Major League Baseball's championship series kick off tonight and the story lines are intriguing. If the games are as good as they look to be, Fox and TBS figure to do quite nicely on the ratings front.
No yarn in this postseason continues to be more compelling than the unlikely tale of the Tampa Bay Rays, baseball's perennial doormat for so long but now a force not to be messed with.
Most media pundits waited all season for the Rays to fade. They patted them on the rump and called them a nice young team, but when the season was on the line the experts opined they would take their usual spot at the back of the line and give way to the big boys. It never happened.
The Rays had been so bad for so long that they were usually at the front of the line when it came to selecting talent in the annual entry draft of amateur players. The skill now at the Major League level is World Series-caliber and the organization deserves credit for amassing such a formidable group of youngsters. Special mention goes to the leader who harnessed it all.
If Joe Maddon isn't chosen 2008's American League Manager of the Year there should be a recount (it is Florida, after all). The previously heralded bench coach of the Los Angeles Angels was the right guy with the perfect temperament to coalesce this amalgam of youth and experience into a winning program.
Of the four teams still in the hunt, only the Rays have never played in the big show. But don't let that fool you. When it's all said and done, it is they that will be hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy as World Series champions. A fairy tale ending indeed.
The Rays and Red Sox begin the American League Championship Series Friday night on TBS.
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