Tampa Bay Rays Players Make Custom T-Shirts To Fire Back At New York Radio Hosts Who Accused Them Of Cheating

Earlier this month, a New York radio host accused the Tampa Bay Rays of cheating. Shortly thereafter, a Tampa Bay radio host fired back. Nothing like a nice, old-school radio rivalry. But, apparently, the story made its way to the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse. And they've fired back.

To set the scene, as I reported on May 8, "Evan Roberts and Craig Carton host an afternoon show on WFAN in New York. They went on a rant essentially accusing the Rays of cheating their way to the league’s best record.

"'I was very skeptical with what I saw this weekend,' Roberts says. 'I know who they’re not good. They’re 19-3 at home? HELLO!'

“Sometimes you don’t need evidence. Sometimes you gotta say ‘what I’m watching doesn’t make sense.'”

The Rays haven't slowed down, either. They're now 35-14 on the season and 22-4 at home. They hold a three-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles for both the AL East lead and Major League Baseball's best record.

But they're not immune to hearing some outside chatter. And the comments from Roberts, particularly, got into their clubhouse.

To that end, Rays player Luke Raley responded by making custom T-shirts.

All of the text on the shirts are quotes from Roberts on his radio show.

Raley says his friend, who got the shirts made, wanted to go even harder at the WFAN hosts. But Raley didn't want to do that, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

“I worked with him a little bit to make it,” Raley said. “He wanted to make it worse than it is. I was like, let’s keep it kind of generic. Everyone gets the message, I think.”

Luke Raley of the Tampa Bay Rays rounds the bases after a solo home run in the seventh inning during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

New York radio hosts respond to Tampa Bay Rays who responded to New York radio hosts

Of course, because Carton and Roberts have to fill hours of content each day, they have responded. First, their station sent out a tweet requesting a shirt.

Then Roberts responded to Raley's shirt creation.

"They deep down know what I know ... that's they're not winning the American League," Roberts said.

It doesn't look like this rivalry is slowing down any time soon.

The Rays and Yankees don't meet again until the end of July, so we'll see if they can keep the train rolling until then.