The rise of the Rays

Now that the Major League Baseball season has ended, we can reflect on several very intriguing storylines that developed during the 160-plus games.

Some teams have greatly exceeded expectations, proving small markets can compete with the big boys. Other teams underachieved, showing wins can’t be bought.

The storyline that has most captured my attention this season has been the surprising emergence of the Tampa Bay Rays, the team that won the American League East by two games over the Boston Red Sox and finished eight games above the New York Yankees.

The Rays — formerly known as the Devil Rays — have been one of the worst teams in baseball for their entire history.

Since they became a professional team in 1998, the Rays had only finished out of last place one time, and that year they finished next to last.

However, in 2008 the Rays came out of nowhere with one of the lowest payrolls in the league and became one of the top teams.

The team clinched its first playoff berth with a 7-2 win over the Minnesota Twins, a historic event in the franchise’s short history.

The Rays, who according to ESPN.com have a payroll of $43.4 million, are led by young talent like Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria.

James Shields — who has gone 14-8 this season — sits atop their pitching rotation, joined by Scott Kazmir, Matt Garza and Andy Sonnanstine. Kazmir, Garza and Sonnanstine combined to go 36-26.

Troy Percival, the team’s closer, is ranked ninth in the American League in saves with 28.

The Rays are a team that lacks the big-name superstars of other teams in the AL East, which boasts names like David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez.

But with Rodriguez, the Yankees are enjoying an early off-season with their $200 million payroll. It’s refreshing to see a team seemingly devoid of superstars rally to the top together.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying I almost always have a soft-spot for the underdogs and the little teams. It has always been much more interesting to me to see the “little team that could” defy all the odds and take down the giants of their sport than to see a dynasty drag on.

I’m also a little tired of trying to get excited about the Chicago Cubs and their attempts to break the curse of the billy goat or more recently the Steve Bartman curse. And since the Red Sox broke their curse, there’s nothing interesting to me about their yearly success.

So while I’m not a Rays fan by any means, I will be hoping they advance in the postseason for the simple fact that I don’t want the most interesting story of this baseball season to end.

— Aaron Colen is a journalism junior.

Yankee Stadium closing

The recently-ended 2008 MLB season had an abundance of stories that kept fans tuned in and on the edge of their seats over the course of the past six months.

The [Devil] Rays finally made the playoffs, while the Yankees finally didn’t — pause for audience reaction — and Rangers slugger and ex-drug/alcohol addict Josh “the Great Hambino” Hamilton put on a monster show that I doubt we’ll see again at the Home Run Derby.

But, none of these can hold water to the fact that the 2008 season marked the final season of the infamous Yankee Stadium.

Go ahead and argue all you want in defense of Tampa beating out both the Yanks and Red Sox for AL East division championship, but it can’t qualify for the biggest story of the year if no one in St. Petersburg got wind — let alone cared — about it until mid-September.

I’ve only been to the home of the Bronx Bombers twice during my life — the last of which was a couple of summers ago — and I was surprised about how much of a dump it was, but honestly, what happened in the seats didn’t matter.

It was all about Mickey Mantle running down a ball in the outfield, Derek Jeter pumping his fist rounding the bases as he claimed the “Mr. November” title and Babe Ruth launching a ball into the short porch in right field with a bat the size of an oak tree.

Personally, I’ll never forget what happened on October 17, 1998. The night itself was already special for me for two reasons: it was my tenth birthday and it was the first game of the World Series against the San Diego Padres.

I was wearing my Jeter T-shirt jersey, sporting a World Series hat and I was in awe of everything around me. The game was one Yankees fans could never forget. In the bottom of the seventh inning of a 5-5 game, Tino Martinez launched a grand slam into the right field seats.

I’m not the only one with a memory like that. Yankee Stadium was the site of many unforgettable baseball, religious and boxing events. And it helped bring a nation back together in 2001.

Two popes have given mass on the infield, Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton under the stadium lights and President George W. Bush threw a perfect strike off the rubber before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series.

The people who saw those events will keep those memories until the day they die.

It was only fitting the Yankees would win the final game there, Andy Pettite would get the final win and Mariano Rivera would throw the final pitch.

It still seems strange that the final home run was hit by a person who still seems weird in the pinstripes after the stadium was christened with a Babe Ruth game-winning home run in the opener in 1923. But, hey, that’s just how baseball is.

The majesty of Yankee Stadium is all about what happened over the course of the past 85 years in the Bronx, not just that final night.

It was the moments, the memories — both good and bad — that put Yankee Stadium’s closing at the top of the laundry list of great stories to come out of Major League Baseball this season.

— Jono Greco is a journalism sophomore.