Tampa Is One Of The Best Cities For Karaoke

It appears that in South Florida, most people have no shame in their singing skills. Popular lifestyle brand The Loupe (from Shane Co.) recently detailed the best cities for Karaoke, and Tampa was high on the list.

"From karaoke bars to company Christmas parties and nights at home with family and friends, many people across the nation muster up the courage to belt out their favorite songs in front of their loved ones and total strangers every weekend," The Loupe states.

How does one rank where the best karaoke in the country can be found? Well, in order to do this, Shane Co. analyzed eight different categories. These included how many karaoke bars each city has, the number of nightlife businesses, and the number of karaoke events. In addition, the data was broken down even further, studying the average costs of drinks, Uber rides, and the number of karaoke Google searches.

Scoring just slightly below Riverside, California and ahead of 10th ranked Cleveland, Ohio, Tampa scored high in multiple categories. For example, The Loupe reported that Tampa has roughly 94 nightlife businesses per 100k. Furthermore, only Las Vegas tallied up a higher karaoke Google search volume than Tampa. If you are curious, Tampa also has approximately seven dedicated karaoke bars (per 100k residents).

Other interesting information here proves that karaoke is quite popular in Florida in general. In fact, the cities of Miami and Orlando actually ranked higher than Tampa. Miami ranked as the second-best city for karaoke, and Orlando was fifth. Much of this had to do with the amount of relative bars each city has.

"You can’t say you know a person until you’ve seen them hit the karaoke machine after one too many drinks," The Loupe states. So, whether your jam is "Don't Stop Believin'" or you and your crew go up to the mic together and belt out the B-52's "Love Shack," you can sing loud and proud in one of the best karaoke cities in the country.

The Tampa Bay Rays started in Major League Baseball in 1998. Originally called the "Devil Rays," the expansion team opened at home 25 years ago today (March 31, 1998), taking on the Detroit Tigers at Tropicana Field. Coincidentally, the Rays opened their season yesterday at home, beating the Detroit Tigers at Tropicana Field. Though the club has had numerous all-star players over the years, the Tampa Bay Rays retired numbers are slim. The group contains only one person who was a player on the team.

Over the years, Tampa has been a breeding ground of great baseball players. Rays legends such as Fred McGriff and Tino Martinez are from Tampa, as is the team's current manager, Kevin Cash.

The retired numbers are displayed inside the park on a wall that is to the left of the center field scoreboard. One of these numbers represents a manager who ended his career as an advisor with the Rays and was a Tampa, FL resident. The other two numbers reflect players, but again, only one of them actually played for the Rays. He too, called Tampa home.

The Rays will sport numerous uniform options this season. They will pay tribute to their anniversary with the throwback Devil Rays look on Friday home games (in addition to opening day). Over the course of the season, they will call up various players from their minor league system. These players, like the current roster and coaching staff, will immediately have three numbers unavailable to them regardless of the colorful uniform combination.

Here are the official Tampa Bay Rays retired numbers.