Music Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in the Tampa Bay area. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division.

They are one of two major league clubs based in Florida, alongside the National League (NL)’s Miami Marlins. The team plays its home games at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Following nearly three decades of unsuccessfully trying to gain an expansion franchise or enticing existing teams to relocate to the Tampa Bay area, an ownership group led by Vince Naimoli was approved on March 9, 1995. The team began play as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 1998 Major League Baseball season. The team's first decade of play was marked by futility; they finished in last place in the AL East in all but the 2004 season, when they finished second to last. Following the 2007 season, Stuart Sternberg, who had purchased controlling interest in the team from Vince Naimoli two years earlier, changed the team's name from "Devil Rays" to "Rays", now meaning both manta rays and rays of sunshine; a manta ray logo appears on the uniform sleeves while a sunburst appears on the uniform front. The 2008 season saw the Rays post their first winning season, their first AL East championship, and their first American League pennant (defeating the rival Boston Red Sox in the ALCS), though they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in that year's World Series. Since then, the Rays been much more more successful, becoming AL East champions three more times and clinching the American League's wild card five more times, leading to another American League pennant again in 2020 before losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in that year's World Series. The Rays are one of five MLB teams to not have a World Series title yet, the others being the San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers, and Seattle Mariners. The Tampa Bay Rays' chief rivals are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, which also play in the AL East. Regarding the former, there have been several notable on-field incidents. The Rays also have an in-state interleague rivalry with the Miami Marlins (originally the Florida Marlins). Through 2025, the Rays' all-time record is 2,168–2,264 (.489).