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Red Sox fan works for the rays

By Peter Couture, Times Staff Writer
Posted: Oct 16, 2008 01:05 PM

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ADVERTISEMENT We’re sure the rays must see red as BoSox backer Shannon Zimmerman goes deep in their home park. Loading Video...

Shannon Zimmerman just loves the rays. She even moved to Florida eight years ago so she could work with them.

But Zimmerman, a native New Englander, is a diehard Boston Red Sox fan.

Confused?

Zimmerman, 31, is the assistant supervisor of the aquarium department at SeaWorld's Discovery Cove. She has a degree in marine biology from the University of Rhode Island and cares for nearly 100 cownose, spotted eagle and Southern rays at the Orlando park's Ray Lagoon.

But so there's no doubt about who Zimmerman is rooting for in the American League Championship Series, she posed for a photo with her rays, which have had their barbs removed.

"It took 'em a little coaxing," she says of getting the creatures to swim close to her. "I think the bright red socks threw them off a bit."

Zimmerman has been to the Trop to see the Red Sox ("It's very different than Fenway Park") and, no, she didn't visit the stadium's own version of Discovery Cove — the Rays Touch Tank.

"I was more interested in the baseball than the rays," she says, shrugging off any suggestion of a busman's holiday.

Zimmerman says she has faith the Red Sox can come back in the ALCS, even though they trail the Rays 3-1 in the series. Maybe that's because she is used to changing people's attitudes every day.

"The biggest part of my job is trying to get people over their fears of them," she says. "We get to dispel those myths that Rays are dangerous."

Shannon, that's certainly not true when it comes to the Rays. They have, after all, really been stinging Boston pitching.