Bert Blyleven

It’s been a fantastic season for the Rays whose 2008 ranks as one of the best baseball stories in a long time. Tampa Bay went from the bottom of the AL East to the top, winning 27 more games than it did in 2007.

What the team has accomplished has left many shaking their heads in a combination of amazement and disbelief. But what happened with the Rays shouldn’t have been so unexpected to so many. Coming into this season the pieces were in place for Tampa Bay to make such a meteoric rise.

There’s an impressive nucleus of young talent, key veteran presences most notably from Cliff Floyd and Troy Percival, great team chemistry and the leadership of a much under recognized and underappreciated manager, who has the Rays supremely confident, believing in themselves and seeing themselves as winners. With all of this working in their favor, it’s little wonder that Tampa Bay has played so well in its first trip to the postseason.

Much credit to Maddon
Tampa Bay’s transformation has been led by Joe Maddon, who is outstanding at what he does and who should be the American League Manager of the Year. He is a very good baseball man, who has proven to be just the right person to lead the Rays out of their losing past and into what certainly looks to be an extremely bright future.

There’s a certain way to play winning baseball and that is the only way you’ll ever find Maddon teaching the game and going about managing it. That’s why he sat B.J. Upton at one point this season for not running out a ball. His imparting the right approach is so important considering the youth of Rays.

In spring training he introduced the Rays to the term 9 = 8. It’s something he had thought of in an attempt to get an important message across to his team – that nine players going all out for nine innings would result in Tampa Bay landing one of the eight spots in the postseason. Give Maddon 100 percent and he’ll play you and stick with you during rough stretches. Give him anything less than 100 percent and you’ll wind up sitting and not playing. Any manager’s goal is to get 25 guys thinking as one and that goal has been achieved in Tampa Bay.

Maddon believed in 9 = 8 but more importantly it’s something he needed his players to believe in since they were trying to finally find light at the end of a tunnel the franchise had been in since its inception in 1998. After 10 straight seasons of more than 90 losses there had to be a way out of this tunnel. Maddon banked on 9 = 8 being that way and his players bought in, big time and in a big way. After never winning more than 70 games in a season, Tampa Bay posted 97 victories on its way to its first division title.

He’s a very patient man who knows full well the ups and downs that come with a baseball team and a 162-game regular season. He deals well with the highs and lows of April through September baseball and his players feed off that.

Why mohawks matter
There’s a lot to be said for team chemistry and unity. Tampa Bay could have all the talent in the world but if its clubhouse was divided the Rays are watching the postseason instead of playing in it. There’s solidarity with this group and it’s impossible to miss the signs of that.

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When B.J. Upton hit the barbershop for a mohawk cut, a bunch of his teammates followed suit. And it was even some veterans not just younger players who took on the look. There were those in the media who came out and wrote or said that the haircuts were a high school kind of thing to do. They’re dead wrong on that --take it from someone who played in the majors for 22 years and who knows about teams coming together and also about teams drifting apart.

Something like what the Rays did in following Upton into the barber’s chair should be read as a clear indication of the cohesiveness of the team. When players bond together like this they are building camaraderie and togetherness. They made the statement they are a unit and the importance of that can’t be overlooked when it comes to success on the field. The Rays weren’t going to become winners individually -- they had to do it as a team.

There’s no place like home
No team in the majors fared better at home during the regular season than did the Rays, who were 57-24 at Tropicana Field, the dome they call home. A lot of teams dislike playing there for various reasons but that only serves to give the Rays an edge. For a while in my career, I played for the Indians at Municipal Stadium, which most opposing teams found to be like a dungeon but I used that as an advantage just like the Rays do with Tropicana Field, called “The Pit.” Well, that it may be but it’s the Rays’ pit and if an opponent is uncomfortable playing there, it’s more the better for Tampa Bay.

There is a definite home-field advantage for the Rays, who know opponents struggle with the lighting at Tropicana Field. They are not used to having to try and track fly balls against the background of a fiberglass roof where you can’t take your eyes off the ball. In an open-air stadium when the ball is hit in the gap an outfielder can take a look at where he is going and then look up and lock in on the flight of the ball. But that’s not the case at Tropicana Field where over the years the baggy roof has become almost the same color as the baseball and so an outfielder can’t take his eyes off the ball. The Rays’ outfielders have an advantage since they are much more familiar than are their opposing counterparts with dealing with this element as they play 81 games in the dome each season. It’s not easy on them either but it’s tougher on their opponents.

Even when the Rays played in front of small crowds this season it didn’t matter to them because they were used to it. The national media ridiculed the lack of fan support earlier in the season but that didn’t bother the Rays. They knew they had to prove themselves and if they did the fans would follow. Now Tropicana Field rocks and the cowbells ring. If the Rays once felt the way opponents do about the dome, they feel much differently now. They feel the love from their fans and that just makes them tougher to beat.

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