This story is AWESOME - and here’s why: it could have been written for St. Petersblog. It has all the trappings of one of our finely written stories such as a lack of facts, serious speculation, assumptions and willy nilly half ass journalism. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Tampa Bay Rays may soon abandon their push for a November referendum to build a $450-million waterfront stadium.

Well I’ll be damned, that sounds good to me, I bet there are a ton of facts within this fine story to prove such a statement.

Rays executives did not return calls for comments Tuesday, and team officials denied as late as Monday the possibility of pushing back the referendum.

Oh, OK, the first fact actually says that the source has denied a delay. But hey, often times “no comment” means FUCK YEAH I’M GUILTY AS FUCK!

No one the Times spoke with on Tuesday expected the Rays to halt their quest for a new ballpark, or even one on the waterfront.

Hmm, I would read this as “seriously, we made this shit up, no one has said a damn thing that would make it true.” But, upon closer reading (which is a rarity for me), it looks like no one expects the new stadium to be HALTED, which is different than DELAYED. So, hmm. More facts please!

Members of the St. Petersburg City Council were unaware of a possible delay.

Well shit, another group that is not backing the Times claim. So the score is Times says delay, everyone else says WTF are you talking about!?

Look, I’d be happy if this were delayed, certainly it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen later, but a broomstick in the spokes of the new stadium plans would certainly hurt the necessary momentum for something like this. The problem, though, is that the Times should leave the shitty journalizing to the professionals - namely us. You guys are supposed to have facts and supporting evidence and shit when you make claims, don’t be trying to front on our half ass speculation mongering stylee. You are not a blog, you are composed of paper and shit, we are composed of internets. BIG DIFFERENCE.