Southern Times, Girls and Sports

If there’s one thing that could be learned from October baseball after last night, it’s this.

A group of kids that no one, I mean no one, expected to make waves in the American League East can have their moment in the sun.

Last night in front of another sellout crowd in Tampa Bay, the Rays, known for much of their existence as the doormats of the American League, defeated the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox 3-1 in the seventh and deciding game of the American League Championship Series to win their first American League pennant in franchise history.

While for the most part the Phillies are going to be heavy favorites in the World Series due to veteran leadership and power sources like Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell plus timely pitching from Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer, who I believe is eligible for Social Security next year, I think there’s a good chance that the Rays might finish this impossible story and join the ranks of the 1991 Atlanta Braves, 1969 New York Mets, and 2006 Detroit Tigers as one of the best rags-to-riches stories in baseball history.

After all, shouldn’t they have a chance to be as good as everyone else?

If you’ve been living under a rock for the majority of the baseball season, you’ve failed to realize that the artists formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have broke through and captured their first winning season, their first AL East title, and God knows what else.

You’ve failed to realize that the Rays are no longer your father’s Devil Rays, being beat by the Yankees, Red Sox, and any other team.

And you’ve failed to realize while you’ve been under your proverbial rock that the Rays, given the fact that they are indeed playing the same team that came back from a 3-0 deficit in 2004 against the Yankees in the ALCS and exercised their 86-year curse, the Sox and their faithful could be looking at a long winter after tonight if the Rays go into Fenway Park and continue the greatest baseball story ever told.

Now it’s time for me to get off my soapbox and root for the Rays.

I always like to remind my fellow co-workers and Met fans that the tragedy that has been the 2007 and 2008 seasons for them began when Yader Molina on an autumn night back in 2006 hit a two-run home run to send the Cardinals to their second World Series in three years.

Since then, the Mets, as big as their payroll has been over the last few years, hasn’t been able to get to the World Series.

And in the last two years, the Florida Marlins, a team that probably has been outdrawn by the basketball team here in North Highland Park, has delivered the final blow to the Mets’ season.

From the looks of what I saw on television, I don’t think anyone there in Flushing wanted to see what was nothing more than a tragic end to what could have been a wonderful sendoff to Shea Stadium.

Certainly, they didn’t want to go home.

But in the end, not even the slightest hint of nostalgia could keep the Mets’ season alive for one more day.

With a little over a month to go, the Cardinals, like it or not, are within arms’ reach of catching the Milwaukee Brewers for the Wild Card lead.

And while the Brewers have been playing great baseball as of late, the Cardinals have been lying in the weeds and losing to the perennial losers that is the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is in St. Louis for a three-game series that started last night.

What needs to happen with the Cardinals in these waning weeks is that they need to manufacture runs when they need it the most. Instead of relying on power from the middle of the lineup, each player from here on out needs to understand their role if they want to continue playing in October for the fifth time in seven years.

Another thing would be finishing the drill in the top of the 9th inning. In case if you haven’t noticed, the Cardinals are among the league leaders in blown saves with the woebegone Washington Senators and in order to make the playoffs, the Cardinals need to, and this is being blunt and direct, stop breaking the fans’ heart.

Or else they’ll be like the Yankees these days.