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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - City fathers warned fans to arrive early to beat the crush. City mothers have been naming their first-born males "Akinori."
Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially entered a parallel universe. Up is down, ugly is beautiful and the Tampa Bay Rays are the best team in baseball.
I can confirm the rumors after witnessing Monday night's 5-4 win over Boston. The Rays not only beat the world champs, they withstood a 9th-inning tragicomedy that would have discombobulated the 1927 Yankees.
"We had all this myriad of things go wrong," outfielder Gabe Gross said.
Yes, almost every member of the 1927 Yankees would now be over 100 and therefore easily discombobulated. But even in his prime, Babe Ruth didn't use words like "myriad."
These Rays not only have the vocabulary to go far, they have the pitching, defense and hitting to make the playoffs. If the stars keep aligning, Tampa Bay will win the World Series.
Now there's a sentence I figured I'd type right after, "Ralph Nader will win the presidency." Take heart, Ralph.
If Tampa Bay can beat the Red Sox and Yankees, you should have no problem with McCain and Obama. And if you love underdogs, apple pie and the American spirit, you should be campaigning for our Rays.
(I call them ours because three of their major-league leading 50 wins came in Orlando. If they do make the World Series, at least two-thirds of an inning should be played at Disney's Wide World of Sports.)
The Yankees and Red Sox have been the Robert and the Mugabe of baseball for too long. Their combined payroll is $342 million, which is approximately $299 million more than the Rays are scraping by on.
ESPN does three-hour specials on Manny Ramirez's hairstylist. The fixation gets old, especially when Manny is Manny.
He Manny-handled the team's traveling secretary over the weekend, pushing the 62-year-old down after he didn't immediately come up with the 16 tickets he wanted to the game in Houston.
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