Sometimes a sponsor is just not a good fit for sports. Take Kane’s Furniture, a Tampa Bay area chain that has sponsored the Rays for several seasons.

Back when Vince Naimioli was running the Rays (insert punchline here), the Rays created a furniture showroom right in the stadium and a special "Kane’s Club." Fans paying the highest ticket prices took an elevator to field level, where they had to walk through a showroom full of leather furniture with hanging pricetags to reach their seats.

The promotion was shameless and cheesy, typical of the Naimoli era, but not as "cheesy" as the current Kane’s sponsor deal. Each time Rays pitchers strike out 10 or more batters during a home game, fans get a free PapaJohn’s pizza.

Sounds like a pretty good deal. The problem is that fans must take their ticket stubs – or print out a "stub" online if they didn’t attend the game – to a Kane’s Furniture store within three days. Only then do they get a PapaJohn’s coupon….for a 10-inch cheese pizza.

That’s a lot of effort to get a pie that will barely feed two young children. (Kane’s only surrenders one pizza coupon per adult per visit and PapaJohn’s only accepts one pizza coupon per order.) Fans who go through this ordeal end up feeling annoyed with the Rays, who have tried their best to mend fences in the first three seasons of the post-Naimoli era.

It reminds me of when I held season tickets in the early 1990s to the Washington Bullets, a team that rivaled the former Devil Rays in terms of poor management and treating fans badly.

But the Bullets had one great promotion that activated every time they scored 100 points. This was back when NBA players spent four years playing college hoops and entered the league knowing how to shoot and run an organized offense. Thus, even bad teams like the Bullets were capable of reaching the century mark on a regular basis.

Whenever the Bullets scored 100, fans received a coupon for a free sandwich at "Jerry’s Subs," a D.C. area chain. Bullets employees manned the exits and handed out the coupons as fans left the building.

It was a tremendously successful promotion. Even when the Bullets were blown out, which was often, fans stayed until the end to see if they’d get the coupon, thus spending more money at the concession stands. The employees waited until a minute before the end of the game to man the exits. So even when the Bullets reached 100 early – win or lose – the team still benefitted by having them in the building longer.

Not only that, the Bullets saw an attendance boost whenever they played West Coast teams. This was back when those squads, especially the Denver Nuggets, played a more uptempo game that virtually guaranteed scores in triple digits. Unlike today, where the West is the NBA’s glamor conference,  a lot of West Coast teams weren’t good draws in the Michael Jordan glory days. But the likely prospect of the Bullets scoring 100 and a free Jerry’s sub boosted the gate receipts.

Back then, you could feel a buzz in the crowd whenever the Bullets approached 100. It also was good for Jerry’s, which began in 1954 and was still a fledgling operation in the early 1990s. Today it has 140 stores in nine countries and bills itself as the East Coast’s "No.1 sub and pizza chain." It’s not as big as Subway or Quiznos, but it’s doing very well.

Good for Jerry’s. That 100-point promotion no doubt cost them some money, which apparently was well spent.

PapaJohn’s, of course, is far more established then Jerry’s ever will be. That’s why they’re no doubt letting Kane’s foot the bill for some if not most of the Rays pizza promotion. Kane’s, being a furniture operation, doesn’t have a natural sports tie-in to lure customers to its store. (Its drawings for the chance to meet a Rays player on the field and get an autographed jersey seem like a reach.)

As for the Rays, they’re missing a huge opportunity. For the first time in franchise history, pitchers are striking out 10 or more on a regular basis. Scott Kazmir is a good bet every time he goes to the hill. If Rays employees were handing out PapaJohn’s coupons at the end of the game, they’d no doubt boost attendance. Instead, many fans don’t want the hassle of going to Kane’s, which has only five stores in the Tampa Bay area. With gas $4 a gallon, fans aren’t going to go far to get a pizza coupon worth about $6.

Plus, by allowing fans to print out a ticket stub equivalent online – to build Kane’s mailing list – the Rays have removed the incentive to attend the game.

Instead, fans can sit at home and watch the game on TV.

At least they might sit on Kane’s furniture.

I’ve always admired radio and TV play-by-play announcers. They take a tough job and make it look easy, weaving real-time announcing with storytelling and analysis. I always figured it was much tougher than it seemed and that was confirmed Sunday night when I served as play-by-play man for a high school All-Star Game broadcast locally in Tampa Bay on Catch 47 TV live from Tropicana Field.

Many a sportswriter has transitioned into television, but it’s usually in the role of analyst, insider reporter or, occasionally, sports anchor. Very few have become play-by-play people. In recent years, the only example that comes to mind is Michael Kay, the former Yankees beat writer who now does play-by-play for the team’s YES television network.

I have no plans to follow Kay, nor would I be capable of such a move. I prepared for the gig by sitting in the stands at Tampa Bay Rays games and calling the action to myself. (Since there’s always plenty of room to spread out at a Rays game, I didn’t have to worry about bothering fans around me.)

It seemed relatively easy sitting in the stands. After all, I know the Rays roster well and am familar with their various opponents. I’ve watched thousands of baseball games, understand the rules, and have a decent understanding of the rhythms and cadences an announcer uses. If the Rays broadcast team was kidnapped moments before a game and there was nobody else available, I could probably get the job done. Poorly, but at least we’d have a broadcast. I have no doubt people like Dewayne Staats could do my job a lot better than I could do theirs.

Calling a high school game added to the degree of difficulty. Thankfully, I had John Cotey of The St. Petersburg Times as my color man. John has covered high school sports in the Tampa Bay area for years and was able to provide a steady flow of informatoin.

As for me, well, I had to make sense of the revolving door on the field. As with any All-Star Game, the lineups changed constantly. The players weren’t familar, nor were they wearing their own uniforms, as is the case with a big-league All-Star contest. Players were moved from one position on the field to the pitcher’s mound, and then sometimes to another position. Our commercial breaks were only one minute long, making it tough to keep track of it all.

By the fifth inning, my scorecard was a wreck. By the sixth, I was struggling to keep track of anyone other than the pitcher, batter, and catcher. By the seventh, my calls sounded something like this:

"Swing and a drive toward left…This should be deep enough to score a run….The left fielder (unsure who) circles underneath, makes the catch…Tagging from third is…(quick glance at scorecard)…Jones…No throw and Hillsborough extends its lead to 7-2."

Good broadcast teams make it sound so effortless, like two guys sitting at a bar. They fill in the space between pitches with stories and anecdotes that fit perfectly into the alloted time. The play-by-play guy, like an effective writer, never seems to describe the same play the same way.

My biggest concern was my home run call. How would I come up with something unique? Surely there would be plenty of dingers with All-Star kids using alumnium bats. Instead, there was just one longball, a line drive that barely cleared the wall. It got out so fast I didn’t have time to say much of anything.

Otherwise, I felt like I was repeating calls constantly and trying to fill dead air. John tossed in plenty of background material, which was huge. (I don’t know how the solo announcers do it.) Thankfully, the home team won, saving us a half-inning of work.

The producers said I did a terrific job, which was nice of them to say. I’ll stick to writing and pontificating on TV and radio. Whatever money play-by-play guys earn, it’s well deserved.