Wednesday, October 22, 2008
World Series Thoughts...
Since Gotham's beloved Metropolitans ran afoul of the baseball gods yet again, one can only think of evil befalling the hated Phillies of Philadelphia.1 comments
So, Gotham will be jumping on the bandwagon and pulling for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (Gotham doesn't do marketing name-change ploys) in this Series, starting tonight.
Actually, another connection that may have been made, but we haven't seen so far (since we haven't actually paid a lick of attention since Shea stadium's passing day), is that this Tampa team actually reminds us more of the 1969 Mets than anything else or any other team. There are many similarities, including Scott Kazmir as their Tom Seaver: a young group playing at a high level, insane pitching, power, speed, grit and an unconquerable confidence that they can!
When a team is as bad for as long as the original Mets were and these Tampas have been, you end up stockpiling an amazing array of young, studly talent throughout your farm system. Eventually, with expectations so low, the top of that crop matures together and all at once, seemingly catching everyone else unaware.
The Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves also experienced that worst-to-first experience in the early '90s after their teams were so bad for so long. The Twins have been competitive ever since, and those young Braves went on to have one of the longest runs of domination in baseball history, before their generation of great young talent grew up and, now years later, have grown old and passed the torch.
These Rays (OK, I said it) will be tough for years now, while this crop of players grow, mature, then age, unless they get silly and start trading them all away.
Let's Go, Mets! er, Rays!
posted by Gotham 8:21 AM
1 Comments:
As many have suggested, any true baseball fan without a horse in this race would find it quite difficult not to root for the young Floridians.
Tampa Bay all the way!
By 
Kiko Jones, at
October 22, 2008 2:11 PM
