ST. PETERSURG, Fla. — Long after the fans have left the Trop, Marc Topkin sits at his laptop, waxing poetically about the latest Tampa Bay Rays win. There have been a lot of wins to document this season, the most in the majors, and the Rays have given Topkin plenty to write about.
He knew the team’s 25th anniversary season was going to be special. But this special?
“I don’t think anybody knew how special the team was going to be, at least to this point,” Topkin said.
Topkin has seen and covered it all with the Rays, originally called the Devil Rays. In their 25 years of play, he’s been the Tampa Bay Times beat writer the entire duration.
Whenever there is breaking Tampa Bay Rays news, Topkin is usually the one with the scoop. But after more than two decades of covering the same team, you’d think he would want to do something else at this point, but you’d be wrong.
“There’s something about baseball where every day you come to the ball park, you could see something different, you could see something that you’ve never seen before,” Topkin said.
He covered the team when it was the worst in baseball. He was also there when they made it to their first World Series, and their second.
His favorite moments? Topkin says Evan Longoria and game 162 and the Brett Phillips magical moment in Game 4 of the 2020 World Series rank up there. He’s been there for the highs and the lows and he keeps coming back for more.
“Sometimes it’s a little thing but that’s what keeps you going is it’s just a fascinating sport,” Topkin said. “It’s like a daily soap opera because they play just about any day.”
It’s a long season with a lot of long hours, so Topkin said he cherishes his down time, especially since he just became a first time grandfather.
“I shot this video for when there’s a rough time, you can just look at this, take 45 seconds and just watch him and listen to him coo and make little noises,” he said.
Only two months old, Topkin’s grandson recently attended his first Rays-Yankees game. It looks like he’ll share a love of baseball just like his grandfather.
He also shares a special family name, Eli. He was named after Topkin’s son Benjamin Eli, a relative the newest family member never got to meet because sadly, Ben died on May 28, 2012, at the age of 21.
“It’s always a day where you feel a little pain, you think of the loss, you think of how long it’s been,” Topkin said. “It will now be 11 years, which is some days you think you just saw him yesterday and some days it feels like forever. It’s tough, but I think what we do is we try to mark it and then move on and then just kind of look forward to what the next good thing is going to be.”
One of the good things is how many people honor Ben with his favorite food, tacos. Every year on his March 25 birthday, people celebrate Ben by eating a taco and posting a photo on social media. It’s one of the many ways they’ve wrapped their arms around the Topkin family.
The Rays have been a big supporters too — which makes sense since Topkin is kind of like family to an organization celebrating its 25th season, while Topkin is celebrating his 40th anniversary at the Tampa Bay Times. He’s the only Rays beat writer the newspaper has ever had. He knows this team inside and out. And he likes the direction they’re heading in this celebratory season.
“To me Memorial Day is really the first time that you check the standings and they matter,” he said. “And we’re coming up to Memorial Day and here the Rays are still with the best record. So to this point, they’ve certainly made their 25th anniversary, their 26th season overall, incredibly special.”