You can't buy gas or tickets to get to a Tampa Bay Rays game if you have no money. It doesn't make you a bad fan, it's just reality.

They have good days here and there, but talk is often about disappointing ticket sales for the Tampa Bay Rays. I lived in Tampa for most of the past few years. I had assumed it would be a great place to be a baseball fan, but that wasn't the case. My experience was very few people know baseball exists. It wouldn't matter anyway today, as there aren't enough people with even a penny of discretionary income to afford to buy gas to get to a game. It is not a 'disgrace,' as I've seen written many times. Florida is a state filled with poor people. Pundits are either unaware of what has happened to Florida and this country or are pretending to be. Piniellas County July 2010 foreclosures, from RealtyTrac.

• 6/30/10, Foreclosures made up 43% of all Hillsborough County home sales in first quarter 2010.

5/6/09, Americans have drastically cut back on driving, Nate Silver, Esquire

• "January 2009 was the fifteenth consecutive month in which the average American drove less than he had a year earlier."

1/22/09, CNN Money, Americans drove 112 billion fewer miles in the 13 month period from Nov. 2007-Dec. 2008, with South Atlantic states showing the greatest drop.

• And it is much worse now. There is no mystery to attendance problems anywhere.

first linked article via BTF

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