ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Before saying goodbye to the Tampa Bay Rays and Tropicana Field, Randy Arozarena took a stroll through “Randy Land.”
The outfielder, traded to the Seattle Mariners for two prospects and a player to be named, watched a portion of his old team's 3-2 loss to Cincinnati from the left field stands on Friday night before interacting with appreciative fans in an announced crowd of 20,441 on his way out.
“I just gave him a big hug a minute ago," manager Kevin Cash said. “That was a nice thing that he did to go and see a bunch of his fans out in left field.”
The Rays insist they haven't given up on their season.
Nevertheless, president of baseball operations Erik Neander conceded the decision to deal Arozarena and pitcher Zach Eflin before next week's trade deadline probably won’t enhance the team’s chances of earning a sixth consecutive playoff berth.
Neander, though, says he is confident the moves will help the budget-conscious franchise down the road.
The fourth-place Rays entered Friday night one game over .500 and trailing AL East-leading Baltimore by 9 1/2 games. At 52-51, they were sixth in a race for three AL wild card spots.
”A game over .500. Realistically we’ve got to play about 15 over .500 the next two months,” Neander said after completing a deal that sent Eflin to the division rival Orioles.
“Is it something we thought was doable with the group as it was?,” Neander added. “We don’t have the margin for error to double down on that and also put ourselves in a position to have competitive teams for the foreseeable future.”
Efflin’s departure came less than 24 hours after the Rays completed a trade that sent Arozarena to Seattle for two prospects and a player to be named.
The popular Arozarena was the star of Tampa Bay’s 2020 postseason run, which ended with a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. He was AL Rookie of the Year the following season and a first-time All-Star in 2023.
On Friday night, the outfielder watched a portion of the game from a seat in the left field stands near a couple of sections at Tropicana Field once dubbed as “Randy Land.” The sections were especially popular on Friday night, when fans purchasing tickets in the designated area also received free Arozarena theme T-shirts.
“There’s no denying the importance he’s had in this organization for the last five years,” Cash said, echoing Neander’s sentiment that the Rays aren’t abandoning hope of making the playoffs.
“Look, we are on the outside looking in. But that doesn’t rule us out. … I’d like to think the guys understand that,” Cash added. “Are we a better team without Randy? Nobody in this building in going to say that. … But we do think it’ll create some opportunities for guys to help out. Let’s see if we can keep it together.”
Following Arozarena's departure, Jonny DeLuca started in left. The 26-year-old outfielder was acquired in the December trade that sent Tyler Glasnow to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Left-hander Jeffrey Springs, expected to come off the injured list next week, likely will replace Eflin in the pitching rotation.
“We’re going to keep doing our best to win games this year. It’s going to be harder without those two, but our outlook for the next three, five, seven years is considerably stronger with what we brought in,” Neander said.
“I have a responsibility to try to get this team to a World Series,” Neander added. “Ideally we stay all in on this year and we strengthen our future, but we have to make some difficult choices.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash speaks to the media before a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds Friday, July 26, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Cash was commenting on the trade that sent Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena to the Seattle Mariners. (AP Photo/Christopher O'Meara)
Erik Neander, Tampa Bay Rays president of baseball operations, thinks about a question as he speaks to media about recent trades before a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds Friday, July 26, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Christopher O'Meara)
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump laced into Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday in a pointed and at times bitter speech as he headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner in New York.
Trump, in remarks that often felt more like a rally speech than a comedy bit, repeatedly criticized Harris over her decision to skip the event, breaking with presidential tradition as she campaigned in Wisconsin. She recorded a video that was played onscreen instead.
“You should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and then she’d be here,” Trump quipped, urging Catholics to vote for him in response.
“You gotta remember that I’m here and she’s not," he said.
The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade lighthearted barbs, poke fun at themselves, and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election's final stretch.
It's often the last time the two nominees share a stage before Election Day.
Trump delivered a number of one-liners that drew hearty laughs. But he also questioned the mental fitness of Harris and President Joe Biden, commented on second gentleman Doug Emhoff's extramarital affair during his previous marriage, and made a joke about transgender women that echoed his frequent mocking of trans athletes on the campaign trail.
He said at one point that he would offer a couple of self-deprecating jokes before abandoning the effort. “Nope. I’ve got nothing,” he said to laughs.
