I’m all over it. I’ve been on the Rays bandwagon since I heard the name Rocco Baldelli first muttered in 2003.

don’t laugh – (you can cry if you want) – but the marlins are ahead of us in the wild card standings now.

joe sheehan outlined why they can still win it, a couple of days ago. Mostly it involves beating the astros and phillies, and since they MADE A DEADLINE DEAL FOR A LOOGY (no, I’m not bitter) and miss cole hamels, they have a good shot at whooping the LHB-dependant phils. Esp since howard is about to cool off. Any. Day. Now.

(note that they are 2-0 since that article was published)

I don’t know why, but that really irks me. Anyone playing the Brewers (even the Cubs) is who I’m rooting for.

until the Angel are eliminated.

What’s funny is I’ve always had an American League team that I followed. Of course, that was born in the days before interleague play muddied everything, but that team has for the most part been the Angels. I was infatuated with them back in the days of Mark Langston, Jim Abbott, Devon White, Wally Joyner, etc., etc.

Then I went to a game in Anaheim last year and it renewed all of those old feelings. However, in the past few years, I’ve also grown fond of the Devil Rays. I don’t know why. They were young and horrible, and honestly I really like their uniforms. I know that’s about as silly a reason as possible, but I think I liked them for their uniforms.

However, I was extremely disappointed in them this past offseason for not only changing the color scheme and uniform, but for also changing their name for what seemed to be no good reason at all.

Anyway, I still kinda like ‘em, and put them right behind the Angels as far as my rooting interest this upcoming post-season. I hope they win their division because if they meet the Angels, I’ll have at least one of my rooting interests guaranteed to make the World Series.

i’m all over the rays.

since the beginning of this year.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

AMERICAN LEAGUE

because I want to see how many times the announcers say “Devil” when they play in the post-season. Will Tampa Bay issue fines for each one?

But I’d like to stake my claim to being the first VEB’er on the Rays bandwagon due to this November 2007 thread. If anyone has me beat please let me know, but that was before PECOTA’s wild 88 win projections and I think before even ZiPS projections came out though I don’t know about the latter.

And I swear to god in that thread I had probably a 2000 word post on how they had a shot at 90+ wins actually calculated from run improvement on defense and in the bullpen mostly. Before hitting post however I read it through and was going over the hundreds of runs of improvement I was looking at in the bullpen and the defense and thought I must have been doing something wrong. Sigh.

Regardless [pounds chests]:

…say Jeter/Posada age as old guys at SS/C do, A-Rod regresses to 2006 numbers, Pettite retires, throw an injury at Wang or something (the k-rate catches up?)….the Holy Trinity of Untradable Pitching Prospects don’t really pan out, could the Rays possibly jump the Yanks??

[/pounds chest]

and hates teams based on their fans (i.e. red sox, cubs, phillies) has no business rooting for the Rays. Those fans rank right up there with red sox and cub fans. They were cellar dwellers their entire history of the franchise and now they act like they invented the game.

When they swept the BoSux they were literally screaming profanities at sox fans and physically tapping them with their brooms…well of course the littler guys, they didn’t’ have the balls to do it to a group of big guys.

Fuck those guys….they act like they’ve never been in a division race before :) They had “GET YOUR RAYS PLAYOFF TICKETS” flyers back in august.

but I’d still love to see Dodgers-Red Sox WS, with Manny knocking off his old team.

i find them a very interesting team, and not just because they are proving that patience and good drafting and talent evaluation pays off. nor just for enduring so many years of suckitude in the process.
i think it’s interesting that they are winning just by being solid top to bottom. there is no pujols among their hitters, or even a ryan ludwick. but of their starting 9, bartlett has the lowest OPS+ at 78. compare that to izturis and kennedy—i’d love it if our weak link on the offense was around 80 OPS+. then there’s crawford (what happened to him? should he bounce back next year?) at 91, and iwamora at 97. the other six are all at or above 100. longoria and pena are pretty darn good this year, but not out-of-this-world good. they’re fairly young too, obviously.
their starting pitching is equally solid, with three guys solidly above average and two right at average. there is no guy that really gets into the mvp or cy young discussion, but they just don’t seem to have any crappy players hogging at-bats or innings pitched. am i way off with this analysis?

Though I suggest we might call it OctobRAY instead of RAYtober. Octobray sounds fancy, a little French maybe.

Why not! The other team I like a lot besides the Cardinals is the Cleveland Indians* and they’re done. I think the Rays winning the World Series would be pretty neat personally.

• Major League is my favorite baseball movie of all time, and guess who the stars are? Ironically, my second favorite one is Bull Durham, and the Durham Bulls are now an affiliate of the Rays. Go figure.

I’ve been pulling for the rays ever since those early season fights with Boston and New York. For the first time in their history it seemed like they had come together as a team with determination. It’s beautiful to see them displace the yankees and still have a foot on the neck of the red sox. I was really hoping the Twins/white sox would stay competitive with the Red sox to knock them out so we could enjoy a BOS/NYY-free post season. I have my reasons for hating the other teams that will be in the playoff run.

Cubs- they are the cubs
Phillies – 20-2…and I went to the game
Brewers- Shirt untucking/Ryan Braun
Dodgers – Manny Ramirez – the announcers will talk non-stop about he and the redsox
Mets- they beat up poor Mitch Boggs….twice
Angels – Just not a fan of K-Rod or giving Gary Mathews 5 yrs/50 Mil…probably my favorite of the bunch other than the rays
White Sox – Ozzie Guillen
Red Sox – I’ve had enough over the past however many years….oh yeah, 2004 sucked too.

I have no justifiable reason for hating the rays……except maybe that jackass who heckled poor scotty seabol…

for the Rays: The Montgomery Biscuits

That has to be the most awesome mascot ever! I’m gonna get me one of those hats…

is palpable.

Wanting the Twins in the playoffs above all others, though. If they don’t, then I could settle for the Rays or even the Crew, assuming they make it. I stand by the fact that whatever team limps into this playoff wins the whole thing, so… NL Wild Card might be my money pick.

I’ve passed it around to my non-VEB hardball crowd to keep the grassroots feeling going (and stimulate discussion) as we all search for Meaning in the post-season to come.

and hereby join the bandwagon.
do i get a free raymond the seadog plushie to give to my kids in the future, when i sit them on my lap and tell them the story about the amazing and historic octob-ray of 2008?
oh, and are there membership dues? i don’t do those. too much like a union or something.

All my favorite sports teams (The Buccaneers, The Gators, The Lightning) are from Florida. Aside from the Cardinals that is. I am a fan of the Cardinals because there was no true baseball team for me to root for in Tampa. At age 8, they finally got a MLB team. I went to their inagural game which included the likes of Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff and Jose Canseco. I was amazed by the environment of Tropicana and so young. But I couldn’t root for such a crappy team that was always in the cellar. St. Louis grew on me and become my love, but in the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to see Tampa succeed. Guess like a 2nd team. I am so excited for them and will wear my Longoria jersey everyday they have a playoff game, hoping they win the Series.

Thursday. 1:30 CST. TBS. Be There.

How do we get this back up as a recommended post?