I'm not a religious man. I was raised culturally Jewish, but I thought synagogue was pronounced synaGOD until I reached high school (an understandable mistake). The most spiritual I've ever gotten was that one time I listened to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" (1973) while watching the Wizard of Oz (1939). I don't believe in fate or karma. I scoff at superstition and laugh at the idea of divine intervention. I am a man of reason and science. The only person I pray to is his Holiness, Bill Nye.
But, strangely enough, the one thing that can make me believe, the one thing that allows me to suspend reason, is sports.
I'm not saying I believe there is anything supernatural happening on the fields and courts of the world. I'm not saying that the universe's supposed "God" spends "His" Sundays burning through a six-pack and checking to see if his fantasy team is beating his buddy Shiva's. But that which religion does for many people, sports does for me. It allows me to believe.
And I believe in the Rays. I believe that the magic of a bunch of kids going worst to first isn't just going to happen but, at this point, is supposed to.
I started to feel this as the season was winding down, and I wrote about it in my column three weeks ago. Don't look at their lineup, their rotation or the matchups. Don't even look at their OPSs, ERAs or runs created. In doing so you are applying a man's science to a boy's game.
Look at the Rays' faces. Look at their combination of swagger, confidence and youth. Look at the player's love and respect for Joe Maddon or the look they get on their faces every time a reporter asks them about what Evan Longoria means to them.
Look at Carl Crawford, who has been on this team for seven years and had experienced six straight years of 91-plus loss seasons. He's never asked for sympathy, never asked to be traded and never took a play off. Then, after an injury was supposed to keep him from participating in the playoffs, he tied an ALCS record by going five-for-five in Game 4 against the Red Sox.
Look at Carlos Peña, first round draft pick in 1998 who never seemed to live up to the hype. He bounced around the majors and minors for a couple years, and then in 2007 he came off the Rays' bench and hit 46 home runs. Now he's coming off a huge ALCS, jacking balls over the Green Monster and acting like this is where he belongs.
It doesn't matter that they went into the postseason with no closer and Gabe Gross in right field. It doesn't matter that they have literally no playoff experience. Like I said in my column three weeks ago, "The Rays are a force that has been gaining steam for six months and are now on the verge of climaxing. There is no stopping this team."
The Red Sox and the ghosts of Fenway almost did it. I admit that when the Sox came back from seven runs down with seven outs left in their season I was worried about my Rays prediction. The Sox played those first four games like they knew they were just a supporting actor in this year's playoff picture. Then the Big Papi home run made Boston snap out of it and they looked like the Sox that a lot of people picked to repeat.
But the Rays beat the ghosts (ghosts don't even exist!). Not even the magic of a fired up Red Sox Nation could take out this team; the same magic that had shaken off the "curse of the Bambino" in 2004 and won another championship less than year ago. This is why I know that even though the series is tied 1-1, the Phillies don't have a prayer. Not a shot in hell.
--
