, but I’m still gonna miss her.

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