97. Ray’s Pizza

Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Conventional wisdom dictates that there is no such thing as bad pizza, but there is such a thing as leftover pizza, and therein lies a chasm where some pretty uncomfortable truths rest. Seven of us baseball fans witnessed this paradox when we collectively found ourselves to be no match for three large pizzas, whether by reasons of quality, comfort, or metabolism. I’m willing to bet that Ray’s Pizza has heroically served hungry customers throughout the Valley of the Sun with style and grace for decades.

But one of the main focuses of our 2019 trip to spring training was to leave no slice unturned, and despite glowing online reviews, we had almost a full pizza remain untouched, and that simply can not happen.

To the seven who were present (Jeff, Swen, Ken, Chuck, Boomer, Paul and myself) there was a collective, but unspoken shame cast upon the room. Ray’s came on the heels of a highly successful evening of pizza the night before (details to come later), so by this point, the bar may have been set unnaturally high.

Thank you Ray, for giving everything you’ve got to your core customer base–you’ve earned their loyalty and positive Yelp reviews, but in the end, the product didn’t align with the expectation. So if there’s another baseball-related convention coming to town (and we all hope there is) it’s in everyone’s best interest to seek out alternative solutions.