Gulfport couple has held Rays season passes since the franchise began

Gulfport residents Linda and Marc Marcelli have occupied the same seats at Tropicana Field since the Tampa Bay Devil Rays debuted on March 31, 1998. The couple has held season passes for the franchise since its inception, making them part of the original fanbase for the expansion team.

The Tampa Bay Rays are currently in the World Series, having lost the first three games to the Milwaukee Brewers. To win the best-of-seven series, the Rays must win four consecutive games. Game 4 is scheduled for tonight, Oct. 27, at 8 p.m. The team has played for 28 seasons and has not yet won a championship.

The Marcellis are native to the Northeast. Marc was born in Boston and grew up as a Red Sox fan. His late father, Anthony, instilled a love of baseball in the family. The family moved to New York, where they operated a produce wholesale business called Lucky’s Real Tomatoes in both New York and Florida. During the 1970s, family members purchased their first season passes for the New York Yankees.

In the 1980s, Linda, Marc, and Anthony settled permanently in Gulfport. When MLB owner Vince Naimoli sought to bring an expansion team to Tampa Bay, the Marcellis bought season passes before the team had an official name. They left behind their allegiance to the Red Sox and Yankees to support the new Florida team.

“As soon as there was the possibility of having a team here in Florida, we were 100% Rays fans,” Marc said. “We are not Rays-Yankee fans, we are Rays fans pure.” The couple supports the Rays even in direct matchups against the Yankees.

Marc credited the team with transforming the area around Tropicana Field. He noted that the location was quiet when the team arrived, with few businesses nearby. “We loved the Rays for the potential of bringing that part of the town alive, and it did,” Marc said. Linda agreed that the team helped create a community, though she noted that traffic in the area has increased.

The family has maintained a pre-game tradition since 2006. Before Anthony Marcelli passed away, the family went to Veto and Michael’s Pizzeria on St. Pete Beach after games. The restaurant was destroyed in the 2024 hurricanes. Since then, the family has adopted a new routine centered on Linda’s yellow shirt. Linda first wore the shirt to a game in which the Rays won. She observed that the team lost in games where she did not wear it, and other fans began to notice the pattern.

“I started to get emails and texts from friends who could see me on TV,” Linda said. “If I wasn’t in the yellow shirt, I got bad emails. So, I wear it all the time.” Marc said his mother is easy to pick out in the crowd.

The Marcellis sit in seats close to the field, adjacent to the dugout. Marc values the proximity because it allows him to see the players' emotions. “We can look into the dugout from our seats,” he said. “We feel even more like we’re part of the team because we can see all the emotion from in the dugout. It really adds another perspective.”

The section is filled with other long-time season pass holders. “People that sit with us in that section are season pass ticket holders too,” Marc said. “We have become kind of a family down there.” The group maintains a text thread to communicate between games. While the Rays have not won a World Series, the Marcellis remain hopeful for the current season.

“We are overjoyed to be where we are,” Marc said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want to win the World Series. We want to win. We want them to win everything, but we are happy to be where we are. Period.”