The Blue Workhorse

With their 3-1 victory over Boston and the Red Sox Nation in Game 7 Sunday night, the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays have advanced to their first ever World Series where they will face off with the Philadelphia Phillies.

While I feel sorry for the Phillies fans that had to endure the opposing fan treatment (yea, stay classy LA), I will be rooting for my Rays and here are 23 reasons why you should be rooting for them as well.

1. Worst to First - The Rays are the new Atlanta Braves.

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Rocco Baldelli’s name once invoked awe and excitement. He was the sixth overall draft pick in the 2000 draft, shot through the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays’ minor league system, and made his major league debut in 2003. In his rookie season, Baldelli batted a respectable .289 with 11 HR and 78 RBI while scoring 89 runs and stealing 27 bases landing him third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting behind Angel Berroa of KC and Hideki Matsui of NY.

Baldelli again put up good numbers in 2004 in 136 games, but then missed all of 2005, nearly half of 2006, and barely played in 2007. Instead of awe and excitement, his name became synonymous for the punchline of a joke, much the same way Mike Hampton’s name has been for several years.

Then in March, Baldelli was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disorder that left him severely fatigued after doing only minimal activity. The jokes and punchlines about Rocco turned into concern over whether the disorder would necessitate the retirement of the 26-year-old centerfielder, who had been thought to be a huge part of the Rays’ future success.

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The Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays are following the design Atlanta’s John Schuerholz so masterfully created after taking over as the general manager for the Braves and are now doing the unfathomable by leading the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the remainder of the AL East while having the best record in baseball.

The Rays have used each of their high draft picks to build their organization from the farm system up much the same way the Atlanta Braves have been renowned for doing. Tampa Bay also has focused on building around a talented young pitching staff (their starting rotation is aged 24-26) just as Schuerholz did with Atlanta.

How similar are this year’s Rays to the Atlanta squads from the early ’90s? We’ve compared this year’s squad of the AL East leading Rays, who are coming off a sweep of perennial power Boston, to the Atlanta squads from their early 1990s heydays:

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After Thursday night’s melee in Boston between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays, Red Sox centerfielder Coco Crisp called out his Rays’ outfield counterpart in a post game interview.

The basis of Crisp’s assessment of the bench-clearing brawl was that Carl Crawford employed some less than masculine tactics when the teams went down to the ground duke it out on the pitchers mound.

The Boston/Tampa brawl can be seen here: RedLasso.

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April 15, 1947 - Sixty years after the first African-American player in the major leagues, Moses Fleetwood Walker was unofficially banned from baseball (no, Jackie Robinson was not the first to play baseball in the major leagues), Jackie Robinson takes to the field for his first official game in a #42 Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. He plays first base instead [...]

The Red Sox, with two World Series titles in the last four years, are one of the favorites again this year. While the Red Sox are looking for championship titles, other division rivals have other goals: the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to move pass either the Red Sox or Yankees and get back into the top two in the division. However, they may have to hold off the upstart Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays just to keep the #3 slot. The Rays first goal will be to finish above .500 for the first time in team history, but greater goals are just beyond the horizon.