It's Time for Opening Day (Stadium Stories)!

It's Groundhog Day all over again for Rays fans, who should once again expect a series of articles about a new stadium, Rays attendance, and some variation of "hope springs eternal" editorial prose.

Once again, we shouldn't expect many questions about the Rays' presumed huge profits, their questionable cost-cutting in the off-season, or how much the team should be contributing to its new home.

Here are the drums the Times' editorial board has been beating since 2010 - mostly about how the slow pace of the Stadium Saga is going to cost the region the team if they don't do something urgently:

• 2014 - 2017: Please just hurry up and do something!
• 2012 - 2013: The Marlins have a new stadium!!
• 2010 - 2011: St. Pete losing leverage in negotiations

Turns out, not doing anything urgently hasn't cost the region the team, and arguably, its given Tampa Bay a lot more information about MLB revenues (they're huge) and how not to get ripped off when negotiating a new stadium (don't do what Miami did).

The only question is whether any of our elected leaders here learned from those free lessons?

Oh yeah, there's still the giant question of how the heck Tampa might pay for a stadium, but that's been a LOL issue for years.

Also of note: the Rays-to-Montreal talk has cooled down with a new, more fiscally-conservative mayor at the helm there and disappointing crowds (51k for two games) for the Blue Jays' annual exhibition games at Olympic Stadium. 

So, expect to hear from the commissioner soon about all the great cities that could be future MLB homes if Tampa and Oakland don't soon build new stadiums soon.

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