Rafael Furcal might want to take up soccer instead of baseball.

NOT OVER YET BITCHES

Well, TBS' broadcast finally flickered to life here with 1 out in the bottom of the first. Before that happened, B.J. Upton hit a solo home run and I was frantically looking for free live audio to no avail. I appreciate MLB having a contingency plan in this sort of situation; what if they hadn't come back for the entire game?

Additional Spam:
STILL NOT OVER YET

Game 7, Tampa. Welcome to Red Sox Nation.

Welcome to postseason baseball, St. Petersburg.

OVER NOW.

I am so happy for Tampa Bay. Worst to World Series appearance.

Maybe now they will start drawing more than ten thousand fans per regular season game.

ok yeah now it's over

Shouldn't have pitched Lester in the 7th.

Maybe next year they won't need cowbells and cheerleaders to get their fans excited.

So bitter. What do you expect from a town that's never been home to a winning team?

Tell me when the Pirates or Royals or Orioles or Nationals start doing it.

As if fans of the Pirates, Royals, Orioles, or Nationals have had anything to get excited about in the past 10 years.

Fixed.

Bolts, Bucs, Storm all have had successful years here. Bolts suck now since our new owner decided to trade our best defensemen and just sign every free agent to loaded contracts and put everything on our goalies each night, expecting 40+ saves most of the time. The Buccaneers are at least a stable franchise, and semi-consistant over the last decade or so.

I have to agree with Capo. This is the first year the Rays have actually posted a winning record. In my experience, if you string together two or three winning seasons in this area, the bandwagon fans who come at first typically stay on.

Who expected them to draw a credible, consistant fan base night in and night out when it's an expansion team that has never even tasted winning? I remember a few years back with Lou here when we were sniffing .500 around the All-Star break. That actually got people to the games during that brief period.

I don't know what attendance numbers were like for the other 3 expansion teams in the 90s were like but I'm sure the D-Backs were pulling in a good amount regularly at their ugly-ass ballpark.

Not the Marlins, though.

The Diamondbacks also happened to be a competitive team.

Don't mind Dope. He seems to get off on perennially being wrong.

I guess anyone is competitive when compared to the (Devil) Rays.

Your acrimony is an elephant housed behind a chain-link fence.

I suggest upgrading to brick. And raising it a dozen odd feet.

Hey, I was over the Sox losing after a couple of hours. And I certainly no animosity towards the Rays team.

As for the Rays' "fans"...well, people give me shit for being a "bitter" Sox fan so fair is fair. If that's the way I'm to be portrayed then I'll live up to it on here to keep up appearances.

That's usually the best way to deal with that sort of thing, anyway.

Go Rays!

The only team I would have been okay with knocking off the Sox is the rays. I think Iwamura is one of the most underrated players in baseball. :mad:don is the coach of the year. They're young and fun to watch.

Go Tampa.

They haven't lived solely on the long ball, they steal bases, they sacrifice, they play small ball. The offensive style is built so that just about anything is open, and has been executed successfully all season. It's an entertaining style because they play the entirety of the game, and don't just attempt to score via a homer (see : White Sox).

Go Rays.

I'm not really rooting for anyone to win, but I'd prefer the Rays over the Phillies. It'll definitely be a great story if they do win it (which I'm pretty confident they will).

Unfortunately, most of the time the team that beats the team I root for in the playoffs ends up losing (something like 80% of the time). It's been lowering lately, though. :(

Point of fact: Tampa Bay was last in the majors in sacrifices.

Huh. Thanks russ, didn't know that.:eagletear: I watched the team all season, I didn't think they sacrificed that little. Ah well, just re-affirming my point that the team uses various ways to score, and I believe it to be pretty entertaining.

Dope, I understand your stance towards the fan-base here in the bay area. Mostly bandwagon jumpers. There are some fans who have supported the team for the long-haul, and it's nice to finally get there due after almost a decade of suffering with little to hang your hat on. It was hard to support the team in the face of all the losing, going to games in and of itself is a pain in the ass. The stadium is in a bad area to begin with, not to mention hard to get to. I can't wait until the new stadium is built. It will be nice to get out of the Trop and into an outdoor field. I only get to those for spring training.

Nobody else is watching the World Series? :(

I am. It's just disappointing.

Tampa needs to get win this next one or it's all but over.