POSTED: Tuesday September 7th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rays Second only to Yankees... for the Time Being

The Tampa Bay Rays boast the second-best record in baseball and are currently only one game behind the hated New York Yankees. Seven games between the two remain this season.

Many consider the Tampa Bay Rays, poised to appear in the post-season for just the second time, heavy underdogs. While they may be graced with sharp teeth, the Rays are very different beasts of the American League East.

Following a franchise-high sixteenth victory of the season for pitcher David Price on Wednesday, the Rays are comfortably slotted in as the AL’s wild-card team to beat, with a healthy seven-game lead over the Boston Red Sox with 29 games to go.

I would hesitate to say that these aren’t your father’s Rays, since the team has only been in existence for 13 years, but it is at least crystal clear that these are most definitely not your older brother’s Rays. From their birth in 1998 until 2007, the Rays were known as the Devil Rays, coincidentally boasting several common characteristics with the Lord of the Underworld. For one, their location in hot-as-hell Florida. For another, their nasty habit of always finding themselves in their division’s cellar year-in, year-out. And, finally, their dealing in temptation… as in their uncanny ability to tempt baseball fans everywhere to avoid Tropicana Field like the plague, with the Rays consistently placing 14th out of all 14 AL teams in attendance.

Enter 2008 and the new-look Rays win the AL East, finishing above fourth-place in the five-team division for the first time ever, and then go on to lose in the World Series. They did miss the playoffs last year, but still earned a decent 84-78 record. Combined with their 82-51 record this year, the Rays have amassed a 262-195 record in three short seasons, translating into a winning percentage of 0.573. In the 10 years previous, they only had a 0.400 winning percentage.

After mimicking their namesake a little too much and acting as flat as doormats for a good decade, patience has paid off for the Rays, and one-time prospects like Price (and fellow pitchers James Shields, Jeff Niemann, and Wade Davis) are playing like all-stars. Attendance is also on the rise and not only do the Rays have the makings of a successful team on the field, they have the makings of a financially viable franchise as well. Their payroll of under $72 million, the tenth-smallest in baseball, is dwarfed by the New York Yankees’ number-one ranked $206 million. If the Rays weren’t in the toughest division of baseball, against which they still hold an impressive 33-20 record, who knows where they would be.

As it stands, however, they are ahead of the Sox and just one game behind the division-leading Yankees. The Yankees, with a record of 83-50, and Rays are, by a relatively sizeable margin, the two best teams in baseball. With seven games left between the two, the race to the post-season will likely need a photo finish. And if a photograph is worth 1000 words the one strewn all over this picture would be “shock” coupled perhaps with “awe”.

While the Yankees have become synonymous with “overpaid” and “old age”, the Rays meanwhile are young and clearly destined for greatness sometime in the near future. If the Yankees continue to suck up players and dole out ever-increasing salaries as if money grows on trees, there may be no other alternative.

However, for the time being, the Rays must be content in the knowledge that they’re giving the so-called best team in baseball a run for its money. Come October, they may very well be the best team in baseball themselves. Most everyone in America will be cheering for them too, not because the Yankees are almost universally hated outside New York, but because everyone loves a good underdog… even if the Rays aren’t. They’re better.

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Keywords · MLB · baseball · Tampa Bay Rays · New York Yankees · James Shields

Name: John Waverly
Organization: TheGetRealWorld.com
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URL: www.thegetrealworld.com

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