Tampa Bay Rays Sign 10,000 Homeless People to Boost Attendance
Tropicana Field – Pinellas County – Thursday 4.4.2019
In a stunning move by the Tampa Bay Rays, General Manager and Vice President of Baseball Operations, Erik Neander has signed 10,000 homeless people to three year contracts in order to give the illusion of more fans.
“This is a huge day for our organization. Obviously the tarp over half the seats was big, but this move is what championship level teams do to get to the next level,” Neander exclaims. He goes on about the excitement built up before the signings were official: “The entire front office was on pins and needles waiting for the call back to make it official, but then we realized they didn’t have phones so we had to go outside. It was pretty hot, but they weren’t that far away.”
The details of the new deals are not official, but league sources say each deal is worth one hundred dollars per person a year making it a total of one million dollars. That nearly doubles the Rays total team salary that it pays to its actual players. “Wait, what the f*** are we doing?” asked left fielder Tommy Pham trying to hold back his excitement.
Principal owner Stuart Sternberg made it clear to the front office that this year was about the fans saying he wanted a focus on the five senses. “We already had four of the five senses covered. 1. Sight, looking into Kevin Kiermaier’s eyes. 2. Sound, the single cowbell resonating over the ballpark. 3. Taste, a warm Hebrew National Jumbo Beef Hot Dog. 4. Touch, your gum on top of another below your seat. Now finally, we got the smell.”
Along with the enormous contract, the deal is said to have incentives. Each homeless person will have a noise meter. If they hit their target of 12 decibels per inning, they will be given a souvenir cup and a bag of peanuts. Ironically, the same kind of peanuts they will have to clean up after the game.
We asked newly signed homeless man who goes by “AntiChrist69” about his goals for the 2019 season: “Just do what I do. Butts in the seats, stealin’ souls in the streets. Couldn’t be more ready for the season or the second coming.”
The excitement around the Bay Area is palpable. The Rays organization has finally made a move to excite this fan base, but only time will tell if the they will need to hire more homeless as the season continues. Rays Up!
