Monday, October 02, 2006

Threshers will face Devil Rays affiliate next season

The Clearwater Threshers will be seeing even more new faces in the opposing dugout next season, as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have moved their Class A affiliation from Visalia in the California League to Vero Beach of the Florida State League. The Devil Rays had a FSL team located in St. Petersburg from 1997-2000.

Thanks to Garrett for the tip!

Update 10/2/06 at 12:45pm: Baseball America has a story (subscription needed) written by Laurel Scheffel about the move and speculates whether or not the Vero Beach FSL team will be moving to Port Charlotte in 2009 to coincide with the Devil Rays Spring Training move. They also mention the Vero Beach FSL team will get a new nickname, but don't know what it is yet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"They also mention the Vero Beach FSL team will get a new nickname, but don't know what it is yet."

Really? You mean the team in Vero Beach won't be called the Vero Beach Dodgers anymore after the Devil Rays take them over? That is a real shocker

Anonymous said...

The 2009 date is interesting. That appears to be the same year the LA Dodgers leave FL and Vero Beach forever, making AZ their spring home. One has to wonder if there is some backroom planning occurring as the D-Rays will move to their new spring training city that same year. Sounds like baseball for Vero Beach may only be available on cable.