Oops, is the skateboard on the Tampa Bay Rays logo designed wrong?
ST. PETERSBURG ― Uh, so, this is awkward.
You know those new cool Tampa Bay Rays shirts? The City Connect ones inspired by the local skateboarding culture? The ones with cartoon ray riding a skateboard?
Yeah, those. Well, the skateboard in the logo might be incorrectly designed. Its front truck appears to be backward.
“It is lol,” said Josh Eckert, a former Tampa resident and current social media manager for the X Games.
Skateboard bottoms have two trucks — one near the front and one near the back. They are metal, T-shaped pieces onto which the wheels attach and that then serve as steering mechanisms. Both trucks are supposed to face inwards, towards each other. But the front one on the Ray logo appears to be facing outwards.
“That truck seems a little funky,” said Paul Schmitt, a former Tampa resident who is considered the father of the modern skateboard and whose companies have produced more than 19 million to date.
The potential error was first pointed out to the Tampa Bay Times by John Montesi, owner of Westside Skate Shop in Tarpon Springs and a former X Games competitor and judge, while he was being interviewed for a story on the history of his industry in Tampa Bay.
Once the story published, the Times received a message signed by someone claiming to be the owner of another area skateboarding business. The Times was unable to verify that businessperson sent it.
“The front trucks on the skateboarding Ray logo are backwards,” the very serious note read. “How was this approved? It would be impossible to skate that board.”
The Times then asked other skateboarders if they agreed.
“Yes,” said Josh Stewart, a former Tampa resident whose New York-based Theories of Atlantis company distributes skateboards and apparel. But he said it’s not something he’d have noticed at first glance.
So how exactly would it impact the skateboard?
“If the front truck is backwards,” Stewart said, “the wheel would quickly touch the bottom of your board, giving you wheel-bite and bringing the deck to an immediate stop.”
A Rays spokesperson said, “The team, along with Nike, discussed that image and decided that it wasn’t meant to be realistic but more of a whimsical representation of it.” The cartoon ray itself was unavailable for comment. (We kid.)
But hey, not everyone thinks the logo is wrong. Some said it comes down to the cartoon skateboard’s lack of kingpins, which are a large bolt fastened to the truck. The skateboard wheels typically face the outside of the board with the kingpins on the inside.
“I’ve looked at it a hundred times and don’t think it’s backwards,” said Michael Blanford, executive director of the Tampa-based Boards for Bros, which donates skateboarding equipment to low-income communities throughout the world. “It’s just a stylized truck with no kingpins or any other recognizable parts. It’s the way they drew the shadows that can make it look like it could go either way.”
Local muralist and skateboarder Tony Krol agreed with that sentiment. “For a generic illustration, I feel like it’s correct enough since there are no kingpins.”
But maybe there are.
The Rays’ design includes triangles where the kingpins would be located. The triangle on the front is on the wrong side of the wheels.
“Almost like a reverse kingpin longboard truck,” Schmitt said.
Rather than detailing what that means, just know that the ray is not riding a longboard.
Troy Durrett, who produced a documentary on Tampa’s historic Bro Bowl skatepark, said there is only one way to settle this debate. “We need to harness a skateboard to one of the rays in the Rays’ tank and try to get a picture of what it actually looks like.”
