Tampa Bay Rays to Cut Icon from Tribute Jersey

The major league baseball team the Tampa Bay Rays will be getting a brief makeover in their uniform when they pay tribute to the minor league Tampa Smokers from 1951 on July 2 this year. The Rays will be wearing a shirt that bears the "Smokers" logo in red across the white shirt, but the cigar that appears on the original minor league uniform will be conspicuously absent.

Since cigar smoking on the baseball field is very rare itself (most players prefer chewing the actual tobacco, since a lit cigar can prove dangerous to a game), the elimination of the cigar from the shirt is curious enough down south. To start with, Tampa is known as Cigar City, where cigars were manufactured in a neighborhood known as Ybor City up until 1959. The lack of the cigar icon on the shirt is to get across the message to the fans that cigar smoking is somehow not healthy and would not be a positive influence upon the children who sit in the stadium, eagerly awaiting to see their favorite team play.

The Tampa Bay Rays have the right idea for a tribute, since the Smokers came before the Rays did at a time when Tampa did not have a major league team. However, those who are old enough to remember the Tampa Smokers from decades ago think the Rays are making a mistake, giving in to political correctness, as it were, to eliminate that cigar icon from their sports shirt. Of course, the Rays could have always included a substitute icon for their tribute shirt. Some of these substitutes could be:

A race car with smoke coming out from the back of it. NASCAR is a big sport down south, and the new icon would convey the same message.

A campfire with smoke coming out on top. Camping down south is a lot of fun and they could even add little hotdogs (which are synonymous with baseball parks) and even marshmallows on sticks being held over the fire in the smoke.

A fire eater. This seems unusual, but on the southern Florida Gulf Coast the circus is a big deal. Watching a fire eater blowing out smoke from his (or her) mouth on a baseball shirt would be a big deal and definitely something to talk about after the game in social circles.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Rays-cut-cigars-from-Tampa-Smokers-throwback-jer?urn=mlb-wp10426