“I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me," he said, referencing his survival of two assassination attempts this year.
Of Biden, he said, “If the Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden."
Later, he said the current occupant of the White House “can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have the mental faculties of a child. This is a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”
In the video she recorded for the occasion, Harris appeared alongside comedian and actress Molly Shannon, who reprised her long-running “Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward Catholic schoolgirl. She also poked fun at Trump for comments he made in Michigan, saying that mocking Catholics in the video would be “like criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”
Harris’ campaign had previously said that, with less than three weeks before Election Day, they wanted her to spend as much time as possible campaigning in battleground states that will decide the election, rather than detouring to heavily Democratic New York. Her team has told organizers that she would be willing to attend the dinner as president if she wins.
Trump was joined at the dinner by his wife, Melania, who has been an infrequent presence on the campaign trail.
The dais included a mix of Trump allies and foes, with various entanglements. They included New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against Trump and his business. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Trump after dropping his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, attended with his wife, Cheryl Hines.
New York’s embattled Mayor Eric Adams and other top city officials, as well as business leaders and sports and media personalities, were also in attendance. Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople — a case that was mentioned repeatedly, including by Trump.
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Adams was targeted by authorities because he criticized Biden’s migrant policies.
“Mayor Adams: Good luck with everything,” Trump said, adding that what Adams faces is “peanuts” compared to his own legal woes.
He also went after former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was repeatedly booed by the crowd.
“To be honest, he was a terrible mayor," Trump said before offering a profanity at a religion-themed event. "I don’t give a s—- if this is comedy or not.”
The dinner was emceed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who plays Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live.”
Gaffigan has a history of criticizing Trump. In 2020, he wrote on X, then named Twitter, that “We need to wake up. We need to call trump the con man and thief that he is.”
He largely kept his focus Thursday on others, including Adams, whom he introduced as “brought to you by Turkish Airlines.”
But he offered some hits, including when he referenced allegations that the Trump Organization in the 1970s discriminated against Black renters in its buildings.
“If Vice President Harris wins this election, not only would she be the first female president, a Black woman would occupy the White House, a former Trump residence,” Gaffigan said. “Obviously you wouldn't be renting to her. I mean, that would never happen anyway. Maybe if Doug did the signing.”
Trump's tone echoed his appearance in 2016, when he was joined by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and delivered a particularly nasty speech, calling her “corrupt.”
“Hillary believes that it’s vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private,” he said to jeers. “For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”
Mary Callahan Erdoes, vice chair of the foundation, alluded to that when she introduced Trump, suggesting she hoped for something less caustic.
“You never disappoint. Your wit is absolutely fabulous. And all of us together are going to hope for the best,” she said to laughs.
Trump, too, referenced the performance onstage, saying that, in 2016, he "went overboard. That was like terrible. And I knew I was in trouble midway through."
That didn't stop him, however, from similar attacks.
The Harris campaign responded to Trump's speech with a statement saying it would remind “Americans how unstable he’s become.”
“He may refuse to release his medical records, but every day he makes it clear to the American people that he is not up to the job,” said spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
Trump's sense of humor is often cited by his supporters as key to his appeal. While he infamously glowered through former President Barack Obama’s jokes at his expense during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, he also sometimes pokes fun at himself.
At several rallies this year, he has remarked on his hair after catching a glimpse of himself onscreen.
“What the hell can you do? There’s nothing I can do about it. We’re stuck with it," he joked at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last month.
Both Trump and Biden, who is Catholic, spoke at a virtual version of the fundraiser in 2020, which was moved online due to concerns over large gatherings at the height of the pandemic.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is named for the former New York governor, a Democrat who was the first Catholic to receive a major-party nomination for president when he unsuccessfully ran for the White House in 1928.
The event has become a tradition for presidential candidates since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960. In 1996, the Archdiocese of New York decided not to invite then-President Bill Clinton and his Republican challenger, Bob Dole, reportedly because Clinton vetoed a late-term abortion ban.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and Cardinal Timothy Dolan listen. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., listens at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Michael Bloomberg arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., arrives for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, center, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and Cardinal Timothy Dolan gesture as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump watches at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump atalks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump arrive for the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves at Trenton-Mercer Airport, in Mercer County, N.J., before departing en route to Milwaukee, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands before the start of an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
