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Why Rays OF Denard Span is looking forward to playing a true ‘home’ game

The Tampa product welcomes the opportunity.
 
Denard Span hopes to have a lot to celebrate with the Rays. [Monica Herndon, Times]
Denard Span hopes to have a lot to celebrate with the Rays. [Monica Herndon, Times]
Published March 24, 2018|Updated March 24, 2018

PORT CHARLOTTE — Denard Span first needed time to get past the shock of the pre-Christmas trade from the Giants to the Rays. To think through logistical issues of playing where he grew up and still lived. To realize this was a rare opportunity that should be embraced and celebrated.

Then he and his wife, Anne, sat down to address some of the specific practical concerns.

"I've had the same cell phone number for a long time," Span said. "So we were joking — actually not joking, but seriously thought about changing the number for that reason."

Playing in your hometown is different.

It can be rewarding, inspiring and — topped by the chance to skip the annual six-month relocation and stay in your off-season home — extremely convenient.

It also can be stressful, draining and — pending on your willpower to say no to those new "old friends" blowing up your phone for tickets and more — somewhat expensive.

At either extreme, and mostly in the middle for most of the dozen or so players who've done it with the Rays, it's definitely different.

For St. Petersburg native Doug Waechter, who began his big-league pitching career in 2003 blocks from home, it was all  good but one big warning sign.

"I knew I was l lucky to playing for them, and  it wasn't until I left that I knew how much," said Waechter, now part of the TV broadcast crew. "Being able to sleep in your own bed and not having to move was one of the big advantages. And definitely the support you got — I think my mom was at every single one of my games. So it's nice to see some familiar faces in the stands.

"That being said, you always put more pressure on yourself when you're going out there and you want to succeed, especially because you're in front of everybody you know. And you feel that added pressure at the times you're not doing well."

Tampa native Fred McGriff was a veteran, like Span is now, when he started the first of two stints with the expansion Rays in 1998, so he knew the comfort factor far outweighed any inconvenience, such as those steady requests for tickets, autographs and bats and balls.

"It's a great experience," McGriff said. "In my situation, I'd won a World Series. I'd played in All-Star Games. I'd been blessed. So for me it was a chance to play in front of your family and friends."

McGriff, now a special assistant with the Braves, said his only complaints were minor, such as the 40-plus minute drive from his north of Tampa home and the  occasional awkwardness of not being able to put a name to the face of the guy screaming from the stands he was once in your foursome or shared a lunch table in third grade.

Manager Kevin Cash, a Tampa native, also can relate, saying the local ties bind more now — given all the free advice — than when he played briefly for the Rays in 2005.

"There's a lot of positives. It's exciting. And it could probably add to your anxiety," Cash said. "But Denard is a different player. I think he's going to welcome and embrace it."

All three alums are confident Span — at 34, a veteran of 10 seasons and three teams, married with a new baby, still close to his mom, active in the community with a charitable foundation — will be in a good place.

"He's going to love it,'' McGriff said. "It'll be great for him to play here."

Tampa Bay Rays centerfielder Denard Span with wife Anne and son DJ at an offseason event for his foundation. (Courtesy of Denard Span)
Tampa Bay Rays centerfielder Denard Span with wife Anne and son DJ at an offseason event for his foundation. (Courtesy of Denard Span)

Span isn't technically a native but close enough, moving to north Tampa at age 3 when his family left Washington, and after his parents split a year or so later sticking around with his mom, Wanda.

He trekked through Northwest and Dunbar elementaries, Young and Walker middle schools and 2 ½ years at Hillsborough High before transferring to Tampa Catholic — because he saw a better opportunity in football.

He grew up buddies with Marlon Wood, whose dad, former Bucs linebacker Richard "Batman" Wood, served "like a second dad." He started playing in the Citrus Park youth leagues and had the good draw to be coached, and mentored, for several years by Idlewild Baptist Church pastor Ken Whitten.

And once the Rays began play in 1998 he occasionally ventured over the bridge to see real, live big leaguers, such as his idol Ken Griffey Jr., at the Trop.

But, no, the thought never crossed his mind — which was more on college football heroics anyway — of suiting up one day for the hometown team.

"Not back then," he said. "Never thought I'd play for the Rays. Maybe once I got into pro ball and got to the big leagues I started thinking about the idea. But I never thought it would be a reality."

Coming in once a year from 2008-12 with the Twins, and then once each with the Nats and Giants, seemed to be good enough, the loud welcome he got from his mom and the 30 friends and relatives with her in the stands the first time still ringing.

"That was special for me," Span said. "It was almost like all the years of being in the minor leagues had paid off. Just making my mom proud, just seeing the smile on her face with all her co-workers and friends and relatives. It was just a special moment."

At Tampa Catholic, Denard Span was a standout in baseball and football. (Times file, 2002)
At Tampa Catholic, Denard Span was a standout in baseball and football. (Times file, 2002)

Span is savvy enough about the business of baseball that given the  circumstances of the Dec. 20 trade — the Rays forced to take him with headlining prospect Christian Arroyo (another local!) to unload Evan Longoria and his remaining $86 million — he was hesitant, for fear of jinxing his good fortune, to totally buy in. Especially with a $9 million salary that's second highest on the team (to Wilson Ramos' $10.5 million), plus a $4 millon buyout on a 2019 $12 million option.

Getting to spring training, and getting through the opening week roster upheaval, with the Rays seeming to pick by trading their other veteran lefty-swinging outfielder in Corey Dickerson, helped – though a rough team start to the season could change that.

But Span at least began to let his mind wander at least to what it'll be like Thursday, standing on the first base line in bright whites.
Tampa is as much home as ever.

Span has a wife now, a former Olympic medal-winning hockey player as the former Anne Schleper, who he met at the Tampa Diesel Fuel gym and married in January 2017. He has a 5-month old son now, D.J. (Denard James), to be coddled by family. They are moving into a nearly $4 million south Tampa house, leaving the Odessa place where he was neighbors with Bucs QB Jameis Winston.

There will be opportunity to do more with his charitable foundation that raises money to help single-parent families, and with his House of God Pentecostal church.

And there will be 81 chances for old friends, distant relatives and who knows who else — he didn't change the number, yet anyway — to come out and watch him do his thing.

"Honestly I think if there was any "better" time for me to playing at home, it's now," Span said., "I'm a little older, a little bit more mature, more stable. I've got a family. I know how to weed through certain things. If I would have been 25, maybe it would have been a little bit overwhelming or too much possibly.

"But I think it's perfect timing right now."

Marc Topkin can be reached at mtopkin@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Rays.

Five more things about Span
He transferred from Hillsborough High in middle of junior year to Tampa Catholic to get more opportunity and exposure as a receiver on the football team but immediately helped the Crusaders to the 2001 state baseball championship and earned a spot in the school's hall of fame.

He had a football scholarship offer from USF but really wanted to go away for college so instead signed a baseball scholarship to Florida and was going to try to walk-on to the football team.

He is savvy enough to "plead the fifth" on the most pressing household question of whether he or his wife, former Olympic hockey medalist Anne Schleper, is the better athlete, noting she is 6 years younger.

He is quite the romantic, arranging an aw-shucks proposal on New Year's Eve  2016  during a trip to Miami Beach, claiming their hotel room flooded and taking Anne to a new room – a suite with rose petals and champagne – and dropping down on one knee.

He is part of spring training lore, fouling off a ball during a 2010 game in Tampa that hit — of all people — his mother, who had to be checked by paramedics but was okay.