Shots

• Is it me, or do the Devil Rays have some of the ugliest ballplayers in the league? Every time Gomes, Cantu or Wigginton comes up to bat, I have to resist the urge to go hide behind the sofa. There's no way that Tampa Bay is going to attract new young fans to the game when half their lineup would make small children weep.
  
• That heckler guy you can hear throughout games at Tropicana Field? Definitely in line for the 2006 "Person You Would Least Like To Sit Next To At A Ballgame" award. Heckling can be very funny, in small, carefully-packaged doses, but doing it for three solid hours can tend to get on people's nerves. I can't believe that nobody has taken it upon themselves to punch this guy's lights out.
  
• Tropicana Field has to be one of the most soulless baseball parks there is. Maybe it's the FSN Florida feed that I get on MLB.TV, but everything sounds and looks off. The blurb on the website says that the Trop "features the new, naturally looking FieldTurf", which is true, if by "natural" you mean "has sat in the sun way too long without being watered." I will watch baseball pretty much anywhere and under any circumstances, but games at Tropicana Field make me want to go and do something more interesting, like organise my sock drawer or maybe even cheer for Portugal (shock! horror!) in the World Cup semi-final.
• One last one, on a positive, heart-warming note: awwwwww... Oh, hang on, did I say "positive, heart-warming"? I meant "bitter, twisted and reveling in other people's misery." Apologies for misleading you, but I just couldn't resist